conspicuous and unhappy consequences of this are the sales tax and the absence of a bottle bill law. The sales tax, of course, disproportionately burdens the non-rich, whose entire expendable income becomes subject to the tax. Nor shall I ever adjust to the sight of wasted bottles, along the street or in the green metal dumpster behind my apartment house. The electric company here, City Light (which, from the name, I first took to be a bookstore or nightclub), is municipally owned, and that is to the city’s credit. It costs $1.50 per month to heat and light my small apartment, which consists of four rooms if you ask the manager, one room if you ask me. Both cities have beautiful mountains. But Seattle has, in addition, a complicated system of waterways which so intercut the city that you must go to some effort to rent an apartment without a water view. Along these lakes and canals and the bay itself, there are beaches and parks and dozens of restaurants which take advantage of the view. I never understood how Portland, the third largest western shipping port, developed with its back so completely turned to the river, nor why there are only two good shoreline views of the western skyline—the restaurant at the Coliseum Thunderbird, an expensive and indifferent place to eat, and the restaurants in that forlorn developer’s dream, Ports of Call. Some of Seattle’s waterscapes are so breathtaking as to represent a hazard. The southbound freeway entrance to 1-5 from Lake City Way at sunset, for instance: you come out of a tunnel and, at the very moment that complete concentration is needed for the merge into traffic, to your left Green Lake opens up, now pink in the sunset and beyond it Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains, all lit electric copper. The highway department is derelict in not posting the entrance ramp: Danger—Sunset over Water. With so much water, people pass the time watching things that move through water, and two of the city’s biggest attractions are the Hiram Chittenden Locks, where boats pass from the fresh-water harbor to saltwater Puget Sound, and the Seattle Aquarium which features an underwater dome where visitors can sit listening to piped-in jazz and contemplate a diversity of fish. An indooroutdoor facility, the aquarium reclaimed this fall a first generation of salmon which, after 18 months in the sound, returned home up the ladder which is part of the aquarium’s exhibit. Seattle’s downtown center is larger than Portland’s and, to judge by the number of people on the street nights and Sundays, there is more happening. A greater ethnic diversity makes Seattle feel like more of a city. The weekend of the Greek Festival, celebrated in both cities alike, I also attended in Seattle, along with 250 other people, a reception at the Rainier Club in honor of Double Ten Day, that is, the founding of Taiwan in 1911, an important event for the powerful Chinese merchants here. And on that same weekend, I went also to the King County Library book sale (as in Portland, county institutions and events are considered vaguely ethnic), where 42,000 discontinued volumes were offered for sale (fifty cents for hardbacks; ten cents for paper) and, finally, to the Our Lady of Levant ceremony in the Madrona district. This is an annual neighborhood tradition where costumed guests, carrying candles or banners, march in procession from what is acclaimed to be the only It is that "never seen" that I enjoy about Seattle. I am delighted by the existence of streets unwalked, people unmet, accidents and surprises yet to be encountered. Jewish shrine in the city, to the Denny Shed Pond, where speeches and testimonials are heard. I thought the band was playing “Abide with Me” on the outbound trip; it was decidedly “Havah Nagilah” on our way back. The whole affair owes much to Monty Python and the more garish Fellini movies, and is hosted by Seattle publisher (Madrona Press) Dan Levant. Seattle’s neighborhoods are distinct and exist irrespective of any political structures such as the definitions which the Goldschmidt planning bureau imposed on the geography of Portland. Scandinavian Ballard is autonomous, as are the so- called International (euphemism for Oriental) District, the University District, which looks like Berkeley did 20 years ago, or Capitol Hill (which I hesitate to characterize for fear of making the same diplomatic error which Oriana Fallaci made recently Playboy). Like Portland’s Old Town, Pioneer Square is not a real neighborhood anymore. The score is currently Bums 5—Boutiques 4. An aspect of Seattle that I find charming is its alleys. Cobblestone, paved, or crumbling to gravel, they are throughout the city. One of the more romantic is that section of Post Alley which leads off south from the Public Market and along which are both the Pike Place Cinema and Le Bistro. But even my block has an alley and through it, looking south, a glimpse of the ubiquitous blue bay. Here I meet the “recycling team,” three elderly Indians who work this neighborhood. They zigzag through back lots from dumpster to dumpster, dragging heavy bags in which they collect bottles and cans. They work fast. Sometimes they also find cigarettes to smoke or bread to eat. Seattle does have wonderful jazz, galleries, theaters and cinemas. This fall, Carmen McRae sang “Get Outa Town” at Parnell’s, part of a long line-up that included Max Roach, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Sonny Stitt; George Tsutakawa’s sumi lobsters hung at Foster-White and the largest collection of Hindu art ever to circulate in this country opened at the Seattle Art Museum; and fourteen legitimate stages, all of which pay their actors money, were in full swing. But the biggest treat is seeing first-run pictures in clean, well-run cinemas. Shortly after my arrival, I caught Raging Bull at the Music Box, a Fifth Avenue screen operated by SRO. The floors were swept, the ushers (ushers!) courteous, the house lights went down when the film came on, the sound level was right, the print intact, the gate clean, the projectionist ran the film through the final credits and, as the walkout music came up, a charming entr’acte was staged: a small squad of uniformed youngsters moved swiftly through the theater picking up popcorn cartons. I applauded. Having lived in Portland so long, I had become jaded by the dirty Moyer theaters. Sadly, Tom Moyer does have a foothold in Seattle and, more sadly still, one of the screens he controls is the Coliseum, a noble old house that deserves better. My memories of Portland are fond and there are certain scenes which can never be duplicated anywhere: a mid-summer walk through raucous irises at the Japanese Gardens; the hospitable sight of the Multnomah County Library in autumn where, just inside the door, you are invited to leave your coat in exchange for a handsome brass token; the lobby of the Benson Hotel at Christmas. I’m not a stickler for matters of time. For me, a city consists equally of those Proustian moments and A NEW WAVE IN SANTA MONICA An interview with Derek Shearer Un October 31, Derek Shearer, co-author of Economic Democracy: The Challenge of the 1980’s, spoke at the Oregon Progressive Agenda's conference held at PCC. He is head of the Department of Urban Studies at Occidental College, on the Santa Monica Planning Commission and has worked as the campaign manager for a number of progressive candidates and issues In Southern California. Shearer is also the author of numerous articles published in such periodicals as Mother Jones, The Nation, New West, Rolling Stone and Parade. His forthcoming book is entitled Democracy in the City. by Micheale Williams Clinton Street Quarterly: I’d like you to begin by talking about your current political work. Derek Shearer: I’m a planning commissioner for the city of Santa Monica, California, and my wife, Ruth Yannatta Goldway, is the mayor. We work with a political coalition called Santa Moni- cans for Renters’ Rights, which in April, 1981, won majority control of the city council. I was the campaign manager for that election, and have been for a number of local elections, including the one buildings, now lost, which formed my early impressions or were lovingly described by an older relative or friend before I had my own first-hand knowledge of place. Thus Portland still consists of Sidney’s, with Sidney himself at the piano, unmindful of the OLCC hassles and illness in his future. And it includes the old Multnomah Hotel where my mother went to fraternity dances from 1939 to 1942 and whose huge and elegant lobby, done in rich greys, she still perfectly—and frequently—recalls. And in Seattle, the long discontinued counter-balance, a cable car system which used to operate on the steep southern incline of Queen Anne hill, and the vanished Pantages Theater, where vaudeville lasted into the ’50s, longer than any venue outside of New York City, are as real to me as the Kingdome or the space needle—or home.• • in which my wife ran unsuccessfully for the state assembly in 1977. That was one of the first of our local elections in which a number .of local activists learned the technology of campaigning. It is very ,important for people on the left to [demystify for themselves the skills of running a campaign- using computers, using direct mail, using sophisticated targeting, learning how to write ‘‘paid political announcements”: techniques that seemed to be in the Clinton St. Quarterly 13
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