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Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: A Love Story
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Most cities have tales of rises and falls, yet if the stories aren't glamorous or notorious, only their citizens want to hear them. Moody's tale of Seattle bucks that trend. Editor of the Seattle Weekly and a Washington State native, Moody combines historical background and individual experience for a funky mix of personal reflection and fascinating urban tales. Although the author jumps from one subject to another, his writing style packs as much humor and easy flow as a Kurt Cobain tune. With crisp phrasing and love for a good quote, he describes a city that has weathered not just Nirvana and Microsoft, but also characters like Ivar Haglund, a boisterous seafood purveyor who thought up slogans like "Keep Clam." Moody begins his ruminations with the 1999 WTO riots and explains how Seattle's ignorance, self-absorption and blind self-importance fueled an already explosive situation. Although it's obvious he has deep affection for his home, Moody doesn't sport rose-colored glasses. He self-deprecatingly details his lack of ambition in the late 1970s, a quality shared by many Seattleites. As Bill Gates made the '80s into a software whirlwind and grunge began seeping in a decade later, Moody navigates the city's changes with awe and suspicion. He slams Seattle for a backward attitude about immigration, poorly planned initiatives and coldness toward the homeless and the disenfranchised. Yet this is indeed a love story. Moody feels for Seattle the way one might love a relative who has a good heart but does some truly asinine things, despite some ire, he makes that relative worth knowing.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
With a mixture of distaste and envy, Moody, a Seattle native and a former editor of the Seattle Weekly, chronicles the dizzying transformation of the Northwest's signature city from a sleepy backwater, known mostly for its spectacular scenery and laid-back lifestyle, to an epicenter of the high-tech revolution. A confessed slacker and a sympathizer with Lesser Seattle, the city's unorganized opposition to progress, Moody himself succumbs to the allures of the new economy, quitting his newspaper job to sign up with a start-up Internet company that soon goes bust, along with hundreds of other Seattle start-ups spawned by the promise of instant riches. He comes to see their demise, and his own, as just retribution for the sin of violating, through excessive ambition and self-promotion, the city's ethic of seemly moderation. Moody gives just enough of Seattle's early history to explain how the city got to be a haven from most of the stresses of modern American life, then concentrates on the 1990s, when the burgeoning success of companies like Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Starbucks changed the city's culture. He is especially good at detailing the growth of Microsoft, which was driven by the unbridled ambition of its founder, Bill Gates. In a telling moment, Gates has something of an epiphany when he realizes that a potential competitor, the publishing industry, is not a threat because it has only "finite greed." It should probably move to Seattle, Moody might think, and Microsoft to New York. Dennis Dodge
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Most cities have tales of rises and falls, yet if the stories aren't glamorous or notorious, only their citizens want to hear them. Moody's tale of Seattle bucks that trend. Editor of the Seattle Weekly and a Washington State native, Moody combines historical background and individual experience for a funky mix of personal reflection and fascinating urban tales. Although the author jumps from one subject to another, his writing style packs as much humor and easy flow as a Kurt Cobain tune. With crisp phrasing and love for a good quote, he describes a city that has weathered not just Nirvana and Microsoft, but also characters like Ivar Haglund, a boisterous seafood purveyor who thought up slogans like "Keep Clam." Moody begins his ruminations with the 1999 WTO riots and explains how Seattle's ignorance, self-absorption and blind self-importance fueled an already explosive situation. Although it's obvious he has deep affection for his home, Moody doesn't sport rose-colored glasses. He self-deprecatingly details his lack of ambition in the late 1970s, a quality shared by many Seattleites. As Bill Gates made the '80s into a software whirlwind and grunge began seeping in a decade later, Moody navigates the city's changes with awe and suspicion. He slams Seattle for a backward attitude about immigration, poorly planned initiatives and coldness toward the homeless and the disenfranchised. Yet this is indeed a love story. Moody feels for Seattle the way one might love a relative who has a good heart but does some truly asinine things, despite some ire, he makes that relative worth knowing.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
With a mixture of distaste and envy, Moody, a Seattle native and a former editor of the Seattle Weekly, chronicles the dizzying transformation of the Northwest's signature city from a sleepy backwater, known mostly for its spectacular scenery and laid-back lifestyle, to an epicenter of the high-tech revolution. A confessed slacker and a sympathizer with Lesser Seattle, the city's unorganized opposition to progress, Moody himself succumbs to the allures of the new economy, quitting his newspaper job to sign up with a start-up Internet company that soon goes bust, along with hundreds of other Seattle start-ups spawned by the promise of instant riches. He comes to see their demise, and his own, as just retribution for the sin of violating, through excessive ambition and self-promotion, the city's ethic of seemly moderation. Moody gives just enough of Seattle's early history to explain how the city got to be a haven from most of the stresses of modern American life, then concentrates on the 1990s, when the burgeoning success of companies like Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Starbucks changed the city's culture. He is especially good at detailing the growth of Microsoft, which was driven by the unbridled ambition of its founder, Bill Gates. In a telling moment, Gates has something of an epiphany when he realizes that a potential competitor, the publishing industry, is not a threat because it has only "finite greed." It should probably move to Seattle, Moody might think, and Microsoft to New York. Dennis Dodge
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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