Learning Punk

http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2012/01/punk_rock_museum_tequila.php#more

The Punk Rock Museum opened this past Saturday. It features art work and events that exemplify and pay tribute to punk rock culture. This I find interesting, as it will exhibit a style of music, dress, behavior, etc. that many would argue is still alive. I suppose not all museums are houses of retrospect, but there is a typical assumption that they are. I can't help but make that assumption on some level. "Punk" is being put on display. The pieces of a movement have been identified and marked so clearly that they can be named. They can be separated and exhibited! According to Altman's suggestion that genre often emerges through failure or the passing of a trend, does this mean that punk is irrefutably dead? Because it can be categorized? Is it now a relic of the past, only to be imitated and revived? Not sure what my thoughts are yet, but either way, it's ironic that the museum was founded in order to fulfill a promise to "keep punk alive"...