Four mentions trumps Milwaukee or Nashville, similarly sized cities with no direct mentions in Harper's Index. The Index (before we kicked the habit entirely, the only reason we subscribed to the magazine) has a fresh new search interface, which inspired us to go looking. The four mentions make an interesting snapshot of Seattle in highbrow pop culture since 1984: our high rate of CPR training, grunge-a-mania, the cult of Kurt Cobain, and the trumped-up charges against WTO protesters. Of course, our culture spreads indirectly, as well: Starbucks has hit the Index 5 times, Bill Gates 13 times, Microsoft 21 times, Amazon 4 times (though "amazon.com" only pulls up one of those mentions), and Boeing twice.

Around The -Ists This Week


Nashville and Milwaukee are significantly smaller than Seattle, and are more Portland sized than anything. Sure, city proper they're the same size or larger but metro area is what really counts. I mean, consider that Austin, Texas is over 200,000 people larger than Seattle in terms of city limits, but is 1.5 million smaller in metro area.