Just A Peck 0015 // Edmund Fitzgerald, Shark Stuff, Drew Struzan
Welcome to the latest issue of Just A Peck. I’m glad you’re here! New issues come out most Sundays. Unsubscribe at any time.
WHAT I'M EXCITED ABOUT THIS WEEK
The Duluth News Tribune is launching a great new five-episode limited podcast series called Edmund Fitzgerald: 50 Years Below marking the 50-year anniversary of the tragedy.
I did an interview about The Shark is Broken with Luke Moravec at The North 103.3 FM. He’s a great interviewer and such a passionate advocate for awesome things happening in the Twin Ports. You can hear that conversation here.
For every production, the Duluth Playhouse selects an artist to spotlight, and for The Shark is Broken they selected my friend John. He’s talented and lovely.
Our friends have a string quartet called Galilean Moons. They’re playing a set at Wussow’s next Saturday with music “from a time of discover, dance, philosophy, and alchemy”.
Twin Ports Choral Project opens their new season with a program about community, love, and joy in the pursuit of justice and peace. Tickets available here.
QUICK LINKS
- RIP to Drew Struzan, who created some of the greatest movie posters of all time
- A Cartoonist talks about AI art
- A cool interative map showing shade at any given time and location
- An archive of logos for space exploration agencies and companies
- The movies that defined Gen X
- Amazing drawings of root systems
- Tales from the early days of ballooning
- A huge colletion of publicly available live cams
- This is what democracy looks like
JOURNAL
Most of my week was a whirlwind of opening The Shark is Broken. Our incredible marketing director at The Playhouse shot some great promotional photos.
The show sold out its entire run before we opened, so we added a matinee performance which also sold out in like 20 minutes.
I snapped some rehearsal photos and a crowd photo during our Sponsor Preview.
On opening night, Jody and I had dinner at Zeitgeist (where we got seated next to a promo sign for my next show) and then Kaylee joined us for the show.
The after party started at Blacklist and ended by closing down Carmody’s. I’m immensely grateful for the opportunity to do this show, for everyone involved in bringing it to life, and everyone who bought a ticket.
I’m still managing to find time to hit the Peloton every day for the 100 Days of Biking challenge. This week I passed the halfway mark.
On Saturday, Jody, Kaylee, and I joined thousands of other peaceful patriots at our local No Kings rally.
Then we attended the soft opening for my friend Sasha’s exciting new makerspace venture: Rebel Threads
Then Jody and I took a walk through Gichi-ode' Akiing and along the Lake Walk. The weather was perfect and the fall colors were lovely.
Then, later that night I attended the Dance TV Halloween performance, and it was as joyful as always.
What I watched:
- Three Days of the Condor (1975). It had been a while since I'd seen this Pollack/Redford joint, and since I seem to have been on a 70s paranoia kick lately, I thought I'd pick this one for my "RIP Sundance" selection. Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow, John Houseman, codebreakers, and shady government agencies.
- The Passion of Anna (1969). One of the few Bergman/Nyqvist collaborations I hadn't seen. Partially filmed to prevent the house from Shame being demolished as local regulations required. The usual culprits: Sydow, Ullmann, Andersson, Josephson. Color cinematography shot like B&W. Kind of a thematic (and geographic) sibling to Hour of the Wolf and the aforementioned Shame.
- The Black Hole (1979). I hadn't seen this movie since childhood, and although I had almost no memory of it at all, there were a handful of images that felt searingly familiar. I wonder if I had a picture book or trading cards with those screenshots. Maximillian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Robert Forster, Ernest Borgnine, and VOs from Slim Pickens and Roddy McDowall. Pretty terrible overall, but some fun in-camera special effects for their trip through the black hole at the end.
- Good Boy (2025). A well-executed indie horror flick from the perspective of a golden retriever. Shot by a guy and his wife in their house using their own dog over the course of three years. Inspiring to see what can be done on a micro budget if you've got a good idea, and the determination to make something well.
What I’m reading:
- Middlemarch, Eliot
- Vineland, Pynchon
MEMORIES
Five Years Ago:
Five years ago, I was helping my friend Christine demo her kitchen.
Ten Years Ago:
Ten years ago, Kaylee was in a production of Aladdin Jr. at the Playhouse with something like seventy other kids.
Twenty Years Ago:
Twenty years ago, we were having an October full of leaf piles and pumpkin patches.
MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"The world is a den of thieves, and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary and not at all shameful to take pleasure in the little world."
-- Ingmar Bergman
That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!