Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Wanna Buy a FLW-Inspired MCM Marvel?
Zillow Gone Wild has already gotten to it, but there's a really incredible midcentury modern home on the market in Edina right now. And it could be yours for just $2 million!
The 4-bed, 5-bathroom, 6,315-square-foot home at 6809 Oaklawn Ave. was "inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright and built by the renowned Shifflet, Backstrom, Hutchison & Dickey," according to the listing, and is situated along the shore of Lake Cornelia. Does it have a library? A formal dining room? You betcha on both counts, along with wonderfully excessive wood paneling, lots of masonry, cool windows, a deck, and a basement bar. It looks like there's also an elevator? But I don't see anything about that in the listing... anyway, someone please buy this house and don't change a THING unless it's to make some of the renovated rooms more midcentury-y.
An ABBA vs. Trump Local Angle
Over at Pitchfork today, Matthew Strauss writes that the members of ABBA have had enough of Donald Trump playing their fabulous music. According to Swedish publication Svenska Dagbladet (love it, sounds like a newspaper named after a blade-wielding dog), Trump and running mate JD Vance played the pop group’s songs “Money, Money, Money,” “The Winner Takes It All,” and “Dancing Queen” at last month's rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
What, no "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)?" Anyway, that's not the point here, the point here is: Minnesota mentioned!!
Now, the band and their label, Universal Music Group, are saying that the Republican politicians did not have permission to use those songs. “Together with the members of ABBA, we have discovered that videos have been released where ABBA’s music/videos has been used at Trump events, and we have therefore requested that such use be immediately taken down and removed,” the label wrote. (Taken down and removed!)
The list of musicians who have so far opposed Trump's use of their songs, according to Pitchfork, includes Neil Young, Eddy Grant, Johnny Marr, Celine Dion, the estate of the late Isaac Hayes, Beyoncé, and the Foo Fighters. The Guardian adds: Phil Collins, Bruce Springsteen, REM, and the estates of Tom Petty and Sinead O’Connor. Popular guy!
Steve Marsh's Ranch-scapades
Racket's quest to obtain Deep-Fried Ranch—one of precious few "Scarf!" designees on our Minnesota State Fair food guide this year—was not particularly interesting. By the time we made it to LuLu's Public House on the fair's first day, it had been raining for at least a half hour, and the line had thinned to just a few brave souls. We had them in hand in 10 minutes or less.
That was not the case after Thursday, as word spread, via Racket and other outlets, that the DFR was good, actually. The line at LuLu's swelled over the fair's first weekend; one friend told me they waited more than 40 minutes to try these greasy golden triangles. And over at Mpls.St.Paul Mag, Steve Marsh's attempts to order the cream cheese wonton-like ranch pockets were even more topsy-turvy, as you'll read in this 2,600-word account of his State Fair escapades. It's about Deep-Fried Ranch, but it's not really about Deep-Fried Ranch, you know?
Anyway, it's a very good time. If you're a fair-lover, a parent, or just someone who likes when our local writers get a little weird with it, you'll enjoy this one.
*Deep Sigh* No, Photo Does Not Show Walz in Blackface
Facebook: It's not just Shrimp Jesus, bizarre cabin crew images, and other assorted AI slop—it's also got weird false claims about MN Governor Tim Walz! For example, did you know that a Facebook page called American Liberty recently had a hit post claiming to show Walz in blackface, something he apparently used to do to "amuse his student body alumni"?
The associated image very obviously depicts Mad Men's Roger Sterling, as played by actor John Slattery, during a scene in which he dons blackface and sings "My Old Kentucky Home" to entertain party guests. (The episode was controversial when it aired in 2009; Lionsgate later added a disclaimer to remind audiences "how commonplace racism was in America in 1963.") The Facebook page of course says it's all satire, blah blah blah, if you fall for anything they say you're the one who's a moron (and on that point, actually, we might agree).
We kind of can't believe the poor people at Snopes took the time to debunk the claim, but actually this isn't the first time the fact-checking site has gotten involved in viral posts made about Walz. Earlier this month, there was this headline: "No, Walz Didn't Get Stomach Pumped After 'Neigh-borhood Dare Gone Wrong.'" Yes, it was about the vice presidential candidate purportedly drinking horse semen.
