Seattle in the Sunday NYT
This town is everywhere in The New York Times today. First, in the magazine section, there's a Rob Walker "Consumed" column that includes Nordstrom, the Destee Nation Shirt Company, the Blue Moon Tavern, and even "the dubious-sounding Tractor Tavern." Dubious? Why dubious? Does Mr. Walker think they sell tractors instead of beer?
Then local architect Tom Kundig (of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects) gets a magazine spread for some NoCal vacation home we could never afford. (This on the same day The Seattle Times is sending its love to Kundig. Dude, who's your publicist?)
Former SW contributor Alan Furst, now a successful spy novelist out in the Hamptons, gets a nice little weekend profile here.
Then, over in the Sunday NYT book review section, there's former SW writer Bruce Barcott's review of The Other, the latest novel from Bainbridge Island's own David Guterson. Usually a guy of sound judgment, Barcott loves the book, though I've read some considerably less charitable assessments. (Funny how Guterson's publisher didn't send us a review copy...but that's another blog post.)
Barcott praises Guterson, in a tale of divergent friendship among two Seattle buddies, for the book's specific local details: "Guterson’s characters live in the city as it really is. They grab fish and chips at Spud on Green Lake, browse for used books at Shorey’s, trip on the mushrooms that grow wild in Ravenna Park. Guterson knows Seattle the way Updike knows small-town Pennsylvania."
And before you quibble, the book starts in 1972, so both Barcott and Guterson know that Shorey's is now closed. And there's no mention of that dubious-sounding Tractor Tavern.
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