I am a fourth generation Seattlite, and as deep as my attachment runs to my birthplace, I find myself suspicious of it, as though there were whiff of decay beneath its attractive exterior. This biblical verse comes to mind:
“ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
Matthew 23:27
And so it is in Seattle.
This irreligious, soulless town pretends to progressive ideals, yet drives out all but the mediocre and acquisitive, who live their lives as though worms in a heap of compost, or perhaps sand fleas in a rotting kelp bed. It is a city of bejewelled barbarians, who sacrifice to their god of order and false tolerance, without any appreciation for the wine or bread of life that raises civilization from the ashes of oblivion.
Seattle is the Sweden of America, bereft of any art and predisposed to punish or forcefully rehabilitate those who think or live differently. Sterile love and sexless reproduction approximate the primeval slime-molds of thermal vents, and are considered the proper method of reproduction here. It is as though the city is an algal colony that heaves and belches its products from time to time upon an otherwise pleasant beach.
Heaven’s law is a foreign concept in this land, blessed though it is with the touch of creation. Its creatures crawl and mingle, sipping and chewing like so many worms, gathering in senseless clades that yield nothing but the lingering chemical traces of a hormonal slime-trail.
There is more culture in a square block of Hutongs in Beijing, or a row of Parisian cafés than in the entirety of this heap of processed manure. One might blame it on the dreary weather, but Dublin and London fare no better in that way, yet still have managed to outshine this contrived little hole, which is a laughing-stock by comparison. Even the Aleuts of the deprived, wind-beaten chain of Alaskan islands managed to create a more enduring and remarkable material culture than the denizens of this sad stack of moldy timber.
So here I send off this insult against this horrid city, which kills artists and despises those who stand out. There is more spice in an onion from Walla Walla than in all the kitchens of this joke of a city. May Seattle learn about suffering, which it so readily inflicts on those who do not fit in, and grow a soul.
24 responses so far ↓
1 Lukobe // Jul 14, 2009 at 11:22 pm
I have many issues with Seattle, but it isn’t a total wasteland! And not all of us good eggs have been driven out yet.
Are you a modern-day Emmett Watson, making it sound worse than it is to keep the Californians out?
Nice prose, though.
2 wahler // Jul 15, 2009 at 8:27 am
Kurt Cobain and grunge were pretty good.
Although I’m not sure if they’re more representative of that which you disparage, or of the sort of critical attitude developed by living in such a place.
3 Lukobe // Jul 15, 2009 at 8:53 am
Kurt Cobain was from Aberdeen — and yeah, I’d say grunge is more of a reaction against Seattle than what Welmer dislikes about it. I saw him headbang back in the early ’90s!
4 Welmer // Jul 15, 2009 at 9:24 am
I’ve been seeing these awful commercials about how wonderful a city Seattle is, with Mayor Nickels walking around in a windbreaker, and that motivated me to disparage the place.
Seattle is really full of itself, and doesn’t understand how provincial and small-minded the place is. This attitude can be frustrating, to say the least.
Speaking of grunge, Kurt Cobain wrote a song cursing Seattle, if I remember correctly. I think every writer should do so at least once, until the city gets better.
Unfortunately, as critical as grunge was, it appears to have made Seattle even worse than it already was by giving the city more of a name, which caused already soggy heads to swell.
5 novaseeker // Jul 15, 2009 at 11:15 am
I was in Seattle in the late 1990s. I liked certain things about the place, like the water everywhere and Mt. Ranier in the background and so on. But there also was this vibe of superciliousness, this sense that the city was in love with itself, which was quite noticeable.
I think, though, that it’s a more pleasant city than many to live in.
6 Welmer // Jul 15, 2009 at 11:25 am
Yes, you got it Novaseeker. This is exactly why I feel obliged to take a swipe at it from time to time.
Seattle is pleasant, but for the most part the people are not.
BTW, were you working here? I was in China during the late 90s. For the first month or so after I got back to Seattle I had this compelling urge to turn around and fly right back to Beijing.
Then I met my ex, and decided to stay, and now I’m stuck…
Sometimes life really does play practical jokes on you, doesn’t it?
7 Lukobe // Jul 15, 2009 at 12:45 pm
“Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” is the Nirvana song in question.
8 Kevin K // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:03 pm
As a kid, I always wanted to work for Boeing. Do really awesome aerospace vehicles count as culture? Is Boeing considered to be in Seattle?
9 Welmer // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Boeing’s gone international, and doesn’t define Seattle to the extent it used to. In fact, the corporate headquarters are located in Chicago now, and parts are made all over the world.
However, it is a big part of local culture. My grandfather worked there as an engineer for nearly 40 years, and countless other Seattlites have similar connections to the company.
Aerospace is a great and interesting part of American culture in general, but unfortunately engineers have almost no input in politics, arts, etc. Therefore, Seattle is not defined culturally by Aerospace so much as by the various officials, politicians and developers I have grown to despise.
However, if you do visit Seattle you should definitely go to the Museum of Flight. Lots of guys I’ve met loved the place.
10 cayalx // Jul 15, 2009 at 5:44 pm
i wonder if the natural beauty of the pacific northwest somehow plays into the provincial culture. Why try hard to be friendly when you can just look out your window at Rainier or the Olympics? Find a few people to enjoy this stuff with and you are set. Obviously this can’t be the only reason for the cities issues, as there are many other scenic places with different cultures, but I’m betting this is a factor.
11 Welmer // Jul 15, 2009 at 5:57 pm
To be honest, cayalx, I’ve been scratching my head about Seattle’s dysfunctional culture for quite some time. Is it the environment? Is it the ethnic makeup of the city? Is it the large number of transplants?
I’m not sure it’s any of those things. When I visited Bellingham recently, the people were similar – worse, actually – so I’d have to say it’s a regional thing. Maybe I’d just chalk it up to a general cultural stupidity.
I’d like to do my part to change it, but as one little person I can’t do all that much. This is really why I wrote a post tearing Seattle down. I have the feeling that if Seattle had ever been literally torn down by war or disaster or whatever, then maybe the place would have more soul. As it is, most people here live in a comfortable little bubble.
Afflicting the comfortable is something that comes naturally (although not profitably) to me, so I’ll probably go after this place again.
Seattle is an island of mediocrity. It deserves some serious criticism.
12 novaseeker // Jul 15, 2009 at 7:54 pm
“BTW, were you working here? I was in China during the late 90s. For the first month or so after I got back to Seattle I had this compelling urge to turn around and fly right back to Beijing.
Then I met my ex, and decided to stay, and now I’m stuck…
Sometimes life really does play practical jokes on you, doesn’t it?”
Yes, it does.
I wasn’t working there, but visited a few times on business and then once on vacation.
Many of us are in that boat. I never thought I would be living in the DC area, but met my ex and stayed and so on. Stuck is probably a good way to describe it. If you think the people in Seattle are bad, I don’t think you could stand the kinds we get here in DC. Insufferable arrogance really.
13 murray // Jul 15, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I’ve never been to Seattle and don’t know much about the place. I’m from the Southeastern U.S., and haven’t been west of Detroit’s airport since I was a toddler, so I have no contact or experience with Seattle or the Western U.S. for that matter.
When I try to think about Seattle, having never been there and not knowing much about it, all I get is a collage in my mind of stuff/images/things/people that have been packaged and presented by our larger American culture: Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, grunge, Microsoft, Bill Gates, Starbucks, Frasier, the Space Needle, Shawn Kemp, the Supersonics, the Mariners, the Seahawks, Ken Griffey Jr., a big volcanic mountain (Mt. St. Helens or Helena?), coffee, Ichiro, the domed baseball stadium, cloudy & rainy weather, marinas with lots of white boats bobbing about under a cloudy sky with tall trees and mountains in the background, totem poles, big trees and forests, windbreaker jackets, flannel, introversion. And probably a bunch of other stuff, but I can’t quite make out the images in my mind right now.
I’m sure I sound like an obnoxious and ignorant outsider, but I must say that I’m being honest. Our culture seems to have strong opinions about things -about how things should “seem” to us ordinary folk, and it does its damnedest to make sure those opinions become our own. So that’s what Seattle seems to me.
Also, I’ve always wanted to visit Seattle, but I don’t really know why. I think it must be the fact that I’m a “90s child” and so come of age when Kurt Cobain and Nirvana shot to stardom.
14 Lukobe // Jul 15, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, grunge, Microsoft, Bill Gates, Starbucks, Frasier, the Space Needle, Shawn Kemp, the Supersonics, the Mariners, the Seahawks, Ken Griffey Jr., a big volcanic mountain (Mt. St. Helens or Helena?), coffee, Ichiro, the domed baseball stadium, cloudy & rainy weather, marinas with lots of white boats bobbing about under a cloudy sky with tall trees and mountains in the background, totem poles, big trees and forests, windbreaker jackets, flannel, introversion.
Pretty accurate, actually. Well, Cobain’s dead and grunge over, Frasier was rather silly and unrepresentative, the Sonics are now in Oklahoma City, (it’s St. Helens), the Kingdome was blown up in 2000, and only a couple of totem poles within the city limits. But basically, yeah. Surprised you didn’t mention Boeing or Amazon.
15 Welmer // Jul 15, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Yeah, I was pretty impressed by how accurate Murray was as well. However, what he and the rest of the country don’t generally know is what Seattle doesn’t have.
As a southerner, Murray probably takes fine local cuisine, hospitality and a good sense of history for granted.
Seattle has none of these. Seattle’s idea of hospitality is sending the homeless (or the Chinese last century) to San Francisco. Our idea of fine cuisine is endless salmon steaks on cedar planks (gets old real quick — better for dog food). Our idea of history… well, we have some, but hardly a soul here could tell you what it is (except Lukobe).
This town is so culturally deprived that people were willing to let Frank Gehry plunk what is possibly the worst piece of architecture in the world right in the middle of our city.
16 miles // Jul 16, 2009 at 4:35 am
http://www.thecityreview.com/phaid55.jpg
There is much to be said for a culture and a civic leadership that allows such a building to be unleashed upon its citizens. How many citizens would have voted-Athenian like-to have that monstrosity imposed upon them?
That building teaches some bad lessons. Architecturally speaking it seems to cry out, “despite my unstraight lines and seemingly mathematical incongruity, Im still usable and viable”. Usually in the world the opposite is true. It also says, “look at me: Im big, loud, and ugly, but still command your attention and was built despite your dislike of me, and you will be paying for me for a long time anyway—-screw you Joe Taxpayer.”
A building like that is sort of an end-zone sack dance in the taxpayer’s face. Im sure loads of young women love it.
17 cayalx // Jul 17, 2009 at 12:43 am
actually Murray, the big volcanic mountain near Seattle is Mt Rainier. St Helens did blow it’s top some 30 years ago, so it’s more significant for having done that, but it’s a lot closer to Portland (my city) than Seattle. I’ll just add that I think Portland is more friendly on the whole than Seattle, but it’s got some of the same issues.
that Ghery building looks like a rotten tomato, btw.
18 Lukobe // Jul 17, 2009 at 3:24 pm
That Gehry building, the EMP, was at least not paid for with public funds, unlike our Koolhaas-designed Central Library. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Central_Library
19 Of No Consequence // Jul 17, 2009 at 6:29 pm
All places that are extremely “multicultural” (multiracial) like Seattle inevitably decline…multiple races inhabiting the same territory goes against the natural order.
20 Welmer // Jul 17, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Actually, Seattle is one of the whitest cities in America. And yet it still sucks.
Not saying it’s because of the whites, of course, but rather the primitive state of culture here.
As far as culture is concerned, I like Paris and St. Petersburg in Europe, Beijing in China, and probably San Francisco here on the West Coast.
21 Lukobe // Jul 18, 2009 at 6:54 pm
“Of No Consequence,” Welmer is absolutely right. Where do you get the idea that Seattle is a melting pot? It’s mostly white — I think, of cities of its size, only Portland, Oregon, is whiter — with a good number of Asians, some blacks, and a growing number of Hispanics — but it’s still mostly white.
“Multiple races inhabiting the same territory goes against the natural order” — yeah. Guess I must personally go against the natural order. I suppose you’re 100% white, yourself?
22 Savvy // Jul 30, 2009 at 4:12 pm
From what I know about Sea Town it was and still is grunge.
I get what you are saying, though and LA (where I am) has it’s problems, too. There are Christians, though. I guess it all depends on what pocket of people you run with. Even New York has its fair share of very ignorant people.
23 Joe // Aug 10, 2009 at 1:56 am
Holy Crap you’re absolutely right.
Seattle is super narcissistic, whitebread, and utterly soulless. I am getting out in a few days and I shall never return. Seriously, if I have to come back here to visit friends, damned the extra cost, I’m flying into Vancouver.
24 Seattleblue // Aug 31, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I remember Seattle being very different in the late 80′s/ early 90′s. That’s when I was a teenager so you know how that goes as far as memories.
But I remember wandering around exploring different places. It seemed that there was always some little nook with something cool, some funky neighborhood to check out, weird shops, MUSIC, and lots of things I don’t see today.
I moved away in the 90′s and came back in 2005. It’s just so different. I know I have changed as I approach 40. The world weighs heavy as we move through life. But… it’s still different in a way that I can’t account for by age alone.
It really is soulless. I don’t know if people like the mayor and the city council are the cause or s symptom. It’s a city full of empty condos that no one can afford. Clubs and those cool little bars where bands used to play get stomped out of existence with permitting processes and other procedural violence. Culture is whitewashed by the corporate mentality running the show because they want to present a sanitized face to the world. But sometimes dirt adds character.
Maybe its the winding down of the whole country. It just doesn’t feel like the same country I grew up in anymore.
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