Essayist keeps attention on region's problems

By Barbara McMichael | For The Olympian • Published January 25, 2009

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When our new president in his inaugural speech called for us to roll up our sleeves and become more involved, I couldn't help but think of the book I've been reading by Knute Berger. Also known as Mossback, the curmudgeonly idealist who provides weekly commentaries on KUOW-FM radio and writes a column for Crosscut.com, Berger shares some of those pungent essays in "Pugetopolis," just out from Seattle's Sasquatch Books.

"Pugetopolis is a dirty word," he contends in the opening sentence of his opening essay. It was a term coined in the last century to describe the phenomenon of sprawl that was starting to manifest in Western Washington.

And that sprawl, Berger makes clear, is a bad thing.

In spite of the title and its obvious regional implications, Berger remains pretty rooted inside the Seattle city limits where, as a third-generation Seattleite, he has roots if not leaves. ("Mossback's ax-wielding Scandinavian kinfolk," he concedes, "saw trees as a challenging grass to be mowed.")

True, a few of his essays venture into Bellevue and Kirkland, representing the time Berger spent as the founding editor and publisher of Eastsideweek, an alternative newspaper for East King County. But his forays beyond county lines are rare, at least as reflected in the writings collected for this volume.

Even though the book is unabashedly Seattle-centric, there are lessons for those of us who live further afield. For how can any of us not be affected by the elephant in the room — which, in this case, is the city on Elliott Bay?

Berger has been keeping his finger on the pulse of Seattle for a couple of decades now, and he's been making regular diagnoses of the city's ills with acuity and biting humor. His stuff is great fun to read — so long as you're not in the punch line.

While he is adept with the acerbic turn of phrase, Mossback's real service is in illuminating the inner workings of local government. In many of these pieces, he vigorously derides the politicians, from Tim Eyman to Ralph Nader and virtually all recent Seattle mayors, who he believes have shirked their responsibility to the citizens who elected them. He cheers when "lamebrain drain" — the departure of inept civic leaders — occurs.

More rarely, he laments the sacking or retirement of a few politicians who, in his view, seemed to have gotten it right.

Berger dislikes pretension, and he's skeptical about our region's relatively recent, coffee-fueled, dot.com prosperity. He sees through hype the way the rest of us see through glass, and he calls 'em the way he sees 'em: cruise ships are "giant crap-spewing barges," built-up bungalows have become "bungvillas," and the messed-up Seattle Monorail Project ultimately wound up being the "Monofail."

But the real point behind his work is that he pays attention.

Paying attention, and then doing something about the problems we find, is what our new president expects of us all. Berger shows us how to get started.

The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Northwest. Contact her at bkmonger@nwlink.com.