I could write an encyclopedia about Seattle and it's quirky, hipster, weird, inappropriate, smelly, flashy, out and proud, hot, loud mess. Not to mention the king county metro, which is an opera of strange unto itself. Anyway, upon reflecting on my past two years living in the city of rain, I kinda feel like making a greatest hits of Seattle, as I've experienced it:
Crazy Street People: "HEY! I love your hair!" [The guy is older, unkempt, white.]
"You know- it's so pretty. Women these days, they just don't let it grow long anymore. It's beautiful. Men love that." [The guy he's with starts touching my ponytail from behind me. And he starts growling.] "Hey! Don't do that to her! You'll scare 'er."
-Crack Heads: No, actual crack-heads. With bull-horns and megaphones and a chip on their collective shoulder. At 5:03 am.
-Tacoma: If you're from there, you love it. If you are not, you think of it as the Detroit of the northwest.
-Seattle Fashion: In Capitol Hill, its actually cool to look like Madonna in the 1980's. Especially if you are a male. Extra points for 'skinny' jeans, flats, and look-alike boyfriend-girlfriend ensembles. Really, couples that go out dressed EXACTLY the same, down to the haircut and make-up, in a non-ironic way.
-Late Night Eats at Dick's: Chicks love Dicks. Thats the unofficial tagline for the only place in the city where you can feast on 1.25 hamburgers. They even taste good if your drunk.
-General Geographic Confusion: I’ve met people who insisted that the Cascades are a branch of the Rockies and that Colorado is in the ‘Mid-West’. You know, because its, like the middle of the west.
-Being Eco-Friendly: A huge passion for every self-respecting Seattle-ite. They love organic anything, shade-grown fair trade coffee beans, recycle obsessive-compulsively, drive their Prius everywhere they can't bike to, support local EVERYTHING (down to the local, organic, all-natural fair-trade artisan hand-crafted small-batch gellato at Madison Market, that comes in 5 delicious flavors, only $5.45 per pint).
-Loving 'Local' Music: The local music scene currently kinda sucks. Yes, I said it. Not that it's a bad thing, its just a time for every kid with a guitar to go back to their basement and come up with something less contrived than the 'indie' music scene. Not that this state of affairs makes Seattle-ites any less snobby about which show they went to, where, and how small and private and life changing it was.
-Excitement about Snow: Every time it snows in Seattle, the way people react, you'd think it was the first time it has ever snowed. There's always the one person who swears they've never seen snow before, and its not long until everyone tries to go out and play in it- all 0.5 inches of it. And despite the skill with which Seattle drivers navigate rain-slick roads, a few flurries of snow turns every seasoned driver into a 13 year old joy-ridding in their parents car for the first time. Everyone behind the wheel acts like they never passed the state DMV test or have tied more than a few on a the local bar.
-Being Politically Correct: This attitude is epitomized in the 'Uptight Seattlite' column in The Stranger. You know, the stereotypical plaid-wearing, 'spiritual'-not religious, more-progressive and open-minded than-thou and not afraid to tell you about to recycle more- that is, if they were into sticking labels such as 'should' to something when they earnestly believe that every person should have the inalienable right to be whoever they are and express that being through whatever artistic actions necessary. You know, the one you swear is based on your boss/professor/neighbor/barrista/piercer at Laughing Buddha.
-UW: Pronounced "You-Dub". No one calls it the University of Washington. People from the state of Washington seem to be split: half of them went there and are perennial Husky fans; the other half hate with the institution with a passion that no one to date has even been able to rationally explain to me.
-'Partly Sunny': Everywhere else, this is known a partly cloudy. In Seattle, cloudy is so common that they feel the need to mix it up on the weather forecast with optimistic sounding predictions of "chance of sun" or "partly sunny".
-Hating (and living in) Condos: Yes, those fascist property czars have torn down the original Bimbos, your favorite record store, vacant buildings and everything in between to create hundreds of brand-new, crammed together apartments that you can actually own. The ones that have been trying to out-advertise each other in how 'green' and 'alternative' they are. As if giant, multimillion-dollar luxury condos can even be green or alternative. Widely slammed as destroying the great neighborhood charms (read: rotting victorian dollhouse homes, dilapidated commercial space from the 1940s, and vacant lots littered with used syringes) that make Seattle so great and UNIQUE. Will the forces of homogeneity and conformity prevail? Well, I don't think they would be building so many of them if people weren't (literally) buying into them. Hey, on the upside, the view from your condo might be super-cool, until you know, they build another, bigger, taller condo tower the legal 15-feet minimum away from yours, permanently blocking out the sun and your 'property' value.
-Rain boots: No one wears them, even though it rains constantly.
-Unexpected Public Art: Yes, graffiti is art. So are sign-pole cozies that someone probably took hours to hand-stitch to the lonely, bare sign pole. So are the hilarious and heroic paper cutouts that people paste to buildings depicting Spiderman, an Andre the Giant face or the infamous 'Chicken-with-a-Penis'. Awe inspiring, graphic, and usually bizarre- like those squid spray paint stencils on every other sidewalk off Broadway.
Eh, I'll think of more later.
No comments:
Post a Comment