Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Tangled Up In Tweets
A true iconoclast, Bob Dylan apparently began tweeting for the first time in late September. This would be semi-remarkable considering the 83-year-old music legend from Hibbing, Minnesota, is, well, 83. But other factors are at play, like the fact Elon Musk-owned Twitter (we'll never call it X) has devolved into a white nationalist cesspool that's littered with low-rent ads for dubious products.
Yet Dylan remains far above the fray, matter-of-factly tweeting Nobel-caliber mundanities about Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans (he recomends it), Bob Newhart dying (weeks after he died), hotel elevator run-ins with Buffalo Sabres players (he couldn't make their game), and wanting to thank a book publisher but failing to do so (Crystal Lake Publishing, who put out 1894's The Great God Pan). Just today, he offered movie tips to an apparently random guy named Nick Newman—"try The Unknown with Lon Chaney and go from there." (Here's Newman's reaction.) Vulture confirmed that, yes, Dylan is indeed authoring these posts himself.
Does any of this matter? No, but it is weird, delightfully weird even, to the point where his cryptic musings feel like... an ironic bit? Considering Dylan started his career by purposely mystifying, obfuscating, and outright lying to the public, that doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility. And because Racket works for you, I managed to track down Dylan's longtime manager, Jeff Rosen, and request an exclusive interview, in which I'd grill the great bard about his bewildering social media behavior.
I'm beginning to think there isn't any interest...
Anyway, slow news day and I can't stop thinking about this.
Restaurant Shakeups at 47th & Nicollet
J.D. Duggan of the Biz Journal is all over the food/drink beat at 47th & Nicollet Avenue. On Monday, Duggan reported that Fast Eddie’s Pizza—the kinda, sorta torchbearer of Beek's Pizza—has been pushed out by its new landlord. “It feels kind of like a kick in the groin," says owner Michael Sloan, whose pizza are admired by TC Pie Chasers and Racket. "We got a welcoming letter saying he acquired the building and ‘hope that everything runs smoothly.' Six days later, we got a letter from a lawyer telling us we had to be out." Brutal! Here's hoping Fast Eddie's reappears elsewhere in town with a new and better landlord.
Just next door, inside the ol' Prieto Taqueria Bar space, a new Argentinian/Uruguayan steakhouse called La Estancia is set to open Saturday, Duggan reported earlier today. The owner, globetrotting Argentine Luis Del Hoyo, hopes his new 125-seat spot will split the difference between budget dining and fine dining. “You can go around this area, in most of Minneapolis, and spend $25, $30 per person. Or you can go to those fancier places where you spend $80 just to walk in,” Del Hoyo says. “How can we get a place that people can actually come twice in a month and not break the bank?” That'll mean $5 empanadas and affordable sandwiches, he explains, but also a $125 ribeye.
Duluth's Brighton Beach Finally Reopens
Well, that took awhile. After receiving $6.4 million in improvements over six years, Duluth's wonderful Brighton Beach reopened Monday to the public. The park had been closed entirely since mid-2021. Jim Filby Williams, the city's parks director, explained to the Duluth News Tribune how years of violent Lake Superior storms had battered the poor lakeside gathering place.
“Our park maintenance and street maintenance staff have probably no more closely identified with Sisyphus as they have in this park,” he told the newspaper, whose reporter Peter Passi then helpfully explains the nuts 'n' bolts of the Greek myth. "I am very confident that this reconfigured park will be resilient and durable, even in the face of the more intense and frequent storms we’re seeing with climate change.”
Improvements include extending the (now car-free) Lake Walk, upgrading amenities, preserving historical structures (the park began as a campground in 1922), and adhering to ADA standards. "It’s bigger and better than ever," according to Cliff Knettel, assistant manager of Duluth Parks & Rec.
Odds 'n' Ends
You wouldn't believe how many amusing tidbits I came across today! Let's rattle 'em off...
- Bloomington PD warns sheep "rustling is still a thing.” Worth noting that the woman charged with felony suburban rustling, 42-year-old Mary Kay Bower of St. Paul, has a facial sheep tattoo.
- The Hub Bicycle Co-Op is gone, and its (free!) giant metal rooftop bike sculpture needs a new home.
- Why the fuck is the state of Minnesota giving stupidly named/stupidly rich 3M health care spinoff Solventum $13 million?
- Music legend Stevie Wonder dined at Eggy’s Diner in Minneapolis’s Loring Park neighborhood on Tuesday, days after wowing Target Center on Sunday night.
- Here's a seasonally appropriate appreciation of Edward Van Sloan, the Chaska-born actor who made a spooky mark in Hollywood.
- Sadly, I didn't act fast enough to buy these $800 Metrodome garbage cans via Facebook Marketplace.
- Huh: Apparently the climax of the 1993 psychological thriller The Good Son was filmed at Palisade Head on Minnesota's North Shore, and it features a young Macaulay Culkin going off the edge.
- Bring it all back home: Saturday Night Live has hired noted Minnesotan Bob Dylan as a writer.
