Love, from (and to) Minnesota
It's state fair season! I'm going tomorrow! The state fair always brings out a lot of pride in me for my home state. Not a lot of people realize just how awesome Minnesota is as a place to live. All they know is that it gets really damn cold here in the winter. If that were all there was to this state, I wouldn't stay. But I do, and with good reasons.
Here are some of those good reasons, as far as I am concerned.
The Minnesota State Fair
Our state fair is serious business. You think you've been to a state fair? You haven't. Not until you're up to your eyeballs in a crowd of people as far as the eye can see, clutching your deep fried any-type-of-food on a stick in one hand, bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies in the other, trying to get to the Grandstand on time to see that band you love after stalking the MPR booth long enough to see your favorite on air radio host in person. A lot of state fairs have similar things, but trust me when I say that the Minnesota State Fair goes to 11 on all of them. Speaking of MPR...
Minnesota Public Radio
The silent behemoth of public radio. Minnesotans love their public radio. We're mostly known for A Prairie Home Companion and Garrison Keillor, of course (although his douchebaggery of late has caused me to personally break up with him). But we have many more quality programs on the air too. If you listen to any public radio call-in shows like Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Talk of the Nation, or any number of others, start paying attention to the ratio of Minnesotan callers to everyone else. It's rather skewed. MPR has not one, not two, but three channels here in Minnesota: News, Classical, and The Current. I can't say enough good things about The Current. They're MPR's current music channel. They played Rock Lobster on the air once. Don't tell me you can't love them for that.
The Twin Cities Music Scene
We've got Doomtree (Dessa, P.O.S.), we've got Rhymesayers (Atmosphere, Brother Ali), we've got Dan Wilson (of Semisonic fame), we brought you Bob Dylan and The Hold Steady, and Prince still lives here. First Avenue is still a fantastic place to see a show. Nearly all the musical acts worth caring about come through here. I saw Kris Allen on the same stage my brother's band performs on.
The Twin Cities Theater Scene
Aside from New York, the Twin Cities have more theaters per capita than any other region in the US. We have the Fringe Festival every year where you can see a bajillion unique, individual, experimental, and very cool shows in the space of a few weeks. Some of them by people I know. Even better, we have excellent theater all year round. We have the Guthrie, of course, but we also have tons of independent and very cool venues like the Bedlam, Mixed Blood Theater, and even the Bryant Lake Bowl too.
Minnesota Politics
My state senator is Al Franken. Let me say that again because I never get tired of it, Al Franken is my state senator. And he does awesome things. We haven't voted Republican in a presidential race since 1972. We had Paul Wellstone, who I cried over when we lost him. We also voted in congress's first Muslim member, Keith Ellison, who also does awesome things. Have you heard of Mark Ritchie? He's our Secretary of State. He handled the entire senatorial race recount debacle with the utmost common sense and professionalism by telling the people freaking out to essentially sit down and shut up, because he's got this. And he did. I respect the hell out of the guy.
Yeah, we've got some bad apples. (I despair every time Michele Bachmann's crazyhatetalk is publicized more than the good things we do.) Because there are a lot of good things. Now we just need to work on gay marriage, because seriously, Iowa got it before us. What the hell?
The Geek Community
We are geek and we are organized. We've got the Geek Partnership Society, and a flipping Geek Community Center! We've got Anime Twin Cities, who works with our local libraries to promote anime and manga, gives back generously to the community, has big things in the works, and of course is the parent organization of Anime Detour, the largest anime con outside of Chicago in the region. We've got CONvergence, which is the con of my heart and always will be. We have a healthy number of other cons year round. We have a pretty great Renaissance Festival. We brought your Mystery Science Theater 3000. Neil Gaiman lives near enough to here that he occasionally just appears at local geek events. Jonathan Coulton wrote a song about our curling team.
I could go on. But yeah, despite the fact that it gets cold and snows periodically okay, it snows a lot, these are the reasons I never want to leave here if I can help it. It's not perfect, by any means (I wish we had a mass transit system that made any sort of logical sense for instance), but what place is? For me, the good far outweighs the bad.
Here are some of those good reasons, as far as I am concerned.
The Minnesota State Fair
Our state fair is serious business. You think you've been to a state fair? You haven't. Not until you're up to your eyeballs in a crowd of people as far as the eye can see, clutching your deep fried any-type-of-food on a stick in one hand, bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies in the other, trying to get to the Grandstand on time to see that band you love after stalking the MPR booth long enough to see your favorite on air radio host in person. A lot of state fairs have similar things, but trust me when I say that the Minnesota State Fair goes to 11 on all of them. Speaking of MPR...
Minnesota Public Radio
The silent behemoth of public radio. Minnesotans love their public radio. We're mostly known for A Prairie Home Companion and Garrison Keillor, of course (although his douchebaggery of late has caused me to personally break up with him). But we have many more quality programs on the air too. If you listen to any public radio call-in shows like Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Talk of the Nation, or any number of others, start paying attention to the ratio of Minnesotan callers to everyone else. It's rather skewed. MPR has not one, not two, but three channels here in Minnesota: News, Classical, and The Current. I can't say enough good things about The Current. They're MPR's current music channel. They played Rock Lobster on the air once. Don't tell me you can't love them for that.
The Twin Cities Music Scene
We've got Doomtree (Dessa, P.O.S.), we've got Rhymesayers (Atmosphere, Brother Ali), we've got Dan Wilson (of Semisonic fame), we brought you Bob Dylan and The Hold Steady, and Prince still lives here. First Avenue is still a fantastic place to see a show. Nearly all the musical acts worth caring about come through here. I saw Kris Allen on the same stage my brother's band performs on.
The Twin Cities Theater Scene
Aside from New York, the Twin Cities have more theaters per capita than any other region in the US. We have the Fringe Festival every year where you can see a bajillion unique, individual, experimental, and very cool shows in the space of a few weeks. Some of them by people I know. Even better, we have excellent theater all year round. We have the Guthrie, of course, but we also have tons of independent and very cool venues like the Bedlam, Mixed Blood Theater, and even the Bryant Lake Bowl too.
Minnesota Politics
My state senator is Al Franken. Let me say that again because I never get tired of it, Al Franken is my state senator. And he does awesome things. We haven't voted Republican in a presidential race since 1972. We had Paul Wellstone, who I cried over when we lost him. We also voted in congress's first Muslim member, Keith Ellison, who also does awesome things. Have you heard of Mark Ritchie? He's our Secretary of State. He handled the entire senatorial race recount debacle with the utmost common sense and professionalism by telling the people freaking out to essentially sit down and shut up, because he's got this. And he did. I respect the hell out of the guy.
Yeah, we've got some bad apples. (I despair every time Michele Bachmann's crazyhatetalk is publicized more than the good things we do.) Because there are a lot of good things. Now we just need to work on gay marriage, because seriously, Iowa got it before us. What the hell?
The Geek Community
We are geek and we are organized. We've got the Geek Partnership Society, and a flipping Geek Community Center! We've got Anime Twin Cities, who works with our local libraries to promote anime and manga, gives back generously to the community, has big things in the works, and of course is the parent organization of Anime Detour, the largest anime con outside of Chicago in the region. We've got CONvergence, which is the con of my heart and always will be. We have a healthy number of other cons year round. We have a pretty great Renaissance Festival. We brought your Mystery Science Theater 3000. Neil Gaiman lives near enough to here that he occasionally just appears at local geek events. Jonathan Coulton wrote a song about our curling team.
I could go on. But yeah, despite the fact that it gets cold and snows periodically okay, it snows a lot, these are the reasons I never want to leave here if I can help it. It's not perfect, by any means (I wish we had a mass transit system that made any sort of logical sense for instance), but what place is? For me, the good far outweighs the bad.