For this particular installment, let’s try some superficial comparisons between the Seattle of the previous century (which I’ve called City Light) and the Seattle that’s emerged in the past few years (which I’m calling City Extra Light).
- QUINTESSENTIAL FIGURE
In City Light: The Boeing engineer.
In City Extra Light: The dot-com tycoon.
- VEHICLE
In City Light: Volvo (with a no-nukes bumper sticker).
In City Extra Light: Mercedes SUV (with a fraudulant handicapped parking sticker).
- ARCHITECTURE (PUBLIC)
In CIty Light: Multi-purpose and thrifty (if less than durable).
In City Extra Light: Big and bold and for the PoMo ages.
- THE HOME
In CIty Light: A modest yet homey bungalow.
In City Extra Light: Either a $2 million waterfront “cabin” or a $1 million “art loft.”
- FOOD & DRINK
In CIty Light: “Gourmet” versions of regular-Joe staples (coffee, beer,hot dogs, burgers, gorp).
In City Extra Light: Either pan-Asian fusion cuisine or Italian “peasant food” at non-peasant prices.
- NEWS MEDIA
In CIty Light: Tasteful cheerleading for the Chamber of Commerce agenda.
In City Extra Light: Desperate cheerleading for the Chamber of Commerce agenda.
- HUMOR
In CIty Light: Smart and self-depricating wit (Almost Live, the Presidents, Young Fresh Fellows, Hate comics, early Lynda Barry).
In City Extra Light: No humor at all (beyond ice-breaker remarks at schmooze parties and racist jokes excused as “parodies” of racist jokes).
- SPIRITUALITY
In CIty Light: Either Protestantism Lite (Unity Church, liberal Methodist) or neopagan goddesses.
In City Extra Light: The New Holy Trinity–money, power, and more money.
- MASCULINITY
In CIty Light: The curious harmony of old-fashioned bourgeois tact and aging-boomer male-feminist submissiveness.
In City Extra Light: “If you don’t like my driving call 800-EAT-SHIT.”
- FEMININITY
In CIty Light: The curious mix of aging-boomer feminist sanctimony and post-sex-lib man-objectifying.
In City Extra Light: “I want to come back as Barbie–the bitch has everything.”
- ECONOMIC CLASS STRUCTURES
In CIty Light: The illusion of middle-class unanimity (the poor tried to live above their means; the rich demured away from ostentatious displays of wealth).
In City Extra Light: The Jell-O 1-2-3 economy (a thin creamy layer on top, a slightly thicker viscous layer just beneath the top, and a lot of gelled mass trapped on the bottom).
- SPORT
In CIty Light: Lovable losers.
In City Extra Light: Pissed-off near-winners.
- THE “FINE” ARTS
In CIty Light: Prosaic glass bowls.
In City Extra Light: Big new arts buildings housing “major institutions” that spend more on janitors than on local artists-playwrights-composers.
- THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS
In CIty Light: Funky/populist performance pieces and gallery shows in lo-rent surplus buildings.
In City Extra Light: Bam-bam-bam dance nights, all starring Californian DJs (with local DJs relegated to opening slots) and promoted in that Penthouse magazine Helvetica typeface.
