by W.A. Smith
Emerson Johnson joined up soon after FDR finished his Day of Infamy declaration to Congress. Emerson was twenty-five, putting the final touches on his internship. He and Grace had not yet celebrated their first anniversary when he left. But Grace said later they both knew he would be coming back.
Comments (0)by Ryan Sparks
It’s a crisp Seattle morning outside, but I am warm inside The Clover, a velvet-draped coffeehouse on Grand Street. John Mayer’s cumbersome voice trickles out of the ceiling speakers, battling with the milk steamer for auditory dominance of all the citizens around me. The place is littered with twenty-somethings writing in notebooks or reading slim Vonnegut paperbacks. While I wait for my special guest I flip through the paper. On page four of the Metro section someone had killed himself with barbed wire. Even though people are still drinking coffee and killing themselves, Seattle of 2004 is not the same place it used to be. No one knows this better than Kurt Cobain the Icon (or KC-Ike as he likes to be called), and as he shuffles through the double doors and scans the room for me, his whitewashed eyes reflect the changes of a decade. He ignores the long line at the counter and sits down across from me with his hands empty. Without saying hello, he withdraws three packets of raw sugar from the dispenser, tears the corners off diagonally, and then tips them so that the contents of all three pour into his mouth evenly. For him, this is breakfast, part of his daily routine. He gets up late and usually doesn’t get really started after lunch, which is all right by me. I’m tagging along with him today in order to get a glimpse of what being a Generational Icon is like.
(read on…)