Best Bets: Split Rock beacon lighting honoring Edmund Fitzgerald
DULUTH — Book influencer Keeley Norton, originally of Duluth, posted an Instagram poll on Nov. 1. "Today is: (a) a day of mourning for Halloween, (b) the first day of Christmas, (c) regular fall again, (d) something else." Option C took an early lead, but when it comes to Twin Ports events in early November, all four are correct.
Sunday marks 49 years since the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a tragedy that has become the Great Lakes' most famous shipwreck. In addition to this weekend's Gales of November conference in Duluth, the Northland is marking the occasion with the annual lighting of Split Rock Lighthouse's beacon.
A late-afternoon ceremony will feature the tolling of a ship's bell while the names of the 29 lost crew members are read aloud. Throughout the day, there will be opportunities to tour the facility and learn more about how it worked to keep ships safe on the lake (mnhs.org).
Duluth singer-songwriter Gaelynn Lea collaborated with storyteller Kevin Kling on an "original musical fable" called "Invisible Fences." The two artists perform the piece themselves, starring as a platypus and a grasshopper who undertake an adventure together. "This show will be heavy on fun and adventure, while also centering accessibility and disability culture," according to a news release from Zeitgeist, which is hosting the production from Thursday through Nov. 23 (zeitgeistarts.com).
"Let Him Sleep 'Till It's Time For His Funeral" is a play about a woman who decides to cheer her middle-aged husband by throwing him a funeral so he can hear all the nice things people wouldn't otherwise say about him until he dies. What could go wrong? Time Arc Theatre is producing the farce at Superior's Old Post Office, where the show opens Friday and runs through Nov. 17 (timearctheatrellc.com).
Duluth's American Indian Community Housing Organization launched the Indigenous Writer Series last year with plans to "promote and uplift" 11 writers. The series wraps up Saturday afternoon with a double bill featuring Dennis E. Staples and Jesse Switters.
Staples, of the Red Lake Nation, is author of "This Town Sleeps," a poignant mystery touching on the challenges of being gay in far northern Minnesota. Switters, of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, is a comic book writer and illustrator who's also on staff at the Duluth Art Institute (aicho.org).
Matinee Musicale's season, celebrating 125 years of the Duluth classical music institution, continues Sunday with a concert by a rising star cellist. Ifetayo Ali-Landing, whose Mitchell Auditorium (College of St. Scholastica) program will include work by two Duluth composers, has joked that as a young child, she switched from violin to cello because you play it sitting down.
