As David Strom is well aware, and Ed may recall, it's "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (To Be Stuck In A Hot, Sweaty Crowd Paying Absurd Money For Catastrophically Unhealthy Food And The Same Attractions You've Been Trudging Past Since The 1980s)" - the Minnesota State Fair.
It's the biggest state fair in the country (take that, Texas) and living as a about 3/4 miles from the Fairgrounds, it's also the biggest traffic and parking bottleneck in the country (take that, Hong Kong). And as Mike Nelson of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" fame put it, people at the Fair walk at two speeds; slower than me, and much slower than me.
It's not just food and rides and animals, of course. There's entertainment for the whole family:
NEW at the @mnstatefair this year..…“family fun” options today included:
— Rep. Pam Altendorf (@PamAltendorf) August 29, 2026
DRAG SHOW DANCING
⁉️WHAT do you think about the kids in this video handing dollars to the Drag Performer…..!? pic.twitter.com/Amc1qosfiB
Which keeps the kids busy enough that most schools in the state don't even bother starting for the year until afterwards (the fair ends on Labor Day) and it's pretty much where the election season really gets started in Minnesota. All the parties and candidates have booths or put in appearances, working the biggest crowd in the state for all they're worth.
And thanks to the wonders of social media, it's the setting for an incessant stream of, for lack of a more interesting word, "content". Like this stream of videos showing retiring Senator Tina Smith cavorting in a not remotely artificial or contrived way at all, norirreebob, around the fair with the Democrat ("DFL") candidate vying to replace her, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan:
The Giant Slide is better with friends: pic.twitter.com/yjoA8Pfk10
— Peggy Flanagan (@peggyflanagan) August 27, 2026
🌽🌽🌽 pic.twitter.com/eKYwBxtSzE
— Peggy Flanagan (@peggyflanagan) August 28, 2026
Doesn't it just make you want to start humming the theme song from "Courtship of Eddie's Father?" (Kids, ask your grandparents).
Of course, the Fair has a lot of traditions — the various animal and crop contests, concerts, and of course all that food on a stick. But the one that Ed, our other former co-hosts and I have spent the most years lampooning is the "Seed Art" contest.
"Seed Art" is exactly what it sounds like — creating "art" from plant seeds. It's a slow, painstaking process involving gluing countless seeds into place to create...designs. Art. Sort of.
And the contestants can get...
...well, a little performative:
Minnesota mourning pic.twitter.com/wIGN8p9GEl
— IxchelM (@AuntieChelM) August 29, 2026
If you haven't figured it out, "Seed Art" is a pretty intricate craft. It takes sometimes hundreds of hours — I've heard 300+ — to create a (to use the Fair-specific term) "winning" design — picking out the right color seeds, making sure they're lined up properly, gluing them down, and repeating the process thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of times. That's a lot of time to keep up a state of high performative dudgeon.
Of course, "winning" isn't necessarily the goal. Signaling virtue is.
Minnesota mourning pic.twitter.com/wIGN8p9GEl
— IxchelM (@AuntieChelM) August 29, 2026
The most controversial was probably this one:
SUBMITTED: Minnesota State Fair seed art includes an “8647” entry.
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) August 28, 2026
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it, but there it was on day one for thousands of people to see,” the tipster said.
When it was reported to the fair, the person was told “it follows freedom of speech… pic.twitter.com/T2OeUXWu1d
"Hey", the defenders bleat, "'86' doesn't mean 'kill'".
Maybe true, and I'm no seed "art" expert, but the little trail of blood-red kidney beans just might have metaphorical implications.
I don't want to give you the impression it's all progressive wackjobs. The Seed Art competition is a First Amendment zone of sorts:
SUBMITTED: Minnesota State Fair seed art includes an “8647” entry.
— Liz Collin (@lizcollin) August 28, 2026
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it, but there it was on day one for thousands of people to see,” the tipster said.
When it was reported to the fair, the person was told “it follows freedom of speech… pic.twitter.com/T2OeUXWu1d
But you can get a barometer of the what legends Minnesota's smug, entitled, self-satisfied middle-class white progressives actually are in their own minds by their crafts — in this case, from the "Needlepoint" event:
Minnesotans are what Texans think they are. https://t.co/32zq8iX42J pic.twitter.com/spYKPI3KM6
— MaplehoodUnited (@MaplehoodUnited) August 27, 2026
I can practically guarantee you that this person supported Governor Walz's COVID-era snitch line to report people who weren't wearing masks or were gathering in groups, the DFL's "thoughtcrime" database (Minnesota's government tracks "hate speech", although they won't publicly define it or let anyone see who's in it or why, or tell us why they're collecting the data), and the Harris/Walz ticket with their promises of working with Big Tech to censor dissent.
Can you feel the larp?
