Judee Sill’s Long Overdue Obituary in the NYT; and Holly Prado’s Poetry Video

February 21, 2020

Judee Sill’s Long Overdue Obituary in the NYT; and Holly Prado’s Poetry Video

On November 3, 2019, I wrote the following comment in my blog:

I wish, therefore, this morning to urge all of you to give a listen to Judee Sill’s “Jesus Was a Crossmaker.” Many, many years ago, when I was younger than my age hinted at, I saw her perform one evening, solo, on a piano, at the Church in the Ocean Park. It was one of the most inspiring performances by a singer-songwriter I have ever had the good fortune to be in the audience for: a small audience for an artist marked by Fate to stop singing far sooner than her admirers wanted her to.

*. *. *. *. *. *

Back at the beginning of this month (Feb. 3), I found the following article in the NYT:

This article on Sill was published on January 23, 2020, and “updated” on January 29th. While I am certainly not claiming that my blog entry contributed to the decision of the NYT staff to grant Sill a small measure of posthumous recognition, I am pleased to be able to say that no one can claim my post was generated because the cultural gatekeepers at the NYT formally recognized her.

As an update to my post in November, 2019, I want to report that I contacted Jim Conn, the minister at the Church in Ocean Park where I saw Sill perform. I asked him if he happened to remember how she ended up singing there, but he responded that there were so many events taking place back then that it is now a bit of a blur. There are still a handful of people alive who were around that church back then. Perhaps one of them remembers how she ended up performing on Hill Street, in Ocean Park.

The day after I read Sill’s obituary in the NYT, I jotted the following reminder to myself:

Every memory should come with a spoiler alert: your recollection of the event is slightly off, and you need to recalibrate not only what happened, but its underlying significance. — Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 — 5:15 – 5:17 p.m.

As part of today’s nostalgic post, I also include a link to a video featuring the late poet Holly Prado, which was sent to me by poet-actor Harry Northup:

https://timestimes3.blogspot.com/2020/02/holly-prado-reads-legacy-video.html?fbclid=IwAR3YSGghKv4GFwGbSihPpoqOA9V6zPwIZseQgWM1bTy95zIZNgjPLzn366w

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