Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily 1 p.m.(ish) digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Film Society Becomes Main Attraction
Though it occasionally emerges in triumph to fill the St. Anthony Main Theatre for events like the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, the MSP Film Society spends much of the year tucked away in a single theater there, where its great programming is occasionally overlooked. Next year, MSP comes out of hiding. The Film Society announced today that they will take over all five screens at the theater and become what they’re calling “a year-round community cinema space.” The theater will close on January 3, 2022, only to reopen as “MSP Film at The Main” at the end of March, in time for the film festival. With cineplexes shifting to an All-Spidermen-All-the-Time slate and the loss of the Edina Theater already robbing us of smaller films, we need something like this. If it had happened sooner, maybe I could have seen The Souvenir: Part II in theaters this year.
Guv Caught 'Vid
As you may have gathered from yesterday's overflow morgue truck story, COVID-19 is bad everywhere in Minnesota—including the Governor's Mansion. On Tuesday, Gov. Tim Walz announced that he and his wife, Gwen, had both tested positive for the invisible enemy. Their teen son, Gus, had already tested positive. “Thankfully, my son has mild symptoms and Gwen and I have no symptoms,” Walz said in a statement, adding that he'll continue to perform governor duties from home. “My son is vaccinated, and Gwen and I are vaccinated and have received our booster shots, and I am confident that these vaccines are protecting my family and me from serious illness.” Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan also caught a breakthrough case back in October. There have been 125,076 infections among 3.5 million fully vaccinated Minnesotans—a breakthrough rate of about 4%, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Once Walz regains his physical power, don't expect him to wield his executive powers to enact further state-of-emergency COVID mandates; the GOP has successfully spooked him away from that, as we learned in November.
Cancel Culture Run Amok? Goose Sculpture Torn Down in St. Paul.
Is nothing sacred to you “woke” “quacks”? In “their” quest to impose ideological conformity on us all, some (no doubt “masked and vaxxed”) Antifa supersoldier apparently stole a bronze goose out of a fountain in Cochran Park in St. Paul over the weekend. What next? Will the Minnehaha Bunny be considered “politically incorrect” and shipped off to a FEMA camp? (How was that, Alpha News? Am I hired?) Anyway, the goose, part of a 1926 piece called Indian Hunter and His Dog, was returned after it was discovered in a recycling plant. (Which, honestly, is where 90% of public statuary of famous dudes belongs, if you ask me. Not the goose though. Leave him the hell alone.) Weirdly enough, this piece has long been a target of vandalism. After it was initially trashed at Cochran, it was replicated in Como Park, where vandals did a number on it too. So the city pretty much gave up in 1966 and relocated it back to Cochran. The things you learn!
A McNugget Worth $100?
Did you know that Eden Prairie Police have a Cops & Cash program where they can give out $50 bills for citizens who fight crimes, save the day, or do good deeds? One recent recipient was Syndey Raley, a badass 15-year-old out there saving lives. While working at a McDonald’s drive-thru, she spotted a woman choking in her car. Raley, who took a Red Cross first-aid training class when she was 11, busted through her work window, grabbed the woman out of the car, and started doing the Heimlich maneuver. She called for a second person to step in to help, and eventually they were able to get the choking victim breathing properly again. That’s when the cops showed up to investigate and hand out cash. The two officers each gave Raley $50 for her good deed, scoring her $100 total. "Our crime fund gave every officer $50 to hand out to wherever we feel the need, [including] if somebody did outstanding work, above and beyond," says Sgt. Scott Mittelstadt. "She is well-deserving of that money." Police later confirmed that it was a chicken nugget that had obstructed the woman’s airway.
