Page 16 - 07_October 2024

ED.
COME AS YOU ARE
This past spring, my son’s baseball academy went to a tournament in Seattle’s southern suburbs, communities connected by criss-crossing highways and filled with big-box power centres.
But, on the final day, I took a 90-minute side trip south- west to the lumber and fishing town of Aberdeen.
The city’s welcome sign reads: “Come as You Are.”
When your most famous export is the late, great Kurt Cobain, it makes sense to take your municipal tagline from the title of one of Nirvana’s most famous songs.
Like many people my age — I’m in my early 50s — Nirvana had a massive impact on my life. The band showed that you didn’t have to be formulaic in order
to rule the charts — give the kids minor chords played loudly, and they’ll say “yes!” Cobain was the biggest anti- hero of my generation; a songwriter whose music gave a middle finger to the high-school jocks and told us it was OK to wear our pain and heartbreak and hopelessness on our sleeves.
I never saw Nirvana live and in the flesh — despite seeing hundreds of bands in my lifetime — but the band’s Saturday Night Live appearance is still burned in my mem- ory. The trio smashed their instruments after scorching through “Territorial Pissings,” my favourite song from the seminal album, Nevermind.
So I wanted to see the memorial that exists in Aberdeen, on the banks of the Wishkah River, just a block from where he grew up. It was raining when I arrived at the Kurt Cobain Memorial Landing. It’s a park at the end of cul-de-sac. A concrete guitar is covered in graffiti; fans leave messages in all sorts of markers and paint. There’s an empty stand for Kurt’s air guitar. Walk down the in- cline, and you find yourself under the bridge where Cobain lived for a short time, and inspired the song “Something in the Way.” Farewell messages and testimonials, from notes to Kurt to simple “RIP” scripts, cover the concrete.
The only part of the memorial that isn’t covered in graffiti is the headstone, which immortalizes the Cobain quote, “My name is Kurt and I sing and play the guitar and I’m a walking, talking bacterial infection.”
Next door, a homemade collection of signs on a front lawn warn that the home by the park is not a gift shop, and, no, the people who live there didn’t know Kurt — but “Phil next door did.”
To me, this spray painted, picked-over memorial park is far more powerful than majestic squares or 20-foot tall statues. Think about it: Isn’t it awe-inspiring that your music moved people so much, they felt the need to share those messages by leaving them behind in spray paint or
permanent marker? It means a lot more than leaving dead flowers behind, right?
It speaks to the power of art, doesn’t it? Howasongorabookoraplayorapainting can tear right through your defences and hit you right in the soul. As an author myself, I am a big believer that once the art is made, it no longer belongs to the artist — in the sense that it’s up to the viewer or listener to draw their own conclusions.
And that’s why we need to celebrate and support the arts — and I’m not talking about going to the odd arena show at Rogers Place. Local bands, small venues, independent theatre, small galleries, grassroots dance ensembles. Cherish the things that speak to you. Shout about the art that moves you. And go check out the mural on Whyte Avenue that celebrates Edmonton’s own punk rock legend, Mr. Chi Pig.
Our October issue celebrates our city’s vibrant arts scene. Let’s play. Maybe there’s a few bacterial infections out there worth catching.
Steven Sandor
Editor-in-Chief
16 EDify. OCTOBER.24
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN PARKER