Best Of Seattle Culture

In thinking about a "best of" for Seattle, I decided to break it down into two categories, one for the best film, books, and literature made in Seattle, and in the next couple days, one for the best places to acquire such things. Let's get down to it!

Best film made in Seattle: Fire Walk With Me

This will be a controversial choice for sure, but after reviewing the Seattle Film Office's list of films made in Seattle, Fire Walk With Me became an easy choice. Though a charming Jeff Bridges trifecta  (Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys, American Heart) was filmed in our fair city, no other movie can boast such a visceral, terrifying impact that has only increased in the last fifteen years. Lambasted when it was released, Fire Walks With Me remains David Lynch's most underrated film. Perhaps this is because audiences and critics were in general so disappointed in the direction of Twin Peaks' second season. Fire Walk With me takes Lynch's elliptical, nihilistic noir even further, finding something that is both inscrutable and horrifying. For Lynch, a murder mystery had no end, but was simply a launch-point into the depths, and what better locale to echo these cosmos than Seattle's aqueous, evergreen core?

Best Living Seattle Musician: Quincy Jones

OK. First let me acknowledge the obvious greatness of Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, and Ray Charles. Let me also note the talents of cool current bands like Fleet Foxes, Truckasaurus and the Department of Safety crew up in Anacortes. And also let me note that Jones no longer lives here full time, but he did attend Garfield High which makes him a native. Many of you may think of Jones frozen in the early 1980s, clad in a collarless shirt, sitting on a plush, sectional sofa, critiquing the mix-down of Thriller, but the truth is Jones has had one of the most prolific and remarkable careers in American music. In addition to orchestrating some of the biggest albums of all time, Jones recorded some sizzling, extremely fun albums in the early 70s (Smackwater Jack), deep, dramatic scores in the 1960s (In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night) and classy west-coast jazz in the 1950s (This is How I Feel About Jazz). Jones is behind (in some way or another) literally hundreds of hours of brilliant music. And he's still gracious enough to give commencement speeches for UW's graduating class.

Best Seattle Writer: Neal Stephenson

Seattle is a very literary town, lots of book stores, clubs, giant corporations centered around books, workshops, open mikes etc. Many excellent writers live here. The brilliant, apocalyptic poet Theodore Roethke held class at the Blue Moon Tavern and died in the swimming pool of the Bloedel estate on Bainbridge Island. Roethke's protoge, David Wagoner has enjoyed an illustrious and multi varied career. Writers like Charles Johnson and David Guterson (Johnson's protoge) have won the National Book Award and National Book Critic's Circle Award and two faculty members of the creative writing department at University of Washington have received MacArthur (Genius) awards. But is there a more quintessentially Seattle writer than Neal Stephenson? Though pigeon-holed as a Sci-Fi writer, Stephenson writes immense, complex dazzling novels of cryptography, space operas, and cyber-second lives. He is a deeply intelligent human and a highly entertaining writer who is almost always ahead of the curve. And his books sell by the boatload too.