Kurt Cobain

To most people born before man set foot upon the moon, the front-page news that "grunge rock" star Kurt Cobain had shot himself to death evoked this profound response:Who's he?News of the death of Mr. Cobain, lead singer of the group "Nirvana," likely crackled over every teen-ager's telephone line in this country last weekend, and led 7,000 to turn out for a rowdy memorial service in the singer's native Seattle.But the tragedy, in a different way, must have also unnerved older folks, particularly baby boomers who might barely have been familiar with this 27-year-old idol of the MTV legions and his angry, haunting works.

ABERDEEN, Wash. -- Downtown, the theater is long-shuttered, and the streets are empty at midday. A few businesses - a thrift shop, a tattoo parlor, a place to take out payday loans - fill some space. What seems to give Aberdeen a pulse are the shrines to the best-known product of this coastal town: the poet of despair, Kurt Cobain. As the lead singer and songwriter for Nirvana, Cobain shook up the popular music world in a few years of chaotic creativity and then fatally shot himself at his Seattle home.

Rock singer Kurt Cobain was high on heroin and Valium when he killed himself April 5, three days before his body was discovered at his posh Seattle home.In a strange twist to the drama surrounding the Nirvana singer's death, police in Beverly Hills, Calif., reported Wednesday that his wife, Courtney Love, was arrested on drug charges April 7 -- the day before his body was found.Police and fire officials were called to the luxurious Peninsula Hotel early that morning and treated Ms. Love for a suspected heroin overdose.

Despite lingering rumors to the contrary, it's safe to say that Tupac Shakur is dead. So why does he keep putting out records? The rapper's latest posthumous release, Loyal to the Game, shows up in stores this week in time for the holidays. It's the seventh 2Pac record (not including greatest-hits and remix collections) to emerge since he was shot down in Las Vegas eight years ago. Shakur's output in death can be explained by how prolific he was in life. The man who helped canonize the West Coast gangsta sound committed loads of unreleased material to tape before his unsolved murder.

ATLANTA -- It smells like teen spirit -- again. On Tuesday, a greatest-hits CD by the seminal 1990s rock act Nirvana hit music stores. And that's just the beginning of a revival of interest in the definitive grunge-era band and its tortured front man, the late Kurt Cobain. This week, Riverhead Books will release Journals, a much-anticipated collection of Cobain's unpublished diaries, memos, drawings, letters and other scribblings. Although this material was used extensively in Charles R. Cross' Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, the new book provides more of Cobain's firsthand accounts of his rise to fame, painful stomach condition and ambivalent feelings about success.

Kurt Cobain, the leader of the rock group Nirvana hailed by critics as "the John Lennon of alternative rock" and "voice of our youth's future," was found dead in his Seattle home yesterday, an apparent suicide. He was 27.Seattle police said Mr. Cobain had been dead at least a day. The singer had a gunshot wound to the head; a shotgun and a suicide note were found nearby.Police did not disclose the contents of the note.Mr. Cobain was the songwriter and voice behind such hits as "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Lithium," "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies."

Like a lot of people who were moved by Nirvana's music, I was left with profoundly mixed emotions Friday when I heard of Kurt Cobain's suicide. At first, I felt anxious, then upset, then sad. Thinking about what Cobain's wife, singer Courtney Love, must have been going through filled me with sympathy; thinking about what Cobain's 1-year-old daughter, Frances Bean, would face as she grew up just about broke my heart.But as the weekend wore on, I realized that I was also angry -- not just at those who should have paid closer attention to the singer's suicidal tendencies, but at Cobain himself.

Yes, Todd Haynes realizes that Curt Wild, one of the main characters in his paean to the glam rock era, "Velvet Goldmine," is a dead ringer for Kurt Cobain.And no, that's not an effect he was going for -- the character was modeled after Iggy Pop."It was completely an accident," Haynes insists (as was the happenstance that his character and the late Nirvana lead singer share the same first name). "It just so happens that Ewan [McGregor, who plays Wild] resembles Kurt Cobain more than he does Iggy Pop in the face."

The way it happened, you might have thought the ghost of Kurt Cobain had a hand in this thing, because who would give odds that Madison Smartt Bell, the novelist from Baltimore, would get his own recording contract to sing and play a Les Paul guitar with back-up from Don Dixon, the legendary producer who built successful careers for R.E.M., Marshall Crenshaw and the Smithereens? It shouldn't have happened. But it did. It's real. It's serious. And it started with a dream of Kurt Cobain.

How best does a city honor someone who felt like its least favored son? That's the question in Aberdeen, Wash., the small community on the Wishkah River where Kurt Cobain grew up. The rock star's accounts of his youth in the town might be best described as the march of a miserable outsider, but that has not deterred a group of locals who are pushing for a memorial to the singer who committed suicide a decade ago. The campaign led to a City Council session...

How best does a city honor someone who felt like its least favored son? That's the question in Aberdeen, Wash., the small community on the Wishkah River where Kurt Cobain grew up. The rock star's accounts of his youth in the town might be best described as the march of a miserable outsider, but that has not deterred a group of locals who are pushing for a memorial to the singer who committed suicide a decade ago. The campaign led to a City Council session...

KURT COBAIN was eulogized as the spokesman of a generation when he killed himself 10 years ago. The Nirvana front man's songs were hailed as the embodiment of the angst said to gnaw at members of Generation X, and his influence on popular music has been pegged at somewhere between immense and immeasurable. "Kurt was one of the masters of the craft, in addition to being a voice of adolescents of all ages," Danny Goldberg, a former Nirvana manager who later founded Artemis Records, told Spin magazine for its Cobain tribute issue.

ATLANTA -- It smells like teen spirit -- again. On Tuesday, a greatest-hits CD by the seminal 1990s rock act Nirvana hit music stores. And that's just the beginning of a revival of interest in the definitive grunge-era band and its tortured front man, the late Kurt Cobain. This week, Riverhead Books will release Journals, a much-anticipated collection of Cobain's unpublished diaries, memos, drawings, letters and other scribblings. Although this material was used extensively in Charles R. Cross' Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, the new book provides more of Cobain's firsthand accounts of his rise to fame, painful stomach condition and ambivalent feelings about success.

The way it happened, you might have thought the ghost of Kurt Cobain had a hand in this thing, because who would give odds that Madison Smartt Bell, the novelist from Baltimore, would get his own recording contract to sing and play a Les Paul guitar with back-up from Don Dixon, the legendary producer who built successful careers for R.E.M., Marshall Crenshaw and the Smithereens? It shouldn't have happened. But it did. It's real. It's serious. And it started with a dream of Kurt Cobain.

All the clothes on the spring 2001 runways have one thing in common: super-high prices. Two hundred dollars for a pair of shorts? Not in this lifetime. You don't have to spend a fortune to look like a million bucks -- you just have to be savvy. The key is to know what's hot and where to find it -- or something that closely resembles it -- without shelling out a fortune. To see what's new and cool, try checking out the department and specialty stores to note what's filling their racks, but before you buy, visit a discount store and see if you can find the same styles at less-expensive prices.

Yes, Todd Haynes realizes that Curt Wild, one of the main characters in his paean to the glam rock era, "Velvet Goldmine," is a dead ringer for Kurt Cobain.And no, that's not an effect he was going for -- the character was modeled after Iggy Pop."It was completely an accident," Haynes insists (as was the happenstance that his character and the late Nirvana lead singer share the same first name). "It just so happens that Ewan [McGregor, who plays Wild] resembles Kurt Cobain more than he does Iggy Pop in the face."

Garry Wills is the Nixon aficionado's Nixon aficionado: the man who charted that 5 o'clock shadow down to its nubbiest bristle. A quarter of a century after its initial publication, Mr. Wills' "Nixon Agonistes" remains the best book written on the 37th president. Anyone wondering about Mr. Wills' hold on the franchise now that the Trickster has joined the Great Silent Majority in the sky need only turn to the July Esquire for reassurance."He contrived to die in the odor of statesmanship," Mr. Wills begins his assessment of the reaction to Nixon's passing.

The Nixon backlash is beginning to rage. When the former president died April 22, much of the media assessed his career with a nostalgic forgiveness -- and forgetfulness? -- that has raised the cry of revisionism. Trickie Dick as a great statesman? As antidote, the May 16 New Republic includes a collection of Nixon-hating quotes from past issues, ranging from a 1952 description of him as a "kept man" and a "phony" to a 1972 look at his "mean and cruel streak." The accompanying article, by Jonathan Rauch, judges Nixon's career "without considering Watergate," and still comes up with little of value: "We have spent the last two decades struggling to undo his errors, and may spend another two the same way."

Aberdeen, Wash. -- It has been three months since Kurt Cobain took a shotgun and blew his life away. Now Randi Hubbard is trying in her own way to bring him home.Inside her husband's muffler shop, this truck driver turned sculptor spends her afternoons building a concrete statue of Aberdeen's famous native son."I think we all have a little Kurt Cobain in us. We've all been on the edge possibly," said Ms. Hubbard, gently stroking the statue's arm and hair."Ideally, I want it to be placed here, and I want people to love him here."

Garry Wills is the Nixon aficionado's Nixon aficionado: the man who charted that 5 o'clock shadow down to its nubbiest bristle. A quarter of a century after its initial publication, Mr. Wills' "Nixon Agonistes" remains the best book written on the 37th president. Anyone wondering about Mr. Wills' hold on the franchise now that the Trickster has joined the Great Silent Majority in the sky need only turn to the July Esquire for reassurance."He contrived to die in the odor of statesmanship," Mr. Wills begins his assessment of the reaction to Nixon's passing.