Finally had a chance to tour the new Nirvana exhibit at the Experience Music Project (EMP). Rather than spending a lot of wordage, here are photos + captions to tell the story:
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| There's been lots of Love Buzz about this exhibit. I was beyond antsy to see it. Here's the entrance. |
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| I love these old relics: cassette tapes and the Vogue define the early days - not that I, being underage, could get in to the Vogue! |
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| Beyond radness. RIP The Rocket - so thrilled that I got the chance to intern there in the later days. This magazine introduced me to music journalism. |
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| Kurt lyrics. |
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"I may go far if I smash my guitar."
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| In Utero stage angel. Hard to fathom these survived the carnage of a live Nirvana show. I recall looking up to this from the pit at the Live and Loud show. Ugly and gorgeous at once. |
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| The infamous naked-baby shot, which became Nevermind's cover. The scribbled note at the top says, "If anyone has a problem with his dick we can take it out." Ha! |
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It was strangely surreal to see that green shirt. I bought - and wore frequently - a similar one in the early 90s to emulate Kurt. Next to it is the MTV award given to Nirvana - inscribed for "Smells like Team Spirit." Whoops.
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| You know that crazy-famous action shot of Kurt leaping into a drumset? This is it. The tour guide said this had just been hung in the exhibit recently. |
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| Pat Smear's instantly recognizable guitar from "MTV Unplugged." |
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| Marshall red. |
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| That's Kurt as Barney and Pat Smear as Slash at a Halloween show. |
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| A wall of memories. The aftermath of grunge - the mid 90s. |
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| The yellow sweater Kurt wore in "Teen Spirit." How badly I wanted to reach into the glass to a) touch it and b) smell it - because I bet that it did not smell like teen spirit. |
I’ve been wanting to crack that joke for a few weeks now.
But now that seems mindless. Because as I loaded these pictures from my camera onto my computer, I had a moment with this image. For a split second, as I flipped through the thumbnails, I thought this was a live shot of Kurt on stage. I couldn’t figure out what shot I’d taken. Where did this one come from?
The blurry blond head in the photo’s background was, for a moment, Kurt mid-song, wearing the tattered sweater. The black gap in the cardigan – the space where his frame should be – was, temporarily, filled.
It's haunting. And, much like Kurt’s time on this earth – fleeting but forever.
If you want to see the EMP exhibit, get there before April 2012.
