#TimeTravelAuthors 06/15 Do your characters ever use/encounter #AI.
#TimeTravelingGhost Part 13
#WSS366 #Toast
The Folies Bergère exploded with cheers as Sidney Bechet wrapped up his set. Partygoers toasted him, setting off poppers that laced the air with tinsel streamers. On the floor, dancers finished with a final Black Bottom grind, or maybe a Snakehips slide.
The Countess raised a glass. “Isten, bor, és vér—három, ami sosem hazudik.” (God, wine, and blood—three things that never lie.) “Bechet stirs the room, but she’ll set it alight.” She barely finished her toast when a slender, mocha-skinned woman glided onto the stage. Her banana skirt was as intriguing as her face.
I sat in rapt attention. Her voice, sometimes a lilting siren song, sometimes a wild, savage beat, held the room in spellbound silence. What could one say? This was a dusky goddess descended to earth.
Josephine Baker.
I would never forget that wild, tumultuous dance, the shimmying bananas, the sway, her face alight with divine pleasure and mischief.
When she finished, the room erupted. If I had thought the applause for Sidney Bechet was overwhelming, this was a tempest. Tinsel streamers flew, settling like multicolored cobwebs across the crowd.
“A toast,” the countess said, pouring from a magnum of Champagne now resting on the table.
“To the talk of Paris. Egészségedre! Egészségére!” (To your health! To her health!)
“She has fire, such spirit. I could drink of her essence all night. Just sitting here, I feel years younger. You are an American, yes? Is America not a land of machines and industry? Do you think a soulless machine could match such majesty? It could jiggle on stage; spout clever words; parrot wisdom and nonsense, maybe. But never this. God made man, the Devil, but copies it.”
I feared the Countess had drunk too much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmw5eGh888Y
#MicroFiction #NMPrompts #NMTTA #JosephineBaker #CountessElizabethBáthory #Jazz #Roaring20s #jazzhistory #Dance #NMV366
