Stranger Things

October 12, 2016 9:11 AM

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke around the same time that we started the paper, so that was Nirvana, Mudhoney, and Screaming Trees, everything was going on. Soundgarden. The whole world was moving to Seattle at the time. - Travel back to 1991 for an oral history of The Stranger, now celebrating it's 25th Year as "Seattle's Only Newspaper".

1991-1998: An Alternative History of the '90s With Highlights from The Stranger's First Seven Years

posted by Artw (12 comments total)

Weird to think that The Stranger started not long before I moved here. Like KCMU/KEXP, it just *is* Seattle. The development and maturation in the Stranger over this time period really kind of mirrors what's happened to the city as a whole in the last 25 years. The staff at the Stranger would be horrified to consider themselves as gentrified as Seattle has become, but to be fair, The Stranger has become fairly mainstream, their reach is widespread (I'm tickled to see our alt-weekly routinely linked here), and their political endorsements matter, probably more so than the Seattle Times, certainly more than the Weekly.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:56 AM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

No kidding, flicking through a copy of The Stranger in a Fremont cafe on my first visit was the moment that I decided that moving to America maybe was a thing I could tolerate.
posted by Artw at 10:02 AM on October 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

I decided almost the minute the plane landed, but the deal was sealed flipping through the Stranger sitting at the bar at the OK Hotel at 2 in the afternoon chatting with the woman behind the bar while TAD was blaring from the speakers.

Now the Seattle Commons is dead and South Lake Union *is* a canyon of condos (the Stranger predicted 30 years and it took about 20). The OK and the Fenix are dead as is Rock Candy. I bought a home not far from the Stranger's mythical Latona opium den where tear downs routinely go for a million plus. The heroin that fueled the music scene has created an addicted generation, those that it hasn't killed. Failure to manage growth has led to permanent tent cities. The cops kill as many black people here as they do in any other city, despite the fact that we fancy ourselves progressives.

Despite all that, it's still a pretty neat place to live, and it's because it has things like The Stranger that make up the soul of the city.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:29 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Moved to Seattle 19 yrs ago. Walk to Teddy's grab the Stranger sit at the bar sipping a hoppy hoppy beer. Flip to Savage Love, then the Stranger classifieds, back to the movie reviews, then Upcoming shows. If friends haven't arrived by then read an article or two. leave copy for next person.
Now I live in a beach town but read the Stranger online for the genius awards, their coverage of city council doings, their opinions on public transit, upcoming shows (which sadly i don't get to as often). to me the Stranger is as Seattle as giant sweetened coffee, rain but not RAIN and rainbow crosswalks.
Long live the Stranger!
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:47 AM on October 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I love The Stranger. I grew up in Seattle and started reading it in probably 1993-1994, in the 6th grade. I realize now that it taught me some very important things at a young age: it's okay to be a girl who likes girls, it's okay to be weird. That the world is full of strange beautiful people that won't judge you by the same standards that your peers do. I haven't picked up a paper copy in years unless I need packing material when I'm shipping something but I still read it online every day and I'm incredibly grateful for it.
posted by skycrashesdown at 11:21 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Charles Mudede is one of the best journalists working in the US today, and I kind of wish he wrote more stuff, and was published in more places.
posted by My Dad at 11:41 AM on October 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Charles really is a fascinating writer. His interests are very broad and his voice stands out- an immigrant philosopher. As wacky as some of his notions get he has a knack for unique clarifying perspective.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 12:31 PM on October 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's a Seattle film scene?
posted by Artw at 4:24 PM on October 12, 2016

ONLY 25 years? San Luis Obispo's free weekly "New Times" celebrated it's 30th Anniversary earlier this summer.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:36 PM on October 12, 2016

Yeah, I moved to Seattle in early 1996 and I just figured The Stranger had been around for years. Partly because it looked like it was sort of filling the same niche as the Boston Phoenix.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:46 PM on October 12, 2016

I grew up in Seattle, and used to read The Stranger at Bagel Oasis by Ravenna. I remember taking a bunch of Wm.™ Steven Humphrey's original I Love Television gags and spreading them all over the local Seattle Citadel BBS scene as a teen. I associate it with Seattle in the 90s in the same way I do the old Archie McPhee's rickety knicknack shop and the original crew of Diva Espresso and hanging out with my friends on the knuckles of the Fremont Troll after midnight when Still Life chucked us out.

I only went to the OK once, for a spoken word event (I really wasn't into much popular music, especially in that nadir period after crap like Guns 'n Roses when people actually thought of Nirvana as some kind of breath of fresh air or something). I used to hang out at Beth's Cafe on Aurora and the rough family of horrible 24hour greasy spoons that a lot of young black-sheep-of-the-family types used to frequent.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:57 AM on October 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some friends and I put out a free magazine at around the same time The Stranger started. I remember very early on having to explain to various store and coffee shop managers that we weren't The Stranger when we left copies in the free paper rack; The Stranger had managed to piss a lot of people off, rather quickly.

But hey, they're still around and we're not, so, good for them.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:51 PM on October 16, 2016