Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Cardi, Chris. Chris, Cardi.
Hard to believe it's been five years, one pandemic, and 10 pounds of hot dogs since Minneapolis hosted Super Bowl LII on February 4, 2018. To the delight of some Big Game NIMBYs (Racket’s Jay Boller), the weather proved punishingly cold as glitzy yahoos from the coasts pretended to have a nice time here. Some memories are bad, like when one of our favorite writers, GQ’s Caity Weaver, described Minnesotans as Pepsi people. Some memories are hazy, like whether or not the supersized event actually benefited the Twin Cities economy.
But one memory jumps out as timeless and beautiful: When superstar rapper Cardi B told Star Tribune music writer Chris Riemenschneider to suck her dick. The wonderful moment in local history happened after Chris wrote that Cardi’s $150-$250 mini-concert featured "half-hearted dancing, lip-syncing and standing around on stage. That's it. Oh, and Migos & Fabolous did the same.” We appreciate the watchdog concert consumer reporting, and Riemenschneider is our buddy. But, Christ almighty, we also appreciate the singular Cardi B personality. Since Chris tagged Cardi, she found the Instagram diss and chimed in with: “Suck my dick. I wasn’t booked to perform I.T wasn’t on my contract and amigos came out cause they wanted too.” Incredible. Maybe the Super Bowl was worth it after all.
Hot Homes, High Prices
The housing market! We don't really understand how it works, and we're not always sure the people who claim they do have such a great grasp on it, either. Case in point, this Strib headline today: "Why Twin Cities home prices are still 'hot' amid falling demand." The number of home sales plummeted to the tune of thousands in 2022 from 2021, and interest rates doubled in the last six months of the year. And yet home prices, Jim Buchta reports, have risen to record highs. Why would that be? Well for one, we're in a "chronically undersupplied" market; for another, there's speculation that a large number of potential sellers are waiting for the economy to stabilize (leading the number of houses listed in the area to shrink to near-all-time lows). In any case, it's still very much a seller's market.
The Strib Still Loves Twitter
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, many journalists and news outlets indicated that they would flee to other social media sites like Mastodon. The Columbia Journalism Review notes that this has not happened, but many—but not all—news sites are tweeting less these days. (A nice touch here: One of the journalists quoted in this story has the surname “Grimes.”) While right-wing outlets like the Washington Times or the Federalist are actually tweeting more—sometimes much more—those outlets that the story annoyingly and inaccurately dubs “neutral/left-leaning” are in decline. Except one.
As you can see, the Star Tribune has increased its number of tweets by 16%. The Strib has also purchased a yellow "verified" checkmark, which costs $8-$11 per month. What does this mean? Probably nothing. But it's Friday afternoon and this looked kind of interesting. As for actually left-leaning Racket, we probably tweet the same amount as we always did.
Future Pizza Coming to Edina?
While everyone in town is freaking out over the new Butcher and Boar, Jester Concepts, the folks behind that relaunch (as well as Parlour and Borough) already has something else in the works: an “elevated pizza concept” in Edina. Does pizza need to be elevated? Naw, we’re probably eating some of the frozen stuff this weekend. Is elevated pizza delicious? Probably. The pizza proposal would be for the large development project at Hwy. 100 and Eden Blvd., which includes 90+ housing units for seniors, a medical building, and… parking! (Enjoy, suburban Boomers.) As for the proposal, City Manager Scott Neal tells Axios that he’s feeling it. Jester chief manager Brent Frederick, however, warns that he has ”no assurances it's going through."
