handsome raze this was the word i reached for. i should have gone with "beautiful". that's what he was. first there was just his face on a baseball cap. then he was his whole self, sitting two desks in front of me. a man who's dead now talked about recording his album and how difficult it was going to be to put a band together on such short notice. i told him he was welcome to record my piano if that helped, hoping i'd get to play it myself. something stung the air around my ears. the ghostly breath of a song that hadn't been born yet, maybe. all i heard was plucked guitar and two voices, one of them a frail fifth above the first, and i thought: this must be how it begins, with a whispered greeting that sounds like goodbye. 240616 what's it to you? who go blather from