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Wednesday, April 07, 2004

# Posted 11:51 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

FROM A TEACHER TO HIS PUPIL: Thurston Moore eulogizes Kurt Cobain. (In the NYT, of all places.) I was a junior in high school when Cobain killed himself. I resented him for it. What right did he have to take away from all of us our source of inspiration? I know he didn't want to be a role model, but couldn't he show us that there is more to life than wandering through it in a drug-addled haze and ending it all with a shotgun blast?

I thought Nirvana would be forgotten after a while. Sure, we all believed that Nevermind had changed everything about what it meant to be a teenager in America. But teenagers always believe that what they care about is profound and historic. Toward the end of college, however, I began to notice that there were just as many Nirvana-clad kids wandering around Greenwich Village. They had the same angry and sensitive look we sought to perfect back in high school.

I always figured that if Nirvana survived, it would be a product of nostalgia. Those of us who remembered high school fondly would wear their Nirvana t-shirts on weekends. But I was completely wrong, and thank God for that. The music has survived the cultural moment in which it was created. Kids who were seven years old when Cobain died now think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. I just hope that in another ten years it will still be the same way.
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