Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
profile local voice. You can read his weekly column in the
Stranger
, an alternative free
newspaper that picked up a Pulitzer Prize in 2012.
Dealing with Success
Despite its achievements and importance to the region, Seattle still has the mellow
sense of modesty and self-deprecation that characterizes the Northwest. This dates back
to its laid-back origins as 'New York Pretty Soon.' The attitude peaked in the 1950s
and ΚΌ60s, with the wild anti-boosterism of newspaper columnist Emmett Watson (who
wrote things like 'Have a nice day - somewhere else' and 'Our suicide rate is one of
the highest in the nation. But we can be No 1!'). And it has colored the way the nation
perceives Seattle, along with the popularization of the anti-glamorous in the form of
grunge, a trend whose fame still seems to mortify the city. Then there was Seattle's na-
ive excitement at being selected to host the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO)
conference and many residents' shock at the resulting fallout.
Seattle has long made a habit of turning its clever homemade inventions into global
brands. But the city has always had an uncomfortable relationship with the success it
has struggled to achieve. Ask an average Seattleite how they rate Starbucks and they
might express barely concealed pride one minute and tell you they never drink there the
next. Similar sentiments are reserved for business behemoths Microsoft, Boeing and
Amazon.
Two of Seattle's most successful citizens also happen to be its two largest public fig-
ures, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. And they symbolize a certain aspect of the city's con-
tradictory attitude toward its own success. Both undeniably ambitious and indisputably
successful, Gates and Allen are seen simultaneously as points of civic pride and as
shameless capitalists who are totally alien to the prevailing Seattle culture.
Arts
Seattle is an erudite city of enthusiastic readers with more bookstores per capita than
any other US city. It also produced - and remains HQ to - the world's biggest online re-
tailer, Amazon.com, founded in 1995 as an online bookstore. Not surprisingly, numer-
ous internationally recognized writers gravitate here, among them Tom Robbins,
Jonathan Raban and Sherman Alexie. David Guterson - author of the wonderfully
evocative
Snow Falling on Cedars
(1994), set on a fictional Puget Sound island - was
born in Seattle, graduated from the University of Washington and now lives on Bain-
bridge Island.
