Minnesota - “L'etoile du Nord”

Hi, this is Eileen.

I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the Maryland episode of E Ploribus Motto.

I grew up in Baltimore, and I don't really think I have much of an accent left, but sometimes I can hear it when I record myself, so maybe you can too.

But there was just one thing that you couldn't quite get, and I wanted to explain why Louie is the mascot for that minor league team, and that is because

we don't say Bowie.

We don't say Bowie.

We call it Bowie.

It's

Bowie.

Louie.

So that's why.

Thank you so much for the show.

Really enjoying it so far.

Hello, I'm Bill Corbett of Minnesota.

And I'm Kevin Murphy, also of Minnesota.

And you may know us from Riff Tracks and Mystery Science Theater.

Or, well, or not.

Or not.

Yeah, one never knows.

But you are listening to E Pluribus Motto with John Hodgman and Janet Varney.

Yes, you are.

Take it away, our friends.

I can't hide self-view fast enough.

Hang on, just sec.

Hide self-view.

Wonderful.

I could see my friend much bigger and clearer than having to put up with anything of myself.

Four years

after

Zoom came into our lives and I discovered the hide self-view feature.

Yeah.

I tried to make some version of a joke was like, I wish I could do that in my real life.

No one ever laughed.

I'm laughing.

I wish I could hide my self-view from myself all the time.

I'm laughing.

I would have laughed at that OG joke.

Not just mirrors.

Yeah.

But just a knowledge of myself.

Yes.

Hide.

That is what I assumed you meant.

I was not.

I was not in mirror remote in any way, shape, or form.

That's why.

Hey, I dig you.

That's why we do this podcast together.

Julian, leave this in.

Janet, let's go to Minnesota.

Oh,

hello, everyone.

I'm Janet Varney.

And my name is John Hodgman.

Welcome.

Loved it.

Welcome to ePluribus Motto, the show that celebrates the official and unofficial motto slogans, birds, snacks, beverages, muffins, and VIIs, very important insects of all of the U.S.

states, Commonwealth, territories, and one single district.

Yes, indeed, friends, and we are in the early phases of season two right now.

You know what this feels like?

What?

The Marvel Stage at Comic Company.

Oh, my God.

We're very early in phase two.

We are going to give you a glimpse of some never-before-seen clips from states.

We're going to have a few special guests, possibly no special guests.

Oh, wait.

I'm sorry, everyone.

It's Chris Evans.

Here he is.

Cap.

I met.

He's from Massachusetts.

He can't be on our Minnesota episode.

Sorry, Chris, before you say even one word to prove that you are in fact here with us, I'm going to need you to back away, back out of the room slowly, looking sad.

Oh, oh, good hang dog.

Good hangdog, Chris.

Well, Chris Evans was here.

Sorry.

So sorry, everyone, that he couldn't spend any time with us at all on the podcast.

But rules are rules.

But just as good, here's Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett from Minnesota.

You know what?

Yeah.

Let's get them this time.

I definitely, I definitely was going to bring up like, oh, should we ask Kevin and Bill to do something that we can even have them record a minute of something?

We should have them record something really just like,

what is it?

What do you need to say?

Great.

Thanks, guys.

I love it.

But listeners, this is also about you because when we first got the word out about our upcoming visits, VRE Pluribus Modern Newsletter, one recommendation stood above the rest in

massive responses from listeners.

A lot of recommendations.

We had to go with it.

I am talking about the Gopher State.

The land of lakes, not only referring to this state, but also to my favorite brand of American cheese.

And before we go any further, I think we should name each one of those 10,000 lakes in alphabetical order right now.

Janet, the first lake is Aaron,

A-A-R-O-N, and the next is Abby, and then Abby again, and then Abby with an I-E, and then Abbada, and then Achman, and then Acorn.

Okay, we're in trouble here.

We're in trouble here.

I take it back.

We can't do it.

We can't, we can't.

I know it seemed like it made sense and would be plausible and possible for us to name all 10,000 lakes.

I'm realizing right now that we don't have time for it, but we are headed to the great state of Minnesota.

Woohoo!

I was just noticing that before Lake Aaron,

there is one lake that comes before all.

And And in alphabetical order, it's Lake 3464

in Cass County.

Near the town of Motley, Minnesota, it is only four acres,

but that makes it a lake.

Hmm.

Minnesota, the land of lakes.

To be discussed.

To be discussed.

I want to come back to what makes a lake a lake.

I want to touch on that briefly later.

But beyond the many lakes, including whatever 34265 that you just meant named.

And one very special Superior lake.

You're going to make all the other lakes feel bad.

Well, it's called Superior.

It's right there.

It's baked into the name.

They should all bow down.

Is that a place you have been?

Is that a place that comes up from you, for you when you think about Minnesota?

No, not 100%.

What does come up for you on a personal level?

Well, on a personal level, of course, I think about our friends, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy and Mike Nelson of Riff Tracks, who, of course,

also were members of the original cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000, an incredibly funny and important and influential comedy phenomenon that started in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis, St.

Paul.

I think about the Fitzgerald Theater in St.

Paul, Minnesota, where I have performed many a time.

They had a wonderful, wonderful theater in a wonderful, haunted, empty downtown of St.

Paul, Minnesota.

Yeah, we'll get to the monsters of Minnesota later in the episode, but

if you want to feel like what it would be like

in a post-apocalyptic city, I am legend style that is completely,

completely depopulated during the daytime or early evening, I should say, or maybe all the time.

St.

Paul's for you.

St.

Paul at 6 p.m.

full daylight, empty city.

It's very uncanny.

I kind of felt like that in Des Moines recently.

Same thing.

It was like just a very clean, lovely little downtown financial district area.

And yet I felt that I was the only person there.

I felt like I was the only person in the world when I was driving from Minneapolis, well, from the airport, Minneapolis, St.

Paul airport, MSP,

to Morris, Minnesota, where there is a campus of the University of Minnesota, where they very kindly

invited me to perform my imitation of stand-up comedy some years ago.

Wonderful.

And it was in February, I believe.

It was the winter.

Oh, boy.

And I was driving basically northwest to Fargo, just over the border in Minnesota from Fargo, North Dakota.

So we're talking about some cold, bleak territory.

If you don't mind my saying Minnesota, sorry, but you know where you live.

Yeah.

And they do know.

And the thing is, I didn't know where they lived because I would be driving through empty town after empty town.

Like towns that look much like St.

Paul at 6 p.m.

on a Friday night.

Towns that looked like they had been abandoned for years.

And I was like, where is everybody?

It was really chilling.

And then I crested a hill and I looked down onto one of those 10,000.

There are actually more than 10,000 lakes in Minnesota.

But I looked down onto one of those wonderful lakes and I realized where everyone was in the middle of the lake fishing.

Oh, okay.

There was a whole town on the lake.

Like I'm talking

not only many, many fishing huts, ice fishing huts.

I don't know what you call those things.

Some of them are quite elaborate.

Some of them are little tents.

Some of them are a little more like built structures that you slide out there and you sit in there and you drill a hole in the ice and you fish and drink.

And how do you get out there?

Of course, you drive your giant pickup truck into the middle of the lake.

And

is there a point at which someone says, hey,

there may be too many of us for how much ice there is like underneath this, as we've all come to do,

we know there's moving water with live fish underneath.

How thick is this ice and how many pickup trucks and ice shacks and huts can this sustain?

I don't know because I did not go.

I was too scared to drive out into the middle of the lake.

I thought about it.

I drove down there.

I'm like, maybe I should drive out there, see what's going on.

No.

Yeah.

I got to do some imitation stand-up comedy for some college kids.

And I did, and it was a wonderful time.

Thank you once again to the now very graduated students of that that class of the University of Minnesota at the Morris campus.

I stuck around after to watch the kids do their improv show, and it was really funny.

And also, what else was I going to do?

Yeah.

There was nothing else to do.

Yeah.

That's how they fixed it like that on purpose.

They were like, you know who's going to be our captive audience?

John Hodgman.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good guess.

And they were really nice.

And I applauded and I stood up and gave them a standing ovation.

And then I went back to their dressing room.

It wasn't really a dressing room.

It was an antechamber next to the multi-purpose room, next to the cafeteria and the student center.

And I said, I'm going to make each and every one of you a huge star.

I'm going back to TV land.

I hope you all have some nice suits because you're all daily show correspondents now.

Wow.

And they cry.

Uh-huh.

And some of them are like, my parents said I could never do it.

And I said, tell your parents to fuck right off because John Hodgkin is going to make you a star.

Wow.

And I drew up the standard rich and famous contract, like in the movie.

Yes, indeed.

And they all signed it.

And then I went away and I forgot all about it till now.

Well, we have a surprise for you because we have provided pitchforks and shovels and flaming torches to approximately.

If I were to describe any recent graduates that I met, they would not be 45.

They would be two years older than they were the first time I ever went to Minnesota two years ago

to do a convention.

I had been hoping and wanting to go to Minnesota for some time.

Like many states in the United States, I have become very lazy and assumed that at some point someone would give me a reason to go and just

looked forward to that time.

And I had gotten kind of tired of looking forward to going to Minnesota.

I felt impatient about it.

I was like, I want want to go to Minnesota.

What's stopping me?

Come on.

And very luckily, I did not have to act of my own accord.

I was invited to do a convention there.

I went there also the winter.

It was not February.

I believe it was early December, perhaps, maybe late November.

And

listen, it was very cold.

I'm very glad that I brought all my warmest winter clothes because I am a very stubborn person who likes to walk as much as I possibly can to see a city.

For me, it's the best way to see a town.

And I did what I do often in a town or city, which is find out if there's a bakery that has especially good gluten-free items on offer.

And I proceed to walk to that place from wherever I am, whether it be one mile or six miles.

I will just go there.

And I had several to choose from in Minneapolis.

And I think I made it to all of them because I gave myself extra time.

I definitely came in early and left early so that I could be in the town.

In Minneapolis, you didn't necessarily have to walk outside though.

You could walk in some of the sky bridges.

Oh, I could have, but I'm a weirdo.

But to me, that's like, oh, I'm not seeing the town.

So I did the same thing in

Calgary.

I had all of these options to walk on in the malls.

And I was like, no, I'll be the one person stepping in black ice out on the street corner while everyone looks down at me going, idiot.

In the wintertime, it gets cold.

And in Minneapolis, they have bridges that connect most of the major office buildings.

So you don't have to go down to the street level like a Morlock in the time chain.

That's me, Janet Morlock Varney.

But you, like a gold, like a golden child,

may float above the earth, crossing in skybridges.

That's right.

That's right.

I loved it.

I loved it.

I stumbled upon, had I been on a skybridge, by the way, but I was in a neighborhood in which there were no skybridges.

I was not downtown.

I stumbled upon the Swedish American Institute, which is also a museum.

It's a beautiful building that has an annex, a sort of annex that was built on to a pre-existing beautiful mansion that was established, built and established and lived in by a Swedish family.

If you're looking it up, good, because I'm far too lazy to, it was definitely a wander in.

It was like, oh, look at this place.

And then I went in and

it was resplendent.

It had those particular, I want to say they're like, I want to say it's like a stube or something, but

the very specific enamel painted, lovely oven stove that sort of replaces a fireplace for some of these homes.

It's a very, it's a very Swedish thing, but it also exists in like, I know I saw them in Strasbourg, Germany, and Germany.

It was a very, very beautiful, very large mansion, but it was so.

lovely and cozy that that was when I found out.

I'm a person who never thought I wanted to live in a big house.

This is the first place I ever been because they had it set up like it was in the day, back in the day.

And I, I, and they were getting ready.

They were decking.

Oh, it was before Christmas because they were decorating it for Christmas.

And I thought to myself, I guess I could be a rich asshole if I could live in this.

If I could live in this mansion, I think I could live in a mansion.

And it's the first time I've ever thought I could live in a mansion.

Every other large house I've ever been to, I've thought, this seems lonely and weird.

I wouldn't want to do this.

But this one was so well appointed and so cozy somehow, even though it was massive, that I thought I could do this.

And you went to the

Swedish History Museum?

I mean, I think it's called the Swedish American Museum or the Swedish American Institute, something like that.

When I was in St.

Paul, I almost went to the Science Museum of Minnesota.

But I couldn't because it turned out it had been bought and turned into the Midwest's largest Church of Scientology

in 2007.

So I did not go.

They're so close, though.

A science museum and the Church of Scientology.

I mean, I had to change the world.

All both names.

Exactly.

Exactly.

All right.

So let's place this land of lakes on the map as we do.

Minnesota has Canada's, Manitoba, and Ontario to the north, and a little bit east.

Also east, you will find Wisconsin and Michigan by way of Lake Superior, your favorite lake.

Plus Iowa on the south side, the Dakotas, as you mentioned, to the west.

But I think it's time for us to take a look at the shape of the state.

I would love to hear from you, my friend, what you think it looks like.

Oh, you do the same thing I do.

I'm watching you.

You have to squint so that it becomes more of just a fuzzy blob, and that opens your imagination.

It cracks open your imagination to come up with such charming comparisons as

drumroll, please.

Here's John Hodgman's take.

You know, I've never done pottery.

But this kind of looks like if I were trying to make a vase on a powder's wheel and then it started to fall over to the right.

Yeah.

And there was no way to rescue it.

I definitely see that.

I mean, the thing that is to me, it does sort of look like the kind of, is it a vase or is it two people kissing?

Yeah, I like it.

You see a person silhouette from the east.

You see a person's silhouette pushing in.

And then it strangely almost looks like by pushing their face into this solid object their nose created a divot that comes out the other side like it's trying to compensate for the smush in it's like uh oh the nose bump out caused a little bump out right where the nose is on the other side of the state so i think it does have that it really has that sort of vase optical illusiony thing it kind of also looks like someone was holding their bag of groceries too tight in the cold as they were stomping home.

And then they set down their grocery bag and it sort of had taken the mushed shape of when they were holding on to it and at the top you can see maybe some lettuce and spaghetti poking out because that's what is in every propagation any prop uh grocery bag is like you're lucky if there's a baguette in there but there's going to be like some lettuce or some carrot tops to give it some greenery on the top this is just hollywood speak now we're getting back into that precious Hollywood speak yeah yeah yeah one thing I noticed is that right at the top there is a border anomaly talk to me about this border anomaly well first of all look to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The place where I have been and the place where I've been the coldest I have ever been.

That tracks.

And I believe it was negative 17 Fahrenheit, which is, you know, pretty cold.

For me, that happens to be the coldest.

Yeah.

If you cast your eye down a little bit to that northern border of Minnesota and then cast your eye over, you'll notice that there's the lake of the woods.

And you'll notice that there is a little chunk of Minnesota stuck up in the northern part of the Lake of the Woods, surrounded only by water in Canada.

And that

is known, apparently, as the Northwest Angle.

Yeah, and the Angle Inlet.

I'm looking at the Angle Inlet, yeah.

And there's a little island in there that is completely Minnesota, but as far away from Minnesota as you can possibly get, called Oak Island.

And as far as I can tell, nothing happens there.

I was hoping it would be something interesting.

Yeah.

I think it's so interesting that that little nubbin is poking out the top.

70% of this area is is held in trust, it turns out, by the Red Lake Indian Reservation, which is the Ojibwe people.

And obviously, Minnesota is home to many, many Native peoples before it was invaded by Scandinavians and French and English and so forth.

Someone's eating right into my script right now.

Just eating it, right?

Just eating right into my plans.

I didn't have to write it down.

I'm thinking about it all the time.

Don't put that in.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

No, we'll get there.

We'll get there.

This is not going to come as a surprise to you because you went ahead and let people know that there are indeed more than 10,000, more than 10,000 bodies of freshwater.

What if I told you you could find a lot of different answers as to how many lakes there actually are?

Just a lot of different,

because it turns out that people argue over,

and you mentioned it earlier, what constitutes a lake?

What are we counting here?

What can we agree upon?

I did, I I fell into a little bit of a rabbit hole that I now regret losing that time on, but I settled on a number courtesy of John A.

Downing via the University of Minnesota.

And that number is 14,420

bodies of fresh water or fresh bodies of water.

Each of those covers at least 10 acres.

So that is the

number that he used.

He said, okay, this is,

it has to be at least 10 acres.

If it's not 10 acres, it's not a lake.

It doesn't count as a lake.

According to John A.

Downing.

According to John A.

Downing.

14,000 and how many?

14,420.

Oh, nice.

420.

420.

John, let me ask you this.

Is there such a thing as too many lakes?

Janet, in general, I think, no.

You can't have too many lakes.

But then I think about it.

And if, like, if you had, if you really have too many lakes, I guess you have an ocean.

I guess that's true.

Too many lakes without land, all of a sudden, you've got to see at least.

Sprink a little salt in there.

Got to sprinkle salt in there.

When the water acres outnumber the land acres, you got yourself an archipelago.

That's how I'm closing my Madison Square Garden show.

Thank you.

Good night.

Thunderous applause.

Okay, so we've established that we think in a very specific circumstance, we may be talking about too many lakes.

Not here, not in the state of Minnesota.

We're comfortable with those many 14,420 miles.

Everyone loves their lakes in Minnesota.

They go up into their cabins and they retreat and they read and meditate and shoot and fish and

bury gold that they found in a

in a plane crash.

I don't know, just what happens in the woods.

Maybe that's Oak Island.

That seems like it could be.

Could be Oak Island.

Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe that's something that happened happened up there.

Maybe they don't want us to know.

Exactly.

So with all this talk about all of these many lakes, let me ask you this next question.

How likely do you think it is that lakes or water of some kind might be mentioned in the state motto?

Expressed as a percentage of likelihood?

That would be great.

I would love that.

14,420%.

I can't imagine where you got that number.

Well, 420 is a funny number because of marijuana.

Well, and I just added 14,000 to it.

Okay, so we're it's in my mind.

Interesting, interesting.

Well, I have some troubling news for you then, my friend.

Oh, no, I have to be right.

Not this time, because Minnesota's motto instead involves what I like to call the great lake above us all.

Aka the sky.

Whoa.

And more specifically, what can be seen in it?

What a reach.

It's reach for the sky, my friend.

Reach for the sky.

Okay.

Is that the motto?

You wish.

Okay.

You may remember, everyone, that Maryland's motto was in Italian.

Fatty masky parole femini.

More or less.

This time, we're dealing with the only state motto en français.

Sevre?

Oui, cevré, cevré, c'estl monvré, because of Minnesota's quel suprise indeed.

Because Minnesota's official state motto is L'Etoile du Nord, which translates to Star of the North.

Star of the North, Les Twaudinor.

Not to be confused with the North Star.

Oh, why?

Well, because it's not the star of, it's not the North Star.

It is the star of the North because

Minnesota, excepting Alaska, I love you, Alaska, is Minnesota's most northern state.

And it's a glittering jewel in the sky of the country.

It's falling apart.

Help me.

Help me.

I'm drowning in this lake.

Help me.

It's the northernmost of the 48 contiguous states.

Is that what you're trying to tell me?

That makes sense because North Star is something different because North Star is

a member of the Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight.

I understand.

I was thinking of the actual North Star in the story.

Who's your favorite member of Alpha Flight?

Uh-oh.

North Star?

Aurora?

Sasquatch?

Snowbird?

I'm going to go with Sasquatch because we love Ecryptid.

Vindicator, aka Guardian?

I don't like the sound of Vindicator.

That makes me nervous.

Box?

Box.

Yeah.

Yeah, anyway, that's Canada, which is very close to Minnesota, but we're not talking about Canada.

We're talking about Minnesota.

No, but Canada, in particular, Quebec, has a great love of the French language.

And here we have this unexpected suprisant.

So we have this French motto, L'Etoile du Nord.

With this French motto in hand, it mayn't surprise you to learn that Minnesota, whose name is derived from the Dakota language, was visited, nay invaded, by French explorers and missionaries and was handed over to the U.S.

by the French as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

And if you're like me, you forget what was included in the Louisiana Purchase, and you forget that there was something this far north.

And there's a whole bunch of land to be reminded of all of that.

It's a lot of land, and it was part of a bunch of different territories before it officially became a state in 1858.

And we've already talked about them, but in addition to the French, the region also attracted sellers from Scandinavia, Germany, Central Europe, and more.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

But we do see that.

I mean, I said it.

You see that Scandinavian influence very evident in the Twin Cities.

And even just.

Have you ever been to the Minnesota?

Never been to the Twin Cities?

Yeah.

Lots.

And then, and for me too, I remember like my mom listened to a lot of Prairie Home Companion, and there was a lot of quips about the sort of like Lutheran, like the influence of a very specific type of Christianity that was sort of born out of like soft-spoken, like

Minnesota nice type people.

Quips is a generous word.

Gentle whispers, like the foam of a gastro

pub, that would give you like a hit, like the memory of a hint of a whisper of a quip.

I look, I grew up listening to Prairie Home Companion, and it meant a lot to me growing up.

And

you wouldn't be surprised that it shaped a lot of my slight chuckle-inducing humor.

There you go.

There you go.

Shout out to Lake Wobegon.

Anywho, the non-Scandinavian, but indeed French motto and the state seal, which we will talk about right after a break, were officially adopted in 1861.

But to give you a little taste, so you're all going to come back for more, Hodgman, Maryland, had a two-sided seal.

Any guesses on whether this seal has one or two sides?

I don't think it has one side, and I don't think it has two sides.

You know how many sides I think it has?

Uh-oh, uh-oh.

69.

Oh, no.

Well, at least you didn't go with 420.

Well,

I didn't want to repeat myself.

We'll be right back.

Attention, e pluribus matos listeners.

We have a bulletin board for Minnesota's own Northern Water Smokehouse.

That's right, for over 25 years, Northern Water Smokehouse has been smoking fish and meats on the shore of Lake Superior for the made-to-order gourmet sandwiches.

It's the perfect, dare I say, superior place to enjoy a glass of carefully curated wine with your fellow Minnesotans just a stone's throw away from the Big Lake.

Plus, they offer live local music and catering of your events.

Oh, and if you can't make it to their shore, their National Mail Order Department ships right to your door.

And that's not an intentional rhyme.

It just happens.

That's the kind of magic that happens.

Find Northern Water Smokehouse in Duluth's Canal Park and nwsmokehouse.com.

That's nwsmokehaus.com.

And friends, if you've got a local small business that you want to showcase, go to maximumfund.org/slash bulletin board.

I'm going to get some fish.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years, and

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened, and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello to John Hodgman and Janet Varney.

My name is Jackson from Minneapolis.

And my name is the major from Minneapolis.

And one day, many years ago, we attended the taping of a now-disgraced public radio host show where he asked us to do the most e-pluribus motto thing imaginable, which is, Can you do the common loon call?

Asked various members of the audience to do common loon calls.

So here's our common loon call.

Here's mine.

Woo!

Woo woo.

And here's the majors.

Woo!

Woo!

There we go.

That's all.

Thanks.

Love you guys.

Welcome back to you Blurbus Motto and thank you once again to Powder Milk Biscuits for that wonderful advertisement, powder milk.

When you run out of things to say, I'm John Hodgman.

And I'm Janet Varney.

And has your family tried them, powder milk, powder milk?

But enough about powder milk biscuits.

Let's get into Minnesota iconography and symbols, mostly because I like saying the word iconography.

I like saying the word vexillology.

Study of flags and seals.

Which I think somehow we got through, unless I'm mistaken, and I'm sure people will let me know if I am, I feel like we got through the entire first season of Iplor Bismato without ever using the word vexillological.

Vexillology.

Vexillological.

No, vexillology.

Yeah, vexillological, but it's vexillology.

Yeah, vexillology.

Yeah.

I feel I only found out that that word meant the study of flags as recently as last week when I made a very, very clever powder milk biscuit-worthy quip about something being vexing.

That's right.

The flag of the state of Maryland is quite vexing, isn't it?

Indeed, it is.

Play the banjo.

All right, I'm Glenoire.

Well, I think we should take a look at this state flag, and I'm going to read the description while we all have a look.

This is from the Minnesota State website.

The eight-point star mirrors the one on the floor of the rotunda of the Minnesota State Capitol.

From an angle, the eight-point star also creates, and this is why I enjoy this, the illusion of four-letter Ms.

I'm going to continue reading from the website.

The dark background is a stylized shape

of the outline of the state of Minnesota, representing, you guessed it, the land of Minnesota.

The remainder of the flag is a solid, bright blue representing

water.

This is a gorgeous flag.

100%.

Don't even worry about it.

We love this flag.

Just to finish up what the website says, the remainder of of the solid bright blue, representing water.

Minnesota is a land of 10,000 lakes.

And then some.

The home of the headwaters of the Mississippi River, Lake Superior, and the start of the Great Lakes Basin.

Now, the flag, this flag, as you are seeing it right now, is actually nearing its one-year anniversary.

Oh, I was going to say it must be very contemporary because it looks so good.

We wish it rolled.

On May 11, 2024, the flag was made official following efforts from a state emblem redesign commission.

Before this flag, there were three official others, and I can assure you, all of them were not nearly as cool as the current one.

I'm not even bothering with those last flags because this flag is very special, and I want it to stand on its own merit.

Well, now, okay, right.

So, this is, I'm looking at the old state flag now, and it's the classic plain banner, in this case, blue,

with a pretty classic, sort of busy-looking state steel in the middle that says Les 12 du Nor in 1858.

Yeah.

And it has one guy sort of, I think, mowing the lawn, no,

pushing

a plow.

And then there's someone else in the background on a horse.

I think the person on the horse is

an Indigenous person.

And all of this led Minnesota to go, you know what?

It's not too late for us to do this better.

They redesigned that flag.

They redesigned the state seal.

And I would like you to take a look at this one-sided seal without knowing anything about it.

What is your impression of this seal?

Well, it's not a seal, it's a bird.

Taken and received with

somewhat feathers ruffled.

Taken, received, and returned.

Wrong address.

And blocked and reported.

It's a very special bird, which I recognize from the state of Maine called a loon.

That's right.

It is a loon.

We will be talking more about that loon.

You want to hear

my

loon call?

I absolutely do.

All right, hang on.

Oh, he's putting on a costume.

Can I get Scrapple with that, hun?

Bird call.

So how the loon sounds.

I don't want anyone to sleep on the warm-up sounds.

that made us all believe that he might actually make a bird sound.

Can I get Scrapple with that, hun?

This is a beautiful seal.

Can we agree that it's also beautiful?

I mean, it's a stunner.

It's got a star of the north in it.

It does.

It only has four points as opposed to the eight of the seal that is on the flag and, I guess, on the floor of the rotunda.

I don't see any.

Don't look for the M's.

Hidden M's.

Oh, you know what?

I do see one because it's got a couple of mountains.

Oh, there is an M.

And the M.

The little mountains look like M's.

And the sky.

Yeah, the sky above.

Maybe they're trees.

Maybe they're pine trees.

Either way, it's an M.

Yeah, because

I think there are a lot of pine trees in Minnesota.

I don't know how many.

I mean, I'm sure there's some mountains and hills.

But yeah, the sky behind the mountain sort of forms an M.

And then there's a loon in it who looks like he's rearing up on his hind legs like a horse.

Maybe this is the state cryptid, the Minnesota loon horse.

I don't know.

Then off to the left of the loon are some sheaves of wheat,

which must be representing Minnesota's agricultural culture.

And then below it, water again, water, water everywhere, and some drops to drink because it's obviously it's fresh water primarily.

And boy, oh boy.

Actually, it's all fresh water now.

I think there's not a there's not a drop of salt water

outside of

someone crying in Minnesota.

Well, it's not called Minnesota.

Hello?

Hello?

I get it, website of the state of Minnesota.

You have 10,000 lakes.

You are the home of the headwaters of the Mississippi River, Lake Superior, and the start of the Great Lakes Basin.

I used to turn my nose up at those Great Lakes because I'm an ocean boy.

You know me.

I'm a saltwater boy.

I'm very comfortable with it, and I don't have the same kinds of anti-lake propaganda to share with you that John Hodgman seems to have decided to get on his high horse about.

The outer circle of the seal contains 98 rectangular golden bars representing the state's 87 counties and the 11 federally recognized American Indian tribes within the border of Minnesota.

And while we're on the subject, in Minnesota, there are those 11 federally recognized American Indian tribes, seven Anishinaabe, that's Ojibwe and Chippewa, and then four Dakota or Sioux tribes.

These tribes have reservations or communities throughout the state, with the Anishinaabe reservations located to the north and the Dakota communities to the south.

And I just want to take this opportunity to refer people to a a very special JV Club episode that I did not too terribly long ago with my good friend McGizzy Pensono, who is now the executive producer of Alien Earth.

This is hot Noah Hawley speaking of Fargo,

who he did an interpretation for FX of Fargo, the Fargo miniseries that you can watch several seasons of.

He also created Alien Earth, and McGizzy is now an executive producer on that show.

McGizzy coming from, among many things, being a writer on the very, very great series Reservation Dogs, one of my all-time favorite shows, which was created by his 1491s colleague, Sterlon Harjo, and featuring on-camera and behind-the-scenes work by the rest of the 1491s.

The 1491s are a phenomenal, I want to say sketch troop, but it's more than that.

They have written a play.

They've done a bunch of really amazing comedy and touring and

sort of public service work throughout Indian reservations across the United States.

And they're all beyond.

And the 1491s.

The 1491s, look it up.

It makes sense.

They were here before everyone else.

Hence, it is not called the 1492s.

And McGizzy hails from Minnesota and is of Ojibwe Punca lineage.

So shout out to McGizzy.

You can hear a lot more about all of that if you check out his episode of the JV Club.

He's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

And I just wanted to shout him out while we're talking about some of the great tribes of Minnesota.

You know, one day I was in New Haven, Connecticut.

I was visiting our daughter who was attending a college there at a four-year,

a four-year accredited college in southern Connecticut, New Haven.

And there was the Yale Repertory Theater, and I had nothing to do.

And I'm like, should I go there?

And I saw, oh, that's interesting.

The 1491s are performing tonight.

Well, well.

Maybe I should go check them out.

Did not know this.

And I said, no, I'm going to go to that bar that I went to in college and drink.

And that was a pretty good time, a little trip down memory lane.

You know what?

But then I watched Reservation Dogs and I learned who the 1491s were because I had no idea.

Sure.

At that time, and I realized one of the greatest mistakes of my life.

That's right.

When you have the opportunity to go to the theater or go to that bar used to go to in college and drink, try the new thing.

You know what the other thing's like.

You've done it.

Yeah.

Go to the theater.

Yeah.

Sorry about that, McGizzy.

That's a good question.

But thank you for making all those great things and for going on the JV Club where everyone can hear about your world.

Now,

what about this seal?

Is there more to this seal?

Yes or no?

Well, we got the lettering of the seal in Georgia bold font.

I know everyone's sitting there with their pencils and paper, ironically appreciating the Georgia font, the great seal of the state of Minnesota moving towards the center contains a series of blue roundells, which are decorative only.

Don't worry, this is an official description.

But there you saw it.

You've called it.

You knew it.

You associate it with Maine, but you better get ready to associate it even more strongly with Minnesota.

What?

What are you going to say?

No, go on and say it.

Lobster?

The Minnesota lobster?

John, I don't know how you've already forgotten that what you identified on the center of that seal was a beautiful loon.

In this case, the state bird, the common loon.

Is that what it sounds like?

Yeah, I don't know.

I can't get up as high.

I can't get up in the upper register.

Look, maybe

I am the common loon.

The common loon.

Give it a better name than the common loon.

To me, this is an uncommonly beautiful bird.

I care for it.

I would say they are uncommonly beautiful.

They are black and white.

A little bit of a

vexological moment happening with all of the various and sundry black and white patterns that you will see on this lovely bird.

Black head, red eyes.

Not a small bird.

We're talking about a wingspan up to five feet body lengths.

Yeah.

Up to three feet.

That's almost as tall as me.

What's ironic about the common loon is they're not as common as you would think.

Why?

Have we been calling them common?

I don't know.

Maybe there's a fancy loon out there somewhere that I don't know about.

I don't buy it.

I think one of the reasons I was so upset about Minnesota's association with water is that I'm jealous.

Honestly.

Ah, thank you for your honesty and your humanity.

Particularly on its flag.

I'm jealous.

It's a beautiful flag.

I don't like sharing as a sometime resident of the state of Maine.

I don't like sharing the loon.

And the thing is, we had a dumb flag for a long time in the state of Maine.

And we still do.

Minnesota got the loon.

Minnesota got the water, Minnesota got the flag.

It's so pretty.

It's so everything.

I am such a fan of all of this.

I'm sure people won't be surprised when we cast our votes later for, for example, the motto.

But I mean, there's a lot going on in the state symbols that I really enjoy.

I also think that the state flower being the pink lady's slipper is a lovely choice.

This is a flower that is found in fens, in bogs, swamps, damp woods.

You're looking for

a place with water, you might say.

Yeah, you might say.

You might say you're well served if you are a pink lady slipper to be near water.

Gosh, I wonder what state would have that.

Oh, wait, I know.

It's Minnesota.

You need plenty of light.

And these little lady slippers, they grow slowly.

Sometimes they take up to 16 years to produce their first flowers.

I don't know if Maine has any lady slippers, so this is fine with Maine.

This is a beautiful little flower.

It really has that sort of orchid quality where you look at it and you go, oh, yeah, this is like meant to attract something.

This is about pollination.

This is kind of a sexy little flower.

It's very pretty.

I like it very much.

It's like a flower that says, can I get some scrapple with that, hun?

Oh, boy.

Look, I don't mind this flower because, as far as I know, and I don't want to look it up right now because I don't want to get mad about it.

Yeah.

I don't think that the Pink's lady slipper is a big flower in Maine.

But, Janet,

I swear to God, or whatever.

Uh-huh.

If Minnesota adopts one more main thing

as one of its state things,

that's going to be hard for me to keep my powder milk dry.

Oh, my God.

I cannot believe this whole episode has turned into some sort of vendetta.

And I'm sure that was one of the characters in the elite Canadian thing you were talking about earlier.

Alpha Flight?

Box.

I think.

Box.

Vendetta.

First of all,

Box was a member, I think, of Beta Flight.

The backup.

My bad.

I think he eventually became a member of Alpha Flight.

Vendetta feels like Omega Flight to me, the bad guy.

Okay, okay.

This is all right.

All right.

I just did not know that there was going to be so much ire directed towards the beautiful, beautiful state symbols and iconography of Minnesota that would be directly impacting you as a person who, by the way, does not live full-time in Maine.

But anyway, let's move on.

I have something that will cheer you up.

At least I hope it will.

Yeah.

Minnesota is smart enough to have itself a state muffin.

Oh,

great.

Or

trumpet blare of the sound of the call of a loon.

And also, the Twin Cities has one of the most vibrant international food communities in the world, too.

That is absolutely true.

And fine dining and everything.

It's just, it's the wonderful.

The whole state's wonderful.

I love it.

So I can't wait to hear what their wonderful, very unique, non-Maine state muffin is all about.

Well, they have something in Minnesota called a blueberry.

No.

The blueberry muffin.

No.

How dare they?

The blueberry muffin.

How dare you.

Official state muffin of Minnesota from all the way back in 1988, which is not, if I remember correctly, too far apart from when Kate Lorch did some.

I'm going to say gerrymandering.

That's absolutely not what what I mean.

Lobbying.

Some lobbying.

Kate Lorch,

sister of my high school friend Ben Lorch, and a whole human being in her own right.

Those of you who don't recall season one, was one of the instrumental people in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopting the corn muffin as the state muffin, despite a vigorous opposition campaign mounted by the cranberry muffin people.

That's right.

The blueberry muffin, you're telling telling me is the state muffin

of Minnesota.

Yeah.

You know what would go really well with that blueberry muffin if you're someone who doesn't care whether or not your state drink is cool?

I'm sorry to say it's milk.

Well,

at least Maine shall always have Allen's coffee brandy.

That's right.

Which you combine with milk to create a cocktail that I learned about this winter called Fat Ass in a Glass.

But let's get back to Minnesota.

It deserves its time in the light of the star of the North.

It does.

It does.

So milk notwithstanding, I feel that's somewhat mitigated by the fact that the state fruit is the, to my palate, the very delicious honey crisp apple.

I love a honey crisp.

It is

both honey-ish and very crisp without being too tart.

Of all the apples, it is the least likely to make me gag.

I don't know that I knew that you felt apples were gag worthy.

I hate all fruit because here's why.

I love fruit when it is in perfect condition.

I am telling you.

But there is rarely ever in perfect condition.

Honey crisps are...

Honey crisps are consistent.

And honey crisps are much more reliable than a lot of other Cosmic crisps, very consistent.

In my experience, Cosmic Crisps, sort of a newcomer.

It came out of the sky.

in the form of a meteor.

And when they cracked open the charred, still smoky remains of the meteor, there was a beautiful apple inside.

And they raised that apple as their son.

And then he went to

Metropolis and fought crime.

Shout out to the Honey Crisp Apple.

Shout out to the Honey Crisp, Cosmic Crisp, and Envy Apples.

Those are the apples that I feel I can rely on.

And I agree, almost every other apple I will not even bother with because it stands every chance of being having something wrong with it and not being

tasty to me.

So

now,

because Minnesota is known for being Minnesota nice, which of course turns out to mean that someone is nice to your face and then very deeply judgy to your back, as I was told by many Minnesotans while I was there,

I do think that a state like Minnesota that is very friendly, at least on the surface, but maybe even goes a little bit deeper than the surface, you would have a friendly sounding state soil.

So I want everyone to say hello

to Minnesota's friendly state soil that is friendly even beyond surface level.

Lester.

Hello, Lester.

Is Lester the state soil that is used to make the packed dirt road that is the longest, twistiest journey to this segment that I've ever walked in my life?

I will say yes, and I will say I'm so sorry that it was such a long, twisty road that your shoes have been worn down and they no longer have bottoms, and it's just your bare, scabbed feet.

Well,

let me wriggle my scabbed toes in Leicester soil.

Tell me about this soil.

Well, I am going to tell you a little bit about it, courtesy of the Minnesota Conservation Volunteer website.

Soil scientists analyze and classify soils according to texture.

I want to just set this out.

We want to establish the process so that you can understand and appreciate how and why we come to have and know these state soils.

Soil scientists analyze and classify soils according to texture, color, chemistry, structure, and other properties.

They dig in the upper six feet of soil to examine the layers that have built up over thousands of years.

Together, these layers, called

horizons, form a soil profile.

The top layer of Leicester soil is dark brown, rich in decaying vegetation, and, and again, these are all, this is all a direct quote, crumbly as cake.

Beneath these layers, wow.

Beneath these layers is the parent material, broken bedrock, ground up and moved by glaciers flowing from the northwest.

That's the sexiest,

most delightful, and I guess appetizing description of a state soil we've stumbled upon.

It's very sensual state soils.

It is.

Yeah, it has to be.

Lester.

I love it.

I'm a fan of Lester.

Oh, I'm a fan of it.

I'm a fan of Lester.

I'm a fan of Lester, too.

Now, in the intro to this episode, John Hodgman, you mentioned that we would also talk about VIIs, very important insects.

You're right.

I did so.

We're about to do so.

We're about to do so.

And I knew exactly what I meant and where I was going.

May I introduce you to Minnesota's state bee, the rusty-patched patched bumblebee.

Oh, well, hello, rusty patched bumblebee.

Come on, look at that little cutie.

Oh, what a cutie.

Yeah, bumblebees are very cute.

We're talking about bees.

We're talking about rusty patched bumblebees, who specifically since 2017 has been listed as an endangered species under the U.S.

Endangered Species Act.

So

it's critically endangered.

We got to protect our bees.

I'm so proud and happy for Minnesota that it has a state bee.

I think even just having a state B

is keeping it in the minds of anyone who's bothering to know what state symbols are, keeping in the minds and hearts of people that we got to save our bees.

Yeah, more bees need the state B bump.

That's right.

More bees need the state B bump.

Raise awareness of Bombus Affinis, the rusty patched bumblebee.

Oh, thank you for doing patched.

I thought about that and then I decided against it, but I'm glad you did.

It turned it very Shakespearean very quickly.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Let's see how you feel about the state song because sometimes

it can be a do-or-die moment for state symbols when you're talking about a state song.

So less wounded by that secret Confederate propaganda they had in Maryland.

This is

Hail Minnesota, as covered by Paul Eakins.

Welcome to my Carnival of Nightmares.

No.

Maybe I picked one that doesn't have lyrics.

Hang on.

This is the state song?

Hang on.

Here's Rick Pickering's version.

Minnesota, hail to thee.

I can hear the accent.

Hail to thee.

Minnesota.

State so dear.

Your light shall ever be

a beacon bright and clear.

Your sons and daughters true

will proclaim you near and far.

They shall guard your fame and adore your name.

You shall be their northern star.

That's very nice.

Because I think that's charming.

I would like to hear a polka version of it.

You weren't happy enough with the fun house, a house of mirrors freak show that was the other one that I played.

All due respect.

Obviously,

that may be the official state song, but come on.

Because it's got to be Purple Rain by Prince.

That's got to be the state song.

Well,

I don't blame you because, I mean, Prince is arguably, I mean, I don't know.

Is he the very most famous?

He may be.

Bob Dylan is also from Minnesota.

The Andrews Sisters Soul Asylum.

Yes, I I just put Soul Asylum in there.

Husker Dew, got a name Husker Dew.

The replacements, Holly Henry, Joco Cruz friend and colleague, Dessa, also on the JV Club.

Dessa is a phenomenal rapper, musician, personality, wonderful soul, wonderful human being who I had the great pleasure of meeting and playing with on the Joco Cruise and who is done the JV Club.

But really great musicians out of Minnesota.

But I could see why you would think that Purple Rain should be Minnesota state song.

The fact is that in addition to Prince, and Prince obviously is an incredible genius and

once-in-a-lifetime

creative North star, shall we say?

There you go.

Bob Dylan, definitely one.

I mean, it's just like the among, in addition to Prince, the royalty of music that comes out of

Minnesota is astonishing.

And I just want to, Husker Dew, you just reminded me, I love Husker Dew, Bob Mold, Huskerdew was his band.

He's now a solo artist.

But when they were Husker Dew, they recorded another Minnesota State song, which is the Mary Tyler Moore theme song.

They recorded a cover of the theme song to the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which is incredible.

Who Can Turn the World On with a Smile?

Obviously, that was a lot of people's first introduction, at least mine, to

the skyline of Minneapolis and the Twin Cities was Mary Tyler Moore wandering around there.

in the opening credits to the show.

So there you go.

And you know what?

You can turn the world on with a smile.

You can take a nothing day.

Yeah.

Suddenly make it all seem worthwhile.

Cause it's you, Janet, and you should know it.

With each glance and every little movement you show it, love is all around, no need to.

That's all I got.

But this whole time, my name was buried inside the lyrics of that song, and I had no idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They had to change it.

What a waste.

Mary Tyler Moore's character was originally going to be named Janet Varney.

Oh, my goodness.

They're like, well, I think most people recognize Mary Tyler Moore.

We'll call it that.

But somehow my parents had the inside track knew that and named me after the original Mary Tyler Moore, Janet Varney.

Even though you got locked out of that one, you're going to make it after all.

Let's take a break.

When we come back, we're going to hear from listeners like you who have a lot to say about Minnesota.

Here are some brief messages from the America Duct Tape Council and the Ketchup Advisory Board.

Man, three of you think this is just the cutest thing of all time, and everybody else is like, I don't know what you guys are off on.

You know what?

Don't look it up.

Yeah, don't bother.

Just think that we're world building on our own right now.

Time moves in one direction

welcome back to ePlurbus Motto Janet Varney here and I'm John Hodgman before we get to your wonderful letters let's hear some final fun facts about Minnesota including these fun facts The Minnesota State Fair is one of the largest state fairs in the country.

It happens in the run-up to and over Labor Day weekend.

Janet Varney, maybe we should start doing live e pluribus mottos at state fairs.

Wouldn't that be appropriate?

Couldn't be more on board.

Yeah.

Starting to feel like maybe I want you to start calling me Mary Tyler Moore.

I guess that'll get too confusing.

Fun fact: both the world's largest ball of twine and the world's quietest room are in Minnesota.

The world's quietest room.

Gosh, how do you measure that?

Well,

with uh machines

really it's not just a gut feeling no

the world's quietest room is located at the uh or field laboratories in minnesota this is according to smithsonian magazine it is a highly baffled and echoic chamber that is quote designed to stop sound waves from reflecting off the walls It's a box with steel walls suspended by springs inside a larger box with steel walls, tucked inside the full laboratory that has concrete walls that are a foot thick.

And inside the chamber, visitors are surrounded by rigid brown fiberglass wedges, absorbing sound on all sides.

Everyone knows,

you're talking about this, like this is a thing we've never heard of before.

But everyone who loves comic books knows that one of the scientists who was working in the world's quietest room was accidentally left in there and exposed to harmful, low-decibel silence, and that created the superhero Hush.

Janet.

Everyone knows.

I know you're trying to make a comic book joke to go with my Alpha Flight references, but

Hush is actually not a superhero.

Hush is a super villain from the Batman.

Every word is taken.

That's why they had to name that guy Box.

I know.

But speaking of boxes, this box within a box within a box.

That's.

You want to call something the box?

The quietest place on earth was written about by my friend and colleague at the New York Times magazine in 2023.

In 2022, Katie Weaver, in an article that you can access called, Could I Survive the Quietest Place on Earth?

subhead, legends tell

of an echo-less chamber in an old Minneapolis recording studio that drives visitors insane.

If you would like to become better friends with your tinnitus or tinnitus, as I would not, because I try to spend as much time as possible forgetting that I have it.

Don't go to that room.

Yeah, that's it.

Wait, do go to it if you want to become friends with it.

I don't know if I could handle the world's quietest room.

I know I couldn't.

I know I couldn't.

Just like, hmm.

Give me a couple more facts before we move on to emails.

Well, water skiing was invented in Minnesota.

Not surprising.

Lakewater skiing,

not oceanwatered skiing.

Okay, all right.

Anyone who's ever listened to the great podcast, Rockin' and Rolling with Wolfman Hot Dog knows about the incredible legendary rivalry between the lakewater skiers and the oceanwater skiers.

In fact, it's gotten pretty violent in the past.

Go check out that podcast.

You'll know what I'm talking about when you find it.

But its official state sport is ice hockey, and that brings us to an official extinct hockey report from me, your extinct hockey expert, John Hodgman.

As you know, there is only one sport that I follow.

because I don't like sports and I don't like ambiguity and I don't like when the outcome is unknown.

So I turn to the sport that is over, extinct hockey.

Not just hockey, but hockey teams that don't exist anymore, like the Hartford Whalers, like the Quebec Nordiques, and like, very sadly, the Minnesota North Stars.

That's right, named after Les Toile du Nor.

The Minnesota North Stars existed for 26 seasons in the National Hockey League from 1967 to 1993 when they moved to Dallas to become the Dallas Stars.

And like all stories of extinct hockey and generally hockey overall, it's a tragedy.

It began in tragedy in 1967.

The North Stars played their first game against the St.

Louis Blues.

That was on the road.

It was a tie.

Hockey just is so anticlimactic.

Their first home game, speaking of state seals,

was played against another legendary extinct hockey team, the California Seals of San Francisco, also known as the California Golden Seals.

And then in January 1968, less than a year after they were founded, their star player Bill Masterton suffered a fatal hit.

He was skating toward the Seals goal.

He fell backward, hit the back of his head.

He was unconscious.

He never regained consciousness.

He died a few layers later.

He was only 29.

To date, he remains the only death of a player as a result of an injury during a game.

In NHL history, very, very sad.

Norman Green was the disliked owner of the team who was trying to get rid of them by 1992, eventually sold them to Dallas.

And the reason that he did was the fact that A, they weren't a very successful team, sorry, North Star fans, and he couldn't make the money that he wanted.

They called him Norman Greed.

B, they were a Pepsi-sponsored team and the team therefore refused to play at the new stadium, the Target Center, which was owned by Coca-Cola.

And as well, Norman Green was facing a sexual harassment lawsuit.

One of the results of which was that his wife threatened to leave him unless he moved the team.

Not sure how that works out.

You know,

marriages are complicated.

And I guess if your spouse was accused of sexual harassment, one way to build a new life for yourself is to get them to sell their NHL team or at least move it to another city.

I don't know.

Well, I'm not sure.

Yeah, no kidding.

Talk about a bummer.

I need something to cheer me up.

I need, well, you mentioned earlier in the show that we were going to talk about monsters of Minnesota.

Of course.

Do we have a state cryptid?

Janet, we have many wonderful cryptids we could talk about.

We don't have time for them all.

Once again, this comes from a poster from a wonderful cartoonist and illustrator named Monica Gallagher, who's got this Etsy shop called Lipstick Kiss Press,

where she creates posters of all the cryptids of various states and regions.

We talked about her poster for Maryland last time.

We did.

And rather than do my original research, I went back to her Etsy shop and checked out the Minnesota poster, which includes these cryptids, the Duluth Dogman, the Minnesota Iceman, who is not a cryptid.

The Minnesota Iceman was a fake body.

frozen in ice that was displayed at carnivals through like that song i played much of the late 60s and early 70s, and it was supposedly a missing link type frozen caveman thing, which was fake.

Got it.

The Mishi Peshu, which is a Native American legend of an underwater panther.

Ooh, underwater panther.

Don't sleep on that.

What?

Yeah, the underwater panther or Mishi Peshu, one of the, quote, one of the most important of several mythical water beings among many indigenous peoples of the northeastern woodlands and Great Lakes regions.

Mishi Peshu translates to the great lynx that is the the head and paws of a giant cat, but it is covered in scales and has dagger-like spikes running along its back and tail.

And it lives on an island in Lake Superior, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, but it is Mishipikoten.

We also have Pepi, the lake monster of Lake Pepin, Thunderhorse, Trolls, the witches of Loon Lake.

But the one I want to talk about for a moment, just for a moment here, is, of course, the Wendigo or Wendigo.

Yes, indeed.

In Ojibwe language,

this is a mythological evil spirit that lives in the northern portion of Minnesota by Native American and Ojibwe legend in particular.

The Wendigo is an emaciated figure representing extreme hunger and impoverishment during the winter months.

And it represents

cannibalism as well.

It has come to represent cannibalism.

So in some traditions, traditions, you become a Wendigo

if you eat the flesh of a human being.

In other traditions, you become inspired to become a cannibal by the Wendigo.

There are lots of different traditions, and in some ways, it is speculated that the Wendigo is part of a taboo reinforcement to essentially say, Hey, it's freezing cold up here in the north woods, and we're all starving, but let's not eat each other, okay?

That would be very interesting.

And indeed, during times of famine, the Ojibwe, as well as as the Cree and the Asinibune

peoples, would have a ceremony which involved wearing Wendigo masks and dancing backwards around a drum to reinforce, particularly in times of great famine, to remind people, hey, don't eat each other.

According to Wikipedia, the last known Wendigo ceremony of this kind was conducted at Lake Wendigo.

named for the legend, which is a lake on Star Island, which itself is an island in a lake, which is Cass Lake, which is in the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, the Ojibwe Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.

Now, there are some who say, Ripleys, believe it or not, that Lake Indigo was the only lake within a lake in the northern hemisphere.

But that is hardly true.

I mean, there are lakes within,

there are lakes within lakes within lakes, particularly in Lake Superior.

This is something that came up after I

bad-mouthed the Great Lakes enough on the Judge John Hodgkin podcast.

I had to do penance and I did a Great Lakes beach report over many weeks of the show.

And one of the things I learned is that Lake Superior is full of recursive islands,

which is to say islands that are on lakes that are on islands.

Isle Royale is a massive island in Lake Superior with lots of lakes and islands and lakes and islands on it.

Specifically, Ryan Island, which is in Siskiwit Lake on Isle Royale, in Lake Superior.

That is the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake in the world.

So I think that it's over on the Canada side of Lake Superior, but it still counts because Lake Superior touches that beautiful city of Duluth, home of the Duluth dogman, whatever that is.

And Duluth, Lake Superior is incredible because it is so deep and so cold that when there are shipwrecks and stuff, both the ships and the bodies are perfectly preserved.

Oh, my goodness.

They don't get eroded because there's no salt in there.

And

because of the lake effect, which is the strong winds coming off the lake, there are even waves that you can surf.

Duluth lake surfing is a thing.

But the Wendigo, to get back to the state cryptid, is probably the most well-known.

That said, if you have a story of seeing the Duluth Dogman or the Thunder Horse or the Witches of Loon Lake, won't you share them with us, of course, by going to email Pluribus Matto at

maximumfun.org?

You can also send us a voice memo there if you want to tell us a ghost story or a scary campfire story of the time that you saw Pepe or the trolls or whatever.

And by the way,

if you fought both the Wendigo and the Incredible Hulk to a standstill, we'd like to hear from you because you're the very famous Canadian superhero Wolverine.

Yeah, first appearance of Wolverine.

Wolverine got caught up in a fight between the Incredible Hulk and Marvel Comics's interpretation of The Wendigo, which is not an emaciated, haunted-looking creature with antlers, but is instead just kind of a big white Sasquatch.

That's the state cryptid.

And that's the other stuff that I have to talk to you about.

But you've asked people to reach out at email pluribusmato at maximumfund.org.

Do we have any evidence that we actually read any of these emails?

You're about to get some because here are some emails now.

What a wonderful setup.

Good job, Janet.

Sarah H.

has a restaurant that she wants to recommend to us that is in Minnesota, by the way, and it is called Owl's Breakfast.

Quote: This local greasy spoon looks like it was spawned in an alley between a trendy Korean corndog place and a Starbucks.

It's worth the line to brave owls, even during the winter.

Janet and I am looking at a photo of owls, and indeed it looks wonderful.

It also lives up to its reputation as the narrowest restaurant in Minneapolis.

It is only 10 feet wide.

And

the sign out front helpfully proclaims Al's breakfast Dinky Town Branch.

It is in a neighborhood near the University of Minnesota called Dinky Town.

And it was the barely veiled setting.

And it is the barely veiled setting of a memoir called Pedal Pusher by Lori Lindine, a Minneapolis author who is married to the former replacement Paul Westerberg, and worked there for many, many years.

And it has been visited three times, three times by Triple D.

That means Diners, Drivings, and Dives with Guy Fiati, three times at ALS.

Oh, my.

Thanks for the recommendation.

I'll go there next time.

Yes, indeed, as will I.

Annalisa H.

brings up Winters of Minnesota as something she will always remember.

She was a college student in Minnesota and remembers the first day of her college spring semester.

My roommate and I had a 10 a.m.

class and lived about four blocks off campus.

We bundled up in multiple layers of coats, scarves, hats, and gloves, trying to cover every single inch.

for a walk to campus.

We made it half a block.

When a van pulled up and the driver told us she would give us a ride the rest of the way to school, we eagerly hopped in and spent an eight-minute drive discussing how she couldn't believe the school was even open.

We got to school and I turned to my roommate to ask how she knew this woman, right as she asked me the same question.

We both assumed the other person knew her and in assuming so had gotten into a van with a stranger.

That's called Minnesota nice.

That's right.

Willing to risk a kidnapping to avoid the Minnesota cold.

That is very cold indeed.

Oh, that's very funny.

I will give Minnesota this.

Their winters

kick Maine winters in the butt.

There's no question about it.

That's a much, much more intense winter up there in Minnesota.

Now, I'm not talking about northern Maine, up in the county.

I'm sure in interior Maine, it's probably as cold or gets as cold as Minnesota from time to time, but I don't think as reliably.

And certainly where I mess around on the coast, we've got that big, beautiful saltwater body called the Atlantic Ocean

that moderates both the summer breezes and the winter winds.

But Minnesota, you win on winter.

If this weren't a family show, I'd say, why don't you and saltwater get a room, John Hodgman?

Jeez.

Hey, saltwater.

No, I will say that.

Grapple with that, hon.

I will say that.

Now it's time to write the state motto.

I'm going to say a scale of 1 to 10 rusty patchet bumblebees because I am so confident in my feelings about the state motto.

And I'm also lumping in the seal and flag while I think about the motto and rate it.

I'm so confident that I will be giving more bumblebees to the world rather than less when we need them, that we can do bumblebees.

Sure.

John Hodgman, what is your rating for L'Étoile lu Neur?

Well, I think that it's a very lovely and evocative motto.

I love the French language,

je l'emet.

You know,

Les Toile du Nord is very nice.

I think that it speaks to Minnesota's position in the Union as a guiding star.

in the past and I hope in the future of progressive politics.

So I like that part of it.

I love the Minnesota North Stars, the Extinct Hockey Team and their beautiful old logo.

So I have a lot of fondness for it.

Now, I do have to point out that it is factually inaccurate.

Minnesota is a land mass, not a star.

Excuse me, Minnesota, a land and water mass, not actually a star.

And there is a lot of north above it.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

There's a lot of north called Canada above it.

Now, there are some people who would point out that the border between Minnesota and Canada, like the border between the United States and Canada, is all an arbitrary line that someone drew that maybe should be erased.

But I don't like that person.

So let's go ahead and give it nine stars.

Nine North Stars and Rusty Patchet Bumblebees.

Because I like it.

It sounds good.

And

all lines and borders are arbitrary.

And I believe

in the sovereignty of Canada and the beauty of Minnesota.

I agree.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I will also give it nine rusty patched bumblebees for all the reasons.

I agree.

I agree.

I can't say it better.

I'm just going to leave it right at that.

Nine and nine.

We see eye to eye.

It's a nine to nine.

Yeah.

And the nine does help a little bit to serve as a balm to the very, very aggressive things that you said about those lakes.

You know what?

I'm changing.

I like it so much.

I'm changing my rating.

It's not nine anymore.

What is it?

69.

Oh, boy.

Well, that does it for this episode of ePluribus Motto.

The show was hosted by John Hodgman, along with me, Janet Farney.

The show is produced and edited by Julian Burrell.

Senior producer at Maximum Fun is Laura Swisher.

Our theme music was composed by Zach Berba.

Our show art was created by Paul G.

Hammond.

Did we miss anything from Minnesota that we should know about?

I'm sure we did.

You can tell us all about it, as always, at emailpluribusmotto at maximumfun.org.

And hey, do you have a natural Minnesota accent?

We'd love to hear it.

We'd love to hear any of your natural regional accents for any of the spots we're covering this season, including Wisconsin, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oregon, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Washington, D.C.

And we've got a fun way for you to share them with us.

You can always send us a voicemail at email, pleuribusmotto at maximumfun.org, or you can also go to our brand new URL, speakpipe.com/slash e pluribus motto.

That's S-P-E-A-K-P-I-P-E dot com e pluribus motto.

That is a place where you can just navigate to and press a button and start recording and send your wonderful regional accent or campfire story about the Duluth dogman directly to us.

We would love to hear from you.

But when you keep those cards and letters and voicemails coming, please remember to keep them brief and to the point.

The shorter they are, the better a chance we have of putting them on the show.

You can also find us on TikTok and Instagram, where you can also tell us more about the states we've talked about so far and the ones coming down the speak pipe.

Including this next one, for which we are not traveling too terribly far from the great state of Minnesota, John Hodgman, you will soon present on.

We'll be traveling directly across to Wisconsin.

From the Gopher State to the Badger State, we cannot wait to learn more about Minnesota's western neighbor that also has milk as its state drink.

Great.

I'm suddenly realizing we acknowledged it as the gopher state and then never spoke of gophers again.

Well, the gophers are the sports team of the University of Minnesota, and I guess probably they're an animal in Minnesota.

And if you want to tell us something about your experiences with them, go for it by emailing us at emailplurb.

John, John?

Oh, no, his chair is spinning.

His chair is spinning.

He left his desk so quickly.

He's gone.

I know, I did it.

I cannot wait to talk about Wisconsin.

It's one of the states I love a lot.

We're going to go to the tornado room in Madison for a steak and a martini.

And as we go, never forget our motto.

Well, I hear that old piano down the avenue.

Bring home companion.

You don't remember that part?

I remember that here in Minnesota, although women are strong, the men are strong,

the children are average.

Nope, they're above average.

Okay, don't use that motto.

But until then, remember our motto: don't get into a van just because it's cold.

And don't forget our other motto.

That's the news from ePleuribus Motto.

Where Janet is strong,

I'm here to talk about it.

Sean is above average, and all our listeners are good looking.

That's right.

We'll talk to you next time on ePluribus Motto.

Bye.

Bye.

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