The Great Seattle Fire
Narratives on Kismet
Hi gang,
I hope this finds you well.
Last Thursday I played Seattle’s Sunset Tavern. It was wonderful to see new faces and to be welcomed warmly by familiar ones.
The following morning, before leaving town, I joined a walking tour of Seattle. I thought it was high time I learned a little more about this city—outside of my intimate knowledge of Wallingford’s best ramen joint and our musical residence, the Sea Monster Lounge.
Part of the Pacific Northwest, Seattle is similar in many ways to my hometown of Vancouver, including, but not limited to, the flora and fauna, wet cement skies and a penchant for microbreweries.
And just like Vancouver, in the late 1880s Seattle was razed to the ground by a “Great Fire.”
"...in the late 1880s....the perfect storm of conditions led to the destruction of most everything that 'signified Seattle's status as an up-and-coming metropolis'.”
What struck me when hearing this story from our flourescent-pink-toqued tour guide was the perfect storm of conditions that led to the destruction of most everything that “signified Seattle's status as an up-and-coming metropolis” (John Caldbick, Historylink.org). That, and the fact the reverse image of this story is one we most often use to couch the “big break” of an artist.
The former, a “combination of ill-preparedness and unfortunate circumstances” (John Caldbick, Historylink.org), flipped to the latter, “when preparation meets opportunity.”
In both instances, the core narrative is the same: the rare and spectacular alignment of the stars that precipitates great change.
In Seattle’s case, 1889 drew an unusually dry summer. An accidentally overturned glue pot in a carpentry shop started the fire.
"...in the wake of the Great Seattle Fire…'[T]he financiers and political leaders of the city [worked] together in uncommon harmony to plan Seattle's rebirth'...making vast improvements to the sewage system, building codes and establishing a paid force for the first official Seattle Fire Department."
The fire chief—the only professional in an otherwise volunteer crew—was out of town attending (depending on the source) either a wedding, or a firefighters' convention, ironically, purchasing the city’s first ever fire truck.
The fire soon spread to the turpentine-soaked wood shavings—the fuel used to melt the hardened glue—covering the floor of the carpentry shop. An attempt to douse the fire with water only served to spread it further.
Among the Block tenants was the Dietz and Meyer Liquor Store. When the fire reached the whisky barrels in the basement, they burst, spewing flaming alcohol in all directions and accelerating the fire's spread.
A brisk northwesterly breeze helped the fire on its course towards total destruction.
When the fire reached two local hardware stores, 50 tons of stored ammunition cooked off.
And if it wasn’t already obvious in this tale of a burgeoning 1880s metropolis built in the Pacific Northwest, the entire town was made of wood. Not only the buildings but the boardwalks that connected them.
Incredibly, there were no recorded casualties. This fact makes it a little easier to extend what was a fleeting, highway drive-induced thought on the similarities between narratives of kismet, into a piece I’m sharing with you.
"...in many ways, I’m mapping my own reverse image of the Great Seattle Fire...A spark shared, the gluepot overturned, in the hopes of echoing that mysterious emotional charge in others."
I suppose, in many ways, I’m mapping my own reverse image of the Great Seattle Fire. I wish for my music to find the floor covered in turpentine-soaked wood shavings, next to a liquor store full of whiskey barrels, not far from a hardware store recently stocked with ammunitions, on a day with a brisk northwesterly breeze.
Except, instead of wood shavings, whiskey barrels and munitions, it’s people. A spark shared, the gluepot overturned, in the hopes of echoing that mysterious emotional charge in others*.
And instead of an empty space, an aftermath of loss, a “horrible black smudge, as though a Hand had come down and rubbed the place smooth,” as author Rudyard Kipling put it after passing through Seattle by ship within weeks of the fire, I’m searching for renewal, for growth, for community, and for “the big break,” as it were.
In fact, in the wake of the Great Seattle Fire, growth is exactly what occurred. “…[T]he financiers and political leaders of the city [worked] together in uncommon harmony to plan Seattle's rebirth,” making vast improvements to the sewage system, building codes and establishing a paid force for the first official Seattle Fire Department.
The Great Fire and The Big Break.
Both narratives are not only about kismet, but about change and possibility. A spark finds the right conditions to create a change that reveals a field of possibility. The prescribed burn that opens up the land.
Maybe some form of fire is always necessary to awaken us to possibility.
love,
David
*"…echoing that mysterious emotional charge in others.” (Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being.)
You are fire...and you and your creativity are full of possibilities and emotional charge spreading where you are not even aware.