Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Look, we've been trying to local angle The Slap all morning, but it just isn't happening. Instead, we're left to celebrate a locally viral and objectively hilarious incident that unfolded in Uptown this weekend, when a Tesla crashed headfirst into the Corner Balloon Shoppe.
Look at this:
That sign in the window, with the crumpled-in Tesla next to it... almost too on the nose, folks. Can whoever's programming our simulation dial back the irony a bit? You may also note that, in addition to wrapping itself around a small business, the Tesla pictured here has no front plates—as Racket recently reported, lots of Twin Cities Tesla drivers think they're above 'em. The balloons aren't the only thing that's inflated around here. (We hope everyone involved walked away unscathed.)
An Oscar for Duluth
Actor Daniel Durant is way more Minnesotan than most of the people we claim—he was born in Detroit, but raised in Duluth, where he’s recently returned to spend more time with his family. According to his mom Lori, he still shovels their sidewalk. And with his latest film, CODA, winning Best Picture at last night’s Academy Awards, the 32-year-old actor is also way more celebrated than most of the locals we subject to One-of-Us cheerleading. (Honestly though, why didn’t Seann William Scott beat out Michael Caine for Best Supporting Actor at the 2000 Oscars?) When he’s not starring in award-winning movies, Durant’s apparently been teaching ASL and working at a restaurant. Bring Me the News has some more details about Durant's Minnesota life here. So, did anything else interesting happen at the Oscars last night?
Finding Doryphoros
An Italian mayor is demanding that an ancient Roman statue currently residing in Minneapolis be returned to Naples. The piece in question is at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts: The Doryphoros, a 6-foot-6 marble statue believed to have been created between 27 BCE and 68 AD. While the artist is unknown, we do know that the missing arm once held an Olympic javelin. While the Mia bought the piece for $2.5 million in 1986, an Italian court has ruled that it never should have been up for sale, as it was illegally excavated in the 1970s. No one has reached out to the museum about it, however. "We have not been contacted by the Italian authorities in connection with the court's decision,” a Mia spokesperson told the Strib via email. “If the museum is contacted, we will review the matter and respond accordingly." For years, the sculpture resided on the second-floor hallway or the museum, though recently he moved into a nearby gallery room. Should he make his way back to Naples, he’ll be housed in an archaeological museum there.
Reporter Explores the Bob Dylan-Ukraine Connection
Tying world events to our sleepy lil flyover state is every Minnesota newsman’s ultimate goal, and the Duluth New Tribune’s Jay Gabler hit it outta the park with this one. In an extensively researched historical deep-dive, Racket’s former theater critic writes about Bob Dylan’s grandparents—Zigman and Anna Zimmerman—escaping persecution in modern-day Ukraine and settling in Duluth. Ya know, not unlike the flood of refugee re-settlers we’re seeing today. The article uses the saga of a music legend’s grandparents to tell the history of the Twin Ports, which drew a sizeable population of Eastern European Jews beginning in the late 1800s. "It was a large Jewish community," Duluth historian Joanne Sher tells Gabler. "They went to the synagogue; they had organizations they belonged to. They kept kosher, so there were kosher butcher shops. There were kosher bakeries." And, for Dylan buffs, there’s plenty of address-by-address family trivia that paints a lovely picture of the Duluth six-year-old Bobby Zimmerman knew before moving away to Hibbing in 1959.
