North-Western revelations.
Prior to flying there I knew very little about Seattle. Rain and Kurt Cobain, Foo Fighters and Starbucks, Amazon and serial killers. Squashed between a Pacific coastline that looked too tormented to be understandable and the linear dichotomy of the Canadian border, Seattle has never been a place I’d spent much time thinking about.
The plane floated above a mountainscape of such density that it felt as if peaks had mushroomed without bothering to arrange themselves in cordilleras or valleys. Fjords worthy of Norway’s Sogn pushed inland like silvery tongues of water; forests rushed to meet them, pines standing on the very shoreline like penguins on an ice floe. When it came to it, the urban texture of the city popped out almost unannounced; first a grid of suburbs, rows of homes sitting in large gardens, then a palisade of skyscrapers that descended towards a shoreline and a busy, industrial port. I didn’t know Seattle had either.
I harbour a deep sympathy for cities built by the sea, where the port isn’t out of sight and mind and commuters can take a ferry to work: Seattle had all three, the latter taking the form of beautifully démodé white boats that cruised majestically between the city and an archipelago of forested islands lurking in the mist. America, I was discovering, had its own Ha Long bay, only replete with places where to find bacon and fresh fish.
On the topic of bacon, breakfast at Lowell’s. Seven AM is the golden hour in this much-respected establishment, three floors of dark wood and well-used furniture rising above the city’s market. The place drips Americana: Eagles schmoozing on the stereo and punters wearing the combo of Patagonia jackets, Carhartt hoodies and Seahawk hats that are de rigueur amongst the city’s early risers, but more on them later. For now, breakfast. Fried oysters surf on a tectonic plate of scrambled eggs, shaving of cheese, bacon and rye bread. Beneath it, the solid crust of a monumental hash brown that has very little to share with the triangular sadness of those in Britain. Coffee is served with miraculous instantaneity. Whoever said Americans don’t have good food is a twat.
There’s a decidedly industrial aspect to this town. Barges are pushed by tugs around the fjord. A floating derrick is busy doing something obscure by the seaside promenade. Ocean-going freighters are tended to by enormous cranes in a frenzied choreography of moving containers. Behind them a cement factory spews vapour in the drizzle.
This city looks big-boned, barrel-chested. The streets are pounded, at this time of the day, by workers wearing baggy Dickies overalls, wide-brimmed hard hats plastered in stickers, red hi-vis jackets with Motorola radio sets clipped in. Every other vehicle is a Ford F-150 laden with tools or clapped-out GCM Savanas.
On the topics of white, non-descript vans, as we walk under the rain through a quiet suburb north of the city centre it’s hard not to talk about serial killers. Gary Ridgeway and Ted Bundy: were it not for these lands true crime podcasts would have to make do with Bernie Madoff and art theft (which wouldn’t be a bad thing, let me be clear). We walk up to a junction, empty but for us, a bundle of blankets left behind by a vagrant and two crows quarrelling over something very much dead outside of Yummy Teriyaki. The sky is battleship grey and it’s drizzling. I can all but see Gillian Anderson approaching a murder scene wearing her characteristic frown. Above us the flank of the hill is covered by florid-looking houses with lush pine trees and panoramic windows facing downtown; no one is in sight, though. Probably they’re all downstairs, cooking body parts in large cauldrons like many gigantic bouillabaisses.
A sign proclaiming a smoke-free zone has been nailed to a railing in the Kerry Park belvedere. An unseen hand has slapped on an Eintracht Frankfurt ultras sticker whilst another has crossed out the word ‘free’ and added another adhesive reading “Boring”.
There’s a vibrant art scene in town and stickers are but a minor expression of it. As we walk, I begin noticing those attached to the buttons you use to call for a traffic light to turn white and allow pedestrians to cross. A penguin holds a bottle of booze and says he’s sorry. A very young Matthew Broderick says that it must be 11:11 somewhere. A cryptic note asks for crème brûlée.
A city with a fully-functioning monorail sporting sci-fi looks straight out of a Ray Bradbury book can’t avoid being edgy. Resting on a bedrock of hippy traditions, fertilised by high-quality and legal weed, Seattle’s alternative scene flourishes in ways that those whiny posers over in Shoreditch will never be able to copy. Perhaps it’s the vicinity to the great outdoors and the invigorating activities – biking, hiking, skiing - that they allow, but Seattle’s hipsters appear happier, less conformist, more active and less geeky than their East London cousins. And they achieve all that whilst sporting facial hair that reach levels of flamboyance never seen outside a Village People video, or a firefighters’ charity calendar.
Perhaps it’s because of the weather, or maybe it’s the fact that we aren’t camping outside every wework in town, but my expectation of finding Seattle swamped with socially-inept software engineers appears to be a tad overblown. Granted, we spot a few of them walking around, blue badge flying in the wind like a royal standard. Moreover, signs of their presence are visible everywhere: Uber bikes, Tesla Model 3s, a serving of glass profiteroles plonked on a downtown block (courtesy of Amazon) and what looks like lots of painfully awkward office dinners in as many Japanese restaurants. Less amusing are the effects on the housing market of the arrival of so many well-paid geeks, with rents rising like inflation in Argentina and a large, even by US standards, community of homeless. Still, you won’t find me joining the anti-tech boys picket lines anytime soon. Unlike bankers, they’re largely making productive contributions to society, have never triggered a global recession, have never been bailed by the taxpayer and will never wear a pink tie.
Sun sets behind an overcast sky and, with it, ends our time in Seattle. We trudge back to the airport and its Alaska Airlines hangars emblazoned with a hooded Inuit who bears an uncanny resemblance to a smirking Silvio Berlusconi, triggering innumerable conspiracy theories. Whatever the truth, one thing is for sure: we shall be back.
