the divine ones

Thursdays are by their very nature always quite special. Especially in April I guess. 


             I looked up from my reading. The first number on the record was done. The phonograph needle was now scratching its slow way across the void to the second. The second number, I learned from the jacket, was "Dragon Blues."
            Meade Lux Lewis played four bars alone-and then Angela Hoenikker joined in. 
            Her eyes were closed. 
            I was flabbergasted. 
            She was great. 
            She improvised around the music of the Pullman porter's son; went from liquid lyricism to rasping lechery to the shrill skittishness of a frightened child, to a heroin nightmare.
           Her glissandi spoke of heaven and hell and all that lay between.
           Such music from such a woman could only be a case of schizophrenia or demonic possession.
           My hair stood on end, as though Angela were rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and babbling fluent Babylonian.  Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut