Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Hamoudi Sabri, Defiant Still
Hamoudi Sabri, who turned his Minneapolis property on E. Lake Street into a homeless encampment site in July, was in the news plenty this past week. Gunfire wounded seven people on Sabri's land on Monday night, and the city has filed a suit against Sabri seeking a court order to shut down the camp.
But who is Sabri? Shubhanjana Das of Sahan Journal provided this helpful explainer of the man who’s set himself up as a champion of his unhoused neighbors, as well as a fierce critic of Mayor Jacob Frey and (as anyone on the receiving end of his many press releases can attest) the local press.
His experience as a Palestinian informs his activism. “I was displaced from my home as a child,” Sabri tells Das. “I lived in rubble for a month, we were looking for food."
And he’s quite vocally anti-Frey. “He wants to do what he wants to do. And he’s got some of the lousiest, most unqualified people working in his office,” Sabri says. “He’s got to go.” Which brings us, more or less, to our next item of business…
They Have Porchfests in Italy?
If you happened to attend the opening of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale (as so many of us did), you might have seen a good old-fashioned American porch that had been added to the U.S. Pavillion there. As Alex V. Cipolle of MPR News tells us, it was also a good old-fashioned … Minnesota porch?
Well, sort of. Local architects Ross Altheimer and Maura Rockcastle were on the team that helped design the installation properly known as “Porch: An Architecture of Generosity.”
“Porches across the country, and in Minnesota, are used as a place of exchange, a shelter on the threshold of public and private life, and as a stage,” Cipolle writes.
Cipolle also mentions that the Venice porch was the site of several small musical performances. That’s right—porchfests, just like we have around town throughout the summer and fall. And that brings her to a discussion of the Powderhorn Porchfest, which is happening this week.
Oh, and if you find this topic interesting, let me recommend Monica Sheets’s invaluable Three Seasons: A Subjective Consideration of the Minnesota Porch.
Let’s Vote!
Reminder: Early voting began Friday (today!) in municipal Twin Cities elections. Here’s more information on how to go about voting if you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul. And if you need a refresher on how ranked-choice voting works, the state provides one here, using pizza toppings to make its point.
Racket does not do endorsements, but—come on, you read Racket, you know what we’re about. I will instead direct you to the always thorough Naomi Kritzer, who I may or may not agree with 100% (it's at least very close) but who offers an in-depth and persuasive discussion of the candidates in the mayoral, council, parks, and BET races.
Obviously, early voting is a good thing, as is anything that makes casting a vote more convenient. But I wait until Election Day to vote whenever possible. There’s really no place that feels quite like a polling station on Election Day. It’s true democracy in action, with ordinary folks stepping up to work the polls, and it makes me believe all the inspiring half-truths of self-governance. One year I worked as an election judge and I had a truly wonderful day. At least until the polls closed—it was 2016.
The Mermaid Has Risen; the Annie's Signage Has Hit the Market
In these dark times, let’s remember that good things can still happen. Case in point: The 38-foot fiberglass mermaid that sat atop (where else?) the Mermaid Entertainment and Event Center in Mounds View until 2018 is back where it belongs, as Dustin Nelson reports for Bring Me the News. Deemed structurally unsound seven years ago, the ol' girl has gone through a complete overhaul (which included the patching of bullet holes) and now she is ready once more to lure passersby to Mounds View. As Nelson puts it, "Its absence was felt.”
In sadder news, three signs from Annie’s Parlour are up for sale on Facebook Marketplace. The Minneapolis burger ‘n’ shake joint was a Dinkytown institution for years, of course. Maybe owning one of its signs would help you remember it fondly.
