There was a great thrift store, a strong community radio station, and a highway-exit sign for “Sleater-Kinney” that got me all fired up. When I finally spent a week in Olympia, many years ago, I did get some of that imagined version of the town.
I knew Olympia as the hometown of riot grrrl and Kill Rock Stars and K Records and the International Pop Underground, the place where Kathleen Hannah wrote “Kurt smells like teen spirit” on a wall somewhere. That idea mostly came from spending too much time with music magazines.
Years before I ever saw Olympia, Washington I had some idea of what the town was like.
