No, I am not there, but this is atonement for my unintended slight of the state on Saturday.
Music: Dylan, Dylan, and Dylan. Bringing it All Back Home is his best album, and don’t forget Blood on the Tracks and Love and Theft, among many others. Did I mention the guy is a first-rate author, an amazing DJ, and a passable actor as well? I’ve found that relatively few intelligent people appreciate Dylan as a vocalist (don’t forget the Bing Crosby influence) and guitarist (one of the best of his time, though not technically), don’t be distracted by the lyrics.
But yes there is more. My favorite Prince songs include "Starfish and Coffee," "Glam Slam," the Purple Rain "medley" on side one, and "Seven," most of all the acoustic CD single version. My favorite Replacements songs are "I Will Dare" and "Skyway."
Film: The Coen brothers have many good films, most of all Fargo, Raising Arizona, and Brother, Where Art Thou? Much of Fargo is set in Minnesota.
Literature: F. Scott Fitzgerald is an obvious first, Sinclair Lewis I don’t enjoy much. Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato is a neglected classic. Ole Rolvaag isn’t bad. I believe Anne Tyler is from the state, Breathing Lessons is worth reading for a tale of dysfunctional families.
Artist: Duane Hanson — the guy who makes the sculptures that look like people — is the obvious pick. Any painters other than (ugh) Leroy Nieman?
Small town: "Small" isn’t quite the right word, but Duluth is a beauty, and yes Highway 61 runs up there.
Museum: The Walker Art Center is one of the most dynamic arts institutions in the United States. Here is a good article on the arts scene in Minneapolis.
I won’t call them "best", but Winona Ryder, Charles Shulze, and Garrison Keillor count for something.
The bottom line: Education and intellect kick in here in a big way. Minnesota is one of the best states.
You left out Harold Stassen, Hubert H. Humphrey and Jesse Ventura. Oh wait, this is a posting about “favorites”, isn’t it?
Hallelulah, brother!
I often have trouble understanding modern arts. A week ago, I went to see the Duane Hanson exhibit at the Michener Museum in PA. Honestly, it felt to me very much like Madame Tussauds with ordinary people in everyday settings.
Not sure you’d call them literature but two good Minnesotan authors I enjoy reading are Vince Flynn and P.J. Snow (mother and daughter collaboration, I guess that makes a total of three authors then.)
Rapper: Atmosphere
Minnesota is a great state, but it has a real winter, not the fake winter we see in DC. People are active and outside all year.
In addition to Boundary Waters, don’t forget Isle Royale, an incredibly beautiful place (OK, it’s technically in Michigan, but most people get there from Grand Portage, MN).
Twin Cities is a great place to raise kids.
And the Guthrie (when we lived there the Guthrie preview tickets were an amazing bargain) and Children’s Theatres in Minneapolis are outstanding. If the Children’s Theatre puts on Cinderella as a holiday panto, it is NOT to be missed.
Also, James Lileks is in Minnesota.
Does this mean Tyler doesn’t like The Big Lebowski, or just that the other Coen brothers’ movies are that much better?
How could you all forget the Mary Tyler Moore Show?
What other place could make you toss your hat in the air from sheer joy?
I’ve never actually been to Minneapolis, or anywhere near it, but the MTM show makes it look a great adventure.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Dylan. It inspired me to expand on one point.
Just like the delivery of lyrics in a musical theatre have more to do with timing and charisma than endowment of vocal power (which is given at that level), the movements of Dylan’s right hand on the guitar empower his music with sickly sweet emotional content. His poetry often hangs on these complex progressions of single notes envoking his rather blatant individualism. Without this style many of his wandering folk ballads are infused with intensity almost uniformly lost by covers of his music. A possible exception to this is a cover of “Most of the Time” by Ani Difranco where her manipulation of the banjo breaks my heart every time. Compare this with the fireworks of Jimmy Hendrix’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower” which, while dominating on another vector, cannot compete on Dylan’s home turf.
O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is one of the best works of “fiction” I have read in the last ten years. Amazing to discover how many Minnesotans have had such an important impact on my (Californian) life, from Dylan of course to the Coens and never forgetting the amazing Duane Hanson. To this day, my wife and I still remark on aomeone, or more lilely a group of someones, looking “just like a Duane Hanson.”
The stretch of Highway 61 that runs between Duluth and Two Harbors was named for my paternal grandfather, Arthur Valentine Rohweder. He was responsible for conceiving, designing and implementing the country’s first industrial safety program for the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railroad in the 1920s. His program, which eschewed the now-popular blame-game in favor of immediate on-site, open, honest investigations of accidents, was responsible for a reduction of per year deaths from the hundreds to single digits for the railroad. He used that experience to help create the Minnesota Safety Council and National Safety Council, but unfortunately in today’s litigious environment his methods are ignored. My dad tried to popularize them for medical safety, but failed.
Tyler: great choices; you know your Minnesota stuff well. I was particularly impressed that you picked O’Brien and Hanson. Also, slamming Sinclair Lewis in an understated Minnesota Nice way was both correct and appropriate. Babbitt truly blows.
From the readers: also very good choices, particularly, Atmosphere, the architecture (I’ll reiterate my vote for the Sullivan building in Owatonna from the last post’s comments), and the lakes’n'nature stuff.
Dr. J: an accurate slight of MN is fine (the people are very reserved, the government is way too big and ambitious), but inaccurate or misleading slights will be politely corrected.
Favorite thing Minnesota of the day.: Pierre-Marc Bouchard’s amazing game-winning spinorama shootout goal last night.
I hate the skyway. It is intolerably hot and dry in the winter.
What, no comments like “Well, it will be a brief tour, but here goes . . . “?
Yet, Some guy, you have never bothered to move.
Miller’s Crossing and The Big Lebowski.
Vince Flynn makes my eyes bleed.
But on the other hand there’s the pretty terrific St Paul Chamber Orchestra. And the best nordic skiing in the US.
Northfield, MN:
-where Jesse James was defeated, and where it is re-enacted and celebrated every year in a multi-day festival
-home of the largest Kierkegaard library in the U.S. (at St. Olaf College)
-home of the Malt-o-Meal Corporation, makers of cheap and tasty cereal imitations
-and home of Carleton College, where Thorstein Veblen got his B.A.
“Vice President Walter Mondale” Hardly notable, except for his Presidental loss.
“We still have no smoking ban…” That’s a GOOD thing. (I’m a non-smoking athlete)
“Traffic is really bad.” Only because the pace of lane construction has been abysmally slow and no one seemed to care, until recently. How long did it take to get badly needed lanes added to 494 on the SW side? How long is it going to take to fix the 62/35 interchange?
Do you understand Norwenglish?
Visited Minneapolis this November. Mall of America was horrible.
Did not like the article: “The end of marriage in Scandinavia”. The author Stanley Kurtz is a typical conservative American who puts the blame on the gay people.
“When Norway’s system of marriage-like same sex registed partnership was enacted in the late 1980′s. Scandinavian marriage was already in decline”. Stupid man.
I look at America as a primitive nation. You practise death penalthy. You show violence on TV, but it is prohitibed for women to be topless on your beaches.
I don’t understand this double moral.
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