Photo by Mat Haywood

The above image comes from local blog Ear Candy Beat, whose author Travis Hay pointed out Seattle's Hard Rock Café is hoisting Kurt/Kurdt Cobain's Fender Mustang for a guitarquee. My first thought: You know there was a marketing discussion about whether or not it should be Cobain's or Jimi Hendrix's guitar.

Walking around Seattle yesterday, I noticed SAM is planning an exhibition called "Kurt" starting May 13.

It's foolish to think anybody could predict what Kurt Cobain would have said about these developments were he alive today. But it's tempting to guess. After all, this was the guy who went on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing a t-shirt that said "CORPORATE MAGAZINES STILL SUCK." It's hard to think he wouldn't have had an opinion.

Of course, on one hand, it's a significant bummer when art that was once cool and sincerely counter-cultural gets neutered or put in a zoo. On the other hand, Hard Rock Café and SAM aren't actually touching Nirvana's or Kurt Cobain's art. The Hard Rock is touching Cobain's stuff — his guitar (or its likeness), the snow globe that was on the top of his and Courtney Love's wedding cake (displayed inside) — and SAM is touching art made by people who took Kurt Cobain for a subject, like Alice Wheeler.

"Kurt Cobain MTV's Live & Loud, Seattle, WA, December 13, 1993," 1993, Alice Wheeler

The common ground between the Hard Rock and SAM on this issue? Both are engaging in Nirvana nostalgia and Cobain lionization, two of Seattle's most popular pastimes.