The Double Bass is a God Damned Miracle
Yesterday I found myself skipping down the sidewalk after I had just bought some art supplies. As I was nearing the end of my street, I saw a small figure sitting on a chair, which was under a tree under the sky. I immediately recognised this person as the Italian nonna I had stopped to talk to a week or two ago. It broke my heart a little that she seemed to sit there all day waiting for passerbys to stop so that she could strike up a conversation. I think it must take a lot of loneliness and boredom to barely be able to speak a sentence of English and still sit out there all day waiting for someone to talk to. From what I recall, the language barrier was a little too imposing for an accurate translation of what we were trying to say to each other. I believe I communicated to her that I was getting married tomorrow, and that I was walking home to eat the box of charcoal sticks I was carrying – as if she was speaking to the god damn arch nemesis of Father Christmas himself. I figured that there was no law against being the type of human she was perceiving me to be, and so we said our ciaos and I blew her a kiss and went on my unmerry way.
But something was clinging onto the back of my mind for the rest of the day after that conversation. Something deeply troubling that I just couldn’t shake no matter how much you-know-what I smoked. It was a craving for a sweet Italian affogato. Now an affogato, for those who are uninitiated or stupid, is not to be confused with an avocado. I’ve made that mistake many times ordering at a bar. An avocado (commonly known as grinch balls, jungle bombs, goblin closets) is a disgusting wartish pear with a rock and evil green goop in the middle, and was invented in the 1990s (Jacques Ellul wrote a fantastic book on this). An affogato, on the other hand, is a scoop of ice cream with a shot of coffee on the side that you get to pour over it, and is usually had in a serving vessel. You start the process by having a spoon of ice cream with a hint of coffee, and then slowly the warmth of the coffee deflates the scoop until you have a cold coffee thick shake elixir for the second half. It’s god damn delicious. Anyways, by now, it had gotten dark, and I knew exactly where I could find one of these – so I headed to the jazz café.
The waiter sat me down on a sunken couch right up close to the stage and brought me an affogato before I had even asked. He could just tell by my body language that I wanted one. I had to sit on my singing-hot little paws to prevent them from picking him up by the collar when I heard that I had to pay for it, but there is no denying it was worth every penny. I mean it was just a god damn great affogato I had been given here. Something beckoned my attention rather quickly into my drinking journey though once the jazz band had taken their places on stage. As I upturned my gaze in awe, the source of the call revealed itself to me in all its holiness – it was a double bass, the most beautiful instrument created by man.
The double bass is a mammoth of an instrument. When I look at one, I see an ancient Viking ship, needing no bow, and charging right into the deepest sound waves of the roaring black oceans. And only the brightest ambassadors of morning are picked to helm these bastards. You think the universe lets someone like you or me get our fingers on these monuments? Hell no and thank god for that. The man helming this ship, let’s just call him Pete (because that was his name for Christ’s sake), on the other hand, was the man just for the job. Our very own martyr for the shining mahogany beholding us. He knew his shit – his index pressed on top of his middle finger as he cast each one of those strings into the bottom-most trenches of the song to generate maximum strength, and when he reeled out a note, everyone single one of us was blessed with the fruits of his gamble. Every note was perfect. Every one of us was crying. Pete flew away into the night sky at the end of the set. Like most nights after a night of Pete and his double bass, the only sound remaining was the clink of cutlery being placed down and a faint sniffle.
If I am reincarnated as a human, I would like to be a double player, and if I am reincarnated as an object, I hope I am born crooning and croaking and creaking out miraculous music, while the midwife cries: “It’s a double bass!”
Magic Love 