This challenge is produced by GirlieOnTheEdge with the following simple rules:
Write 6 Sentences. No more. No less.
Use the current week’s prompt word – RHYTHM
Click here to hear the author read his words:
SS E-C/B
Once upon a time, or in the near future, far far away on an incomprehensible blog near you, a confused and confusing scribe and a small, loose-knit group of inscrutable, international and perhaps interdenominational misfits decided, in what one can only surmise was a moment of chemically-induced haze and optimism, to open a possibly ill-conceived and strangely-staffed interwebcafébistrothingy.
The point of this illustrious if over-ambitious exercise remains blindingly unobvious to everyone outwith the elite inner circle, of whom at least one remains in a state of cheerful enbafflement.
To this writer’s untutored, indifferent and indeed tone-deaf ear this aforementioned e-c/b (Motto: SUCCINCT, because this is what we are, and what we will always strive to be, because we believe that a good writer should have the ability to communicate her or his message in a clear and concise manner without the use of too many Fronted Adverbials or, for that matter, Rear Admirals, even if it’s not always easy and we do start to go on and on and on a wee bit verbosely but we understand that this can happen so we try not to be too judgemental or over-critical but simply remind ourselves of our Motto (SUCCINCT) and, as we say, em, strive, y’know, etc etc etc… ) lacks, amidst a host of other attractions, its own distinctive musical identity.
There is no rock n roll, no operatic aria, no hymne à l’amour, no rhythm and blues, greens, pinks or even black & whites (please feel free to add your own colour preference(s) here, as my daltonic repertoire of hues, shades and tones is pretty much exhausted), no reggae, no country and western, eastern or any other direction, no power ballad (perhaps due to the soaring costs of gas and electricity), no hip-hop, hippity-hoppity, or (k)rap, in fact nuffink to get the toes tapping, the fingers clicking, the hips swaying or the eye-lashes a-fluttering.
In short, or even at considerable length, this quasi- pseudo- e-whatsit appears to be without any unique attraction, hook or gimmick, no dancing girl or giggling giraffe, no cumbersome cloud of uni-cycling unicorns, no belligerent bouquet of malevolent mermaids, no altruistic army of battle-weary butterflies, or stuff like that.
Meanwhile, in the darkening music-free shadows between the emergency exit and the end of eternity, quietly sits an erudite and elegant lady, tanned and scarred by a recent sojourn on La Côte Vermeille (and I didn’t even get a piggin’ postcard, friends, huh), with a pencil and paper, an enigmatic smile, an itchy trigger finger, and a Kalashnikov.
(to be discontinued…)
That. Is seriously funny.
Bravo!
The story that you’re telling and I’m hearing with my ears
Not so very great to me ’cause you’ve been doing it for years
Lately I have been abroad and traveled to Algiers
No time to send a card to you and sorry for your tears
I like this bistro group of ours all well respected peers
And raise my glass in salute with many many cheers
Rereading now your SSS and it certainly appears
I could write as well as you with just a couple of beers
Returning with a recording of this poem. No need to listen 37 times. I only recorded it once.
https://pcloscloud.com/index.php/s/3ZrGAswbLW7YM4n
A skillful, if blatantly overloaded, verbiage and adverbiage, And the last line is the best! 🙂
Oh no, you saw through me!
(I love ‘blatantly overloaded’)
I thought ‘succinct’ might throw folk off the trail, but you got me, Christine!
I quite like this interwebcafébistrothingy… I’m still trying to get my head around everything to try to, at least, fit in of sorts, but I think I’m getting there. I think being interdenominational helps; I’m certainly inter something.
I’d go for interlocutory, but I’ve no idea what it means
That sounds good. It sounds wordy, but it sounds good! 🙂
Unlike you, sir, I’m lost for words!
Yeah, sorry, Keith, I think I used them all!
OK, I think I’ve stopped laughing enough to comment…
Oops, no, there I go again, at the sheer joy of the use of words – they tumble and bounce.
And the wee serious gems hidden in the dance of imagery.
Hm, ‘an itchy trigger finger, and a Kalashnikov’.
Let me think…
But what kind of ‘erudite and elegant lady’ would omit to sent a postcard?
Unforgivable!
Glad you enjoyed, Jenne.
I once tried to take life seriously, but it just wasn’t funny.
As for ‘Unforgivable’ I quote my friend Ramos: Thankyouverymuch gie’speace *&%£aman!
I don’t quite know what to say. LOL!
If you’re laughing, I’m happy!
“Cheerful embafflement,” i like that, i really do.
Perhaps it is quite close to home?
I can’t like this enough! 😂🤣😁😀
From my perspective, the “interwebcafébistrothingy” is all about dressing up at the weekend in fun clothes (like cowboys and indians, police and construction worker costumes) and jamming live music (when only about 3 of us or so can actually play an instrument).
Hang on… if all that sounds a bit ‘Village People’ then that’s how it was sold to me (or at least given away free with some pin badges and a kazoo).
Seriously though, I did spot a few uni-cycling unicorns in the basement.
“no power ballad (perhaps due to the soaring costs of gas and electricity)” = just one of many, many laugh-aloud lines!
And… excellent ode to Jenne too!
Bravo!
Cheers, Ford.
Sometimes it’s more fun to be on the outside looking in, it allows a licence to frill.
I knew the e-cafe was missing something… the floor show from your penultimate paragraph!
Just watch out for those mermaids, Chris!
Whatever tablets you’re on, keep taking them and keep posting your inspired madness.
I’ve decided to take this as a compliment, Doug.
Advance Australia Fair!
Always compliments for your wonderful work, CE. I always look forward to it.
That is very kind of you, Doug, and very much appreciated.
ah the sidewalk chorus of lamentation, the elegiac of the great unfashionables… aligned in a single row, misshapen grommets, paradise a soot-stained brick wall away. lol
Now that I’ve had an hour or three to disconnect the run-on phrasing and the strained imagery, I realize… damn! He does have a point in this ….er Six
I totally agree with “…because we believe that a good writer should have the ability to communicate her or his message in a clear and concise manner.”
As the old saying reminds us, “Those deaf to the music…
…hey! Wait just a minute that drawing up there, I know her!
(To paraphrase Michael Moorcock in ‘An Alien Heat’*, “Jenne! She is the best of us all!”)
ok.. given the inexplicable fact Jenne, a far-more developed and sophisticated denizen of the blogosphere than I, tolerates you… lets see about stamping the back of your hand!
lol
Yours sincerely CE**
* The first Moorcock story I read and, still a favorite.
** Cheerfully Em (or is that En…whatever,) baffled. lol
Serially, writing (or trying to write) within the Escher-istic context/premise of the SSC&B is way more fun than I expected. It, like reading and writing comments on Sixes, is good exercise for me…thanks, man
Laughing here.
Glad you took this in the spirit intended, Clark (but what do you mean ‘strained imagery’, huh?), and managed to identify the occasional serious point amidst the tomfoolery.
As Billy Shakespeare asked in one of his early blogs, What’s the point of having friends if you can’t poke fun at them, forsooth?
I am also impressed at your perspicacity re Jenne, as anyone who has ever met either of us is astounded that she, as you so neatly put it, inexplicably tolerates me.
And that you perceived that she is a class above most of us as a writer and, far more importantly, a person.
As Confucius quoth, It’s all rock n roll, man, with the occasional hymne à l’amour.
Nice descriptions throughout. I particularly liked this: “the darkening music-free shadows between the emergency exit and the end of eternity
Thanks, Frank, I’m quite flattered that you persevered through my lengthy ramblings to find what is my favourite phrase too!