BILLIE HOLIDAY On those last records her voice sounds almost gone— cracking, breaking—but hitting notes wasn't the point. She was after the bones of beauty not the flesh. It was far too late for anything else. She sang what must happen, what has, the death of gardenias, the abyss that the abyss falls into. It all scraped along her phrases, extracting the horrible meat hiding inside simple words, in the space between each word, between each note. And she broke our hearts until they could break no more, then broke them one more time just to make sure we got the point. Art isn't on the surface, not some decoration like frosting, like a flower in your hair— it's like a silk bag of pulverized crystal, glinting, sharp, able to cut in any direction. Her voice filled every room in our minds and showed how empty each was, how desolate the wind blowing through them and yet with sticks and stones, castoffs, garage sale losers she furnished each one with a shattered gritty beauty just before she took it all away. — Vern Rutsala
Rest in peace, Vern.