Marlon James: The Nakedest a Mac Professor (Emeritus) Has Ever Been in Print?

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories. 

Getting Steamy With Marlon James

Marlon James is having a hell of a year. Last month, the author and Macalester College professor emeritus's new novel The Disappearers received possibly the most glowing New York Times review of the decade, if not the century. (See what we did there?) Last week, The Disappearers was shortlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize; "Readers will love the shifting register of the dialogue and poetic phrasings often pierced through with sharp double-edged humour," the judges said, Britishly.

And on Monday, New York magazine released its inaugural “Men’s Style Issue." Its cover story, "The Boys in the Baths" ("shvitzing and kibitzing with some of New York’s most stylish men at the East Village’s Russian & Turkish Baths") features musicians and actors like Troye Sivan, Elliot Page, Del Water Gap, Porches—and Marlon James.

Steamy!

Is 174 Potential Conflicts of Interest... Good?

Ron Schutz, the Republican candidate running for Minnesota attorney general this fall, does look like Mr. Burns—a topic previously explored by Racket—but that's not the most interesting thing about him. (Although take a look at him—pretty interesting stuff.) The most interesting thing about Schutz could be the 174 potential conflicts of interest in his stock portfolio, as explored by Max Nesterak in the Minnesota Reformer today.

"Schutz owns more than $10,000 of stock in 174 companies," Nesterak writes, and "[his] expansive investment holdings span industries that are often the subject of litigation like pharmaceuticals, banking, and artificial intelligence and include at least six companies that are currently being sued by the state of Minnesota."

Those six are Amazon, Uber, Exxon Mobil, Apple, Alphabet, and Pfizer. Schutz also has a stake in BlackRock, which recently acquired the parent company of Minnesota Power, one of the key players in the Hermantown data center fight.

The Reformer spoke with ethics experts including Richard Painter, who put into eloquent words what you can plainly see: That's bad! And Schutz has not said that he would sell those stocks, nor did he respond to the Reformer when it asked if he would.

Do You Have a Death Plan?

You should! On Morning Edition Tuesday, Cathy Wurzer spoke with death doula Jane Whitlock, who says many Minnesotans are waiting too long to make their end-of-life plans. Whitlock is part of a "growing numbers of trained professionals who help usher people out of this world," Wurzer says—a number that includes Nicole Kidman, who announced her new field of study this spring.

The Minnesota Death Collaborative hosted its annual conference this weekend that brought hundreds of these professionals to Eagan, and they want people to know that even if you're young, it's good to have a plan.

“For me that's heartbreaking because it makes it really stressful and it feels like a crisis when in reality it's not,” Whitlock says. “This was an expected event.”

Wait... am I going to die?

DICK STORM INCOMING

Stay safe out there, everyone!