Jazz Man: The image is made of own imagination and thoughts - competition 38

in #contest6 years ago (edited)

Her daddy didn't like jazz, and he didn't like her uncle.

"Never will my little Amina spend any time with that man," he said. The Mozart incident was bad enough--more than a man should have to endure, he said--but he said things in a much more colorful way. His comments about "Uncle Jazz" were also more flamboyant than any words you will see in this space. What can I say? When this daddy spoke, he lit up the room. If his wife's New Age cousin were to read his aura, it might look like this:

source: original photo art by @xpilar

Green is for harmony,

of course, and Amina's daddy lived for that. Gardening and good times with his immediate family were his balm in a world of strife. Even when he was chapped by life and the dregs of humanity, he knew how to pay it forward--but he also had a temper, and a bit of difficulty letting go of a grievance. "Flaming red" is how a lot of would-be aura readers might peg him because he kept his true self cloaked behind a wall of fire and ice.

Colorful. That, he was, and ever more shall be.


source

Disclaimer: THIS IS FICTION, never mind the purloined details pillaged from daily life!

He wasn't so different

from his brother-in-law, who was always cool and calm, fun and light-hearted, creative and artistic--but as uncles go, what a terrible role model. The jazz man was marginally employed, unmarried, uncommitted even to a lease on an apartment much less to a mortgage, and he lived like a nomad with no future because there is only the "now," a phrase as hackneyed and idealistic as his wife's cousin with her Tarot cards, auras, astrology, and herbal remedies.

Uncle Jazz colorful too, but if one aura dominated, his must be violet.


source

There came a day

when little Amina would risk exposure to her uncle. She had been duly inoculated with her father's music, and also--so sad to say!--with Baby Shark (doo-doo-doo-doot!) and Disney songs. Ah, but a father can only shelter his offspring for so long, and then the world beckons, and little ones will step forth and see what they can see.

Or hear.

Her parents were in a hospital

and she had nowhere else to go but Grandma's house. Nobody expected an appearance from Uncle Jazz. Lo and behold! The nomad happened to come home (surprise, surprise!) for the first time in years.

There was nothing a daddy could do, preoccupied as he was with mommy in the hospital and new baby on the way, and nobody was going to tell him until after the fact anyway....if even then.

Uncle Jazz and his minimal possessions arrived in the night in an SUV. His upright bass took up as much space as a bed might have, if this nomad cared to own a real bed. Home was wherever his bass could fit beside him, and he plucked those strings whenever he felt the call, which was most any time he was breathing.

The wood floors vibrated like a sounding board and the whole house became a living, breathing instrument when the jazz man came home again. He breathed life into a room, any room, anywhere he'd go. Life, color, laughter--it all came with the instrument and the man who played it. The rhythm of the strings pulsed like a heartbeat. Everything was more vibrant, vivid and glorious when the nomad showed up. Even a toddler with no vocabulary to articulate such things could sense the magic emanating from behind closed doors.

Little Amina opened those French doors and walked into the room. Nobody tried to stop her. She stared at the big wooden bass, those long, strong fingers pressing thick strings onto unmarked frets, the magic man making these sounds that filled her with the urge to dance. She didn't know any jazz moves but she knew she had to move, and groove, take it all in and let it all out, or she would burst like a supernova.

What would Daddy say?

Her uncle smiled and improvised a mellow and most-tolerable rendition "Baby Shark" for her, then gave her one of his favorite books, The Sound That Jazz Makes:



The Sound That Jazz Makes

She did not implode

after her exposure to that singularly non-toxic strain of jazz.


source

What can I say?

They all lived happily ever after!

We are all one,

we are all in this together, and whatever music we like (yes, even Mozart!), we are all made of stardust with the same elements and 99% matching DNA.

THE 99 PERCENT… OF THE HUMAN GENOME

Of the trillions of cells that compose our body...almost every one contains the same 3 billion DNA base pairs that make up the human genome....

Figure 1. The 46 chromosomes (top) that compose the entire human genome. Each chromosome (middle) is a long, continuous stretch of DNA sprinkled with genes that encode the information necessary to make a protein....(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons; User – Plociam)

A big Thank You to @xpilar

for The image is made of own imagination and thoughts - competition 38 and to all supporters, upvoters and resteemers who make Steemit fun and adventurous!

#art #contest #drawing #imagination #creativecoin #palnet #competition #norway
#music #love #aura #peace

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wonderful, very informative. Thanks to you I learned new and different things. I wish you a good day.

Thank YOU for reading and commenting!

Surprising to read your story @carolkean

It is well composed and also made me smile.
Hope many will like your great story.
Re-steemed

Hello!

Ok friend, the story or rather the art you wrote is SENSASIONAL! I like everything, the writing was mega great hahaha congratulations

Greetings from Venezuela♡

Fantastic story, @carolkean. I enjoyed the crisp ephemeral impressions. The way you structured the paragraphs worked well because it was rhytmic like a jazz concert. It reminded me of how Jack Kerouac used the dash- to represent the colorful blows of the horn- go! go! go! and the drum of the buddha- always smiling from his wise lotus throne on the mountaintop- Jack's mad prose replicating the beeps and boops and ahhs of the great jazzy saints.

Wow!! Your comment is better than my story!
Thank you and seriously, you are an awesome writer. I've seen some of your posts. And your own #curie. Thank you for the insightful and beautiful (no, @owasco, I won't say "undeserved") comments!!

Fabulous story. Reads a bit like a fairy tale, which I love, or a fable (I never could tell the difference). She didn't know any jazz moves but she knew she had to move, and groove, take it all in and let it all out, or she would burst like a supernova. Little Amina IS a supernova.
I love that the father likes neither Mozart nor Jazz. He sounds like quite the party pooper.
So how much of this story is true? Feels quite real to me. Chicago didn't work out? Or is this a semi-recounting of an older event?
And what a use of the prompt!
Her Daddy didn't like jazz and he didn't like her uncle either is such a great first line.
Excellent. A nice bedtime story for me. I hope I dream about a jazz bassist.

You're so sweet!
I meant to go back in and add a disclaimer: THIS IS A PACK OF LIES!
Or, this is TOTAL FICTION, with a few real-life details pillaged and recast in the guise of fiction. Too thinly disguised, eh? I did use a photo of @mvkean, but he was never gone "for years," he didn't reappear unexpectedly in the night, the hospital thing hasn't happened yet (Baby #3 is due in two months), but we did get our granddaughter and her nomadic uncle (our son!!!!) home for a weekend, and that was splendid. "The Mozart Incident" is so controversial, I can only leave it out there as a mystery.
So, did you dream about a jazz bassist? (What an epic line!!)
Thank you so much for the high praise! (Always, I fight the urge to say it's unwarranted!)

A beautifully creative, stream of consciousness story of a girl who loves to dance and her introduction to her bass playing uncle - the jazz man.

I love the way this piece of writing flows with a stringent chaos... just like a good piece of jazz music.

Awesome Carol!

I love you Raj!!!

Time after time, I'll write some stream-of-consciousness pack of lies (aka fiction), and you see a thread, a pattern, some sort of meaning, when my own offspring declare me "unreadable" and obscure, discursive and disorganized. Your kind words keep me going when it seems I'm going nowhere fast with useless prose hardly anyone can read. #ThankYou!!!!

Your kind words keep me going when it seems I'm going nowhere fast with useless prose hardly anyone can read.

Never think that Carol... the problem with steem at the moment is that there is little to no audience for quality writing that falls outside of the catagory of 'banging on about steem'.

This platform is the definition of an echo chamber at the mo. Fingers crossed it will evolve backwards toward what it once was (an exciting and engaged community of talent in all genres of content creation) with time. Keep heart, and as long as you're enjoying what you're writing keep going :)

The woman got a @curie, so maybe good creative writing has a hold now? We can hope. The only stories of mine that have gotten curies were about music that I can remember, so maybe that's the ticket.
Excellent story Carol. However, I see we have not quite made the transition to eliminating self-deprecatory remarks like we discussed! It's cool! I can't stop either! I loved this.

Thank you, both of you! Raj, Steemit is just about the ONLY place that affirms me as a writer. My offspring find me discursive and unreadable. Face-to-face (vs cyber) riends and family almost never encourage or affirm me as a writer, but so many other writers tell me the same thing, I'm beginning to realize it's ok to thrive on the internet. :) THANK YOU and yes, @owasco, I'll try to cease and desist with the self-deprecation, and will call you to task for it too if I catch you at it. :)

Hi carolkean,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.

A huge THANK YOU to the #curie community!
Your support keeps creators going when no other evidence seems to be in sight that there's any reason to keep writing/creating. Thank you again!

This is a spectacular post! Wonderful!

Thank you SO MUCH!!!! You're spectacular. :)

@carolkean,

I was drawn here, to say thank you for a recent upvote on my #bestseasonalthoughts contest post. That amazing Ginabot told me... So, I wanted to visit, say thank you, and this is the post I chose to send the message. What a wonderful example of creating a story... drawing the reader, and this line:

We are all one,
we are all in this together, and whatever music we like (yes, even Mozart!), we are all made of stardust with the same elements and 99% matching DNA.

Thank you again... I hope you have a wonderful Holiday Season!

@alliedforces curate

@tipu curate

You got some love from a member of @thealliance family!
Keep up the great work and join us in The Castle sometime!
The #spreadlovenotwar curation campaign is under the guidance of witnesses @enginewitty and @untersatz.
Current VP: 96.37%

Thank you @wesphilbin! I didn't know ginabot would report on my activity like that. Well, at least Gina's not invasive the way Siri or Alexa or Facebook bots and Amazon's algorithms are. Thank you for reading, commenting, and upvoting! and summoning the tipu and curator bots... you spread the joy!!

This post has been upvoted by witness @untersatz. You've done a great job!
The @untersatz witness and manual curation is under the guidance of @contrabourdon and @organduo.
Current VP: 98.38%

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