De Amerikaanse schrijver Neal Cassady werd geboren op 8 februari 1926 in Salt Lake City. Zie ook alle tags voor Neal Cassady op dit blog.

Uit: Relax, Man. The Gay Love Letters of Neal Cassady to Allen Ginsberg

“Denver, Colorado
March 14, 1947.

Dear Allen;
          . . . My life is, at the moment, so cluttered up I have become incapable of relaxing long enough to even write a decent letter, really, I'm almost unable to think coherently. You must, then, not only forgive, but, find it within yourself to understand & in so doing develope a degree of patience until I am able to free myself enough to become truly close to you again.
          On your part, you must know, that any letdown in your regard for me would upset me so much that, psychologically, I would be in a complete vacuum. At least for the immediate future I must request these things of you. so please don't fail me. I need you now more than ever, since I've noone else to turn to. I continually feel I am almost free enough to be a real help to you, but, my love can't flourish in my present position & if I forced it now, both you & I would lose. By God, though, every day I miss you more & More.
          Understanding these things I hope, nay, in fact, know you must pour out more affection now than ever, rather than reacting negatively & withering up so that all is loss, or would be, between us.
          Let us then find true awareness by realizing that each of us is depending on the other for fulfillment. In that realization lies, I believe, the germ that may grow to the great heights of complete oneness. . . .
          I shall find a job tomorrow & perhaps by losing myself in work again I may become more rational & less upset & unnerved by the emotional shock of returning. Write soon I need you. I remain your other self.
                    Neal.”

 
Neal Cassady (8 februari 1926 – 4 februari 1968)
Hier met  Allen Ginsberg (links)

De Nederlandse dichter, songwriter en musicus Robin Block werd geboren op 8 februari 1980 in Heemskerk. Zie ook alle tags voor Robin Block op dit blog.

Sway

Sitting at the bar with your back against the wall
at some coke head festival with your eardrums beating out
booze breath girl in heat is boasting mutilation streaks
and her lack of calories makes you black as black can
oh my, don't mind;
you and I in the tide honey,you and I in the tide honey,
you and I in the tide honey,you and I in the tide honey

sitting on the floor in some godforsaken dumb,
while the walls are crumbling down, they will never let you out
oh, this darkness, all these hauntingeyes that strike you
down, they will never let you out
you and I in the tide honey,you and I in the tide honey,
you and I in the tide honey,you and I in the tide honey

come on now, speak up, come on now, be gone.
it's a long way home, it's a long way home.
can't you feel it sway?
can't you feel it all yhe time?
can't you feel it sway?
you and I in the tide honey,you and I in the tide honey,
you and I in the tide honey,you and I in the tide honey

 
Robin Block (Heemskerk, 8 februari 1980)

De Amerikaanse dichteres en schrijfster Elizabeth Bishop werd geboren op 8 februari 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Zie ook alle tags voor Elizabeth Bishop op dit blog.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

While Someone Telephones

Wasted, wasted minutes that couldn't be worse,
minutes of a barbaric condescension.
--Stare out the bathroom window at the fir-trees,
at their dark needles, accretions to no purpose
woodenly crystallized, and where two fireflies
are only lost.
Hear nothing but a train that goes by, must go by, like tension;
nothing. And wait:
maybe even now these minutes' host
emerges, some relaxed uncondescending stranger,
the heart's release.
And while the fireflies
are failing to illuminate these nightmare trees
might they not be his green gay eyes.

 
Elizabeth Bishop (8 februari 1911 – 6 oktober 1979)

De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Eva Strittmatter werd als Eva Braun geboren op 8 februari 1930 in Neuruppin. Zie ook alle tags voor Eva Strittmatter op dit blog.

Große Nächte

Die gelben Lilien und die lilanen Lupinen,
Kastanien blühn und Fliederbaum.
Spät blühn Holunder und Robinen
Und drängen weiß in unsern Traum.
Im Juni, in den großen Nächten,
Macht manches Mal ihr Duft uns wach.
Was wir an Süße da genießen,
Geht uns noch im Dezember nach.

Euphorie

Ich will
Keine resignativen Gedichte mehr schreiben.
Resignation ist genug auf der Welt.
Durchhalten, überdrüberbleiben –
Das ist der Wahlspruch, der mir gefällt.

Klagen und Weimern sind so allgemein,
Verantwortlichmachen von Zeit und Geschichte.
Von jetzt an will ich heiter sein.
Wenn nicht – schreibe ich keine Gedichte.

 
Eva Strittmatter (8 februari 1930 – 3 januari 2011)
Hier met echtgenoot Erwin

De Oostenrijkse dichter en schrijver Gert Jonke werd geboren op 8 februari 1946 in Klagenfurt. Zie ook alle tags voor Gert Jonke op dit blog.

Uit: Der ferne Klang

"Mir passiert es sehr oft, und zwar immer, wenn ich beim Schreiben von Geschichten wieder von vorne beginne, daß deren erstes Wort mir im Mund gefriert, ehe ich es aussprechen könnte wie ein Ort oder der Name eines Ortes, wo noch nie jemand gewesen ist, weil ich mit dieser Geschichte immer wieder jene Orte suche, wo noch niemand gewesen sein kann, um somit neue, unbetretbare Welten zu erfinden, aber ich bleibe schon beim ersten Wort meiner Geschichte stehen und stecken; ich versuche also, dieses Wort auf ein Blatt Papier zu schreiben. Das scheint sehr gut zu gelingen, und beinah wäre das Wort von dem Stift, den ich ergriffen habe, niedergeschrieben worden. Doch kurz bevor er das Wort geschrieben hat, stellt der Stift in meiner Hand sich deutlich als jener Stift eines Forschungsschiffes heraus, das schon vor hundert Jahren mit einer Expedition ins nördliche Eismeer aufgebrochen war und damals unmittelbar nach dem Beginn der Expedition in Vergessenheit geriet, weil das Schiff bis heute noch immer fossiliert in einem versteinerten Nordlichtquader wie eine Fliege im Bernstein steckengeblieben ist und noch immer steckt, dort, verschollen, vergessen, bis jetzt, bis mein Stift quer durchs arktische Eis des Papiers zu diesen nach wie vor in einem riesigen Lichtkristall steckengebliebenen Mitgliedern dieser vergessenen Expedition vorzudringen versucht, mit meiner wie ein Eisbrecher sich zu dem weißen Eispanzer hinüberschreibenden, ihn zerschneidenden Feder des Stifts, um an den erstarrten Minen dieser Leute abzulesen, wo denn der gesuchte Ort, den auch sie noch nicht ganz erreicht hatten, denn etwa liege ..."

 
Gert Jonke (8 februari 1946 – 4 januari 2009)
 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 8^e februari ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.

08-02-2015 om 17:36 geschreven door Romenu  

De Amerikaanse schrijver Henry Roth werd geboren op 8 februari 1906 in Tysmenitz nabij Stanislawow, Galicië, in het toenmalige Oostenrijk-Hongarije. Zie ook alle tags voor Henry Roth op dit blog.

Uit: An American Type

“That was the time, the general mood, the predicament out of which this story comes. The young woman I was courting — we shall call her M — was a very personable, tall, fair-haired young woman, a pianist and composer, a young woman with a world of patience, practicality, and self-discipline, bred and raised in the best traditions of New England and the Middle West, the most wholesome traditions. I was, at that time, sufficiently advanced and superior to be somewhat disdainful of those traditions. I wondered whether there was any reality to my courtship, any future, whether, in short, anything would come of it. I was so committed to being an artist — in spite of anything.
The colony was close to Saratoga Springs, and I owned a Model A Ford, and in the early morning hours before breakfast I would drive down from Yaddo to the spa. There was a kind of public place there in those days, a place where paper cups could be bought for a penny, and a sort of fountain where the water bubbled through a slender pipe into a basin — and I say bubbled because that was one of its attractions, the fact that it did bubble.
Ever since childhood I have regarded carbonated water as something of a treat, something not easily obtainable, in fact, only by purchase, remembering the seltzer-water man on the East Side laboring up the many flights of stairs with his dozen siphons in a box. And here it was free, and not only free but salutary. The water had a slightly musty or sulfurous flavor to go with its effervescence, but its properties were surpassingly benign.
I happened to mention the effectiveness and bracing qualities of the waters of the spring to a small group standing in front of the main building of Yaddo, and invited at large anyone who wished to accompany me in the morning. The response was almost universally negative. “Drink that water? That stuff?” was the tenor of their comments. “I’d sooner drink mud water,” said one of the poets. But one person did reply in the affirmative. That was M. She liked the water; it shortly became apparent that she liked it as much as I did.”

 
Henry Roth (8 februari 1906 – 13 oktober 1995)
Stanislawow, tegenwoordig Iwano-Frankowsk in Polen

De Amerikaanse schrijver John Grisham werd geboren in Jonesboro, Arkansas, op 8 februari 1955. Zie ook alle tags voor John Grisham op dit blog.

Uit: Sycamore Row

“They found Seth Hubbard in the general area where he had promised to be, though not exactly in the condition expected. He was at the end of a rope, six feet off the ground and twisting slightly in the wind. A front was moving through and Seth was soaked when they found him, not that it mattered. Someone would point out that there was no mud on his shoes and no tracks below him, so therefore he was probably hanging and dead when the rain began. Why was that important? Ultimately, it was not.
The logistics of hanging oneself from a tree are not that simple. Evidently, Seth thought of everything. The rope was three-quarter-inch braided natural Manila, of some age and easily strong enough to handle Seth, who weighed 160 pounds a month earlier at the doctor’s office. Later, an employee in one of Seth’s factories would report that he had seen his boss cut the fifty-foot length from a spool a week before using it in such dramatic fashion. One end was tied firmly to a lower branch of the same tree and secured with a slapdash mix of knots and lashings. But, they held. The other end was looped over a higher branch, two feet in girth and exactly twenty-one feet from the ground. From there it fell about nine feet, culminating in a perfect hangman’s knot, one that Seth had undoubtedly worked on for some time. The noose was straight from the textbook with thirteen coils designed to collapse the loop under pressure. A true hangman’s knot snaps the neck, making death quicker and less painful, and apparently Seth had done his homework. Other than what was obvious, there was no sign of a struggle or suffering.
A six-foot stepladder had been kicked aside and was lying benignly nearby. Seth had picked his tree, flung his rope, tied it off, climbed the ladder, adjusted the noose, and, when everything was just right, kicked the ladder and fell. His hands were free and dangling near his pockets.”

 
John Grisham (Jonesboro, 8 februari 1955)

De Franse schrijver Jules Verne werd geboren in Nantes op 8 februari 1828. Zie ook alle tags voor Jules Verne op dit blog.

Uit: 20.000 Mijlen onder Zee

“Op dit oogenblik is mij alles nog niet recht duidelijk; ik zie in deze duisternis maar enkele flikkeringen; en ik moet mij tevreden stellen met het opschrijven mijner denkbeelden onder den indruk der verschillende gebeurtenissen.
Bovendien bindt ons niets aan kapitein Nemo. Hij weet dat wij den Nautilus onmogelijk kunnen ontvluchten. Wij zijn zelfs niet op ons woord van eer gevangen. Geen belofte bindt ons aan hem. Wij zijn slechts gevangenen, die onder den schijn van beleefdheid als gasten behandeld worden. Ned Land heeft echter de hoop niet opgegeven om de vrijheid terug te krijgen. Zeker zal hij gebruik maken van de eerste gelegenheid de beste, die het toeval hem aanbiedt. Zonder twijfel zal ik zijn voorbeeld volgen. En toch zal ik niet zonder eenig leedwezen datgene met mij nemen, wat de edelmoedigheid van den kapitein ons van de geheimen van den Nautilus heeft laten doorgronden. Moet ik dien man haten of bewonderen?

Scene uit de film “20.000 Leagues Under The Sea” uit 1954

Is hij slachtoffer of beul? En dan zou ik, om openhartig te spreken, voor ik hem verliet, gaarne die onderzeesche reis om de aarde volbrengen, waarvan het begin zoo schoon is geweest. Ik zou gaarne al de wonderen aanschouwen, die de wereldzeeen voor ons verborgen houden. Ik zou willen gezien hebben wat niemand nog heeft aanschouwd, zelfs al moest ik met mijn leven dien onleschbaren dorst naar kennis betalen! Wat heb ik tot nog toe ontdekt? Niets of bijna niets, want wij hebben nog maar 24000 kilometer door den Grooten Oceaan afgelegd!
Echter weet ik wel dat de Nautilus het bewoonde land nadert, en dat, als zich eenige kans op ontvluchten voordoet, het wreed zou zijn mijn makkers aan mijn zucht naar het onbekende op te offeren. Ik zal hen moeten volgen, misschien zelfs wel geleiden.”

 
Jules Verne (8 februari 1828 – 24 maart 1905)
 

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Kate Chopin (pseudoniem van Katherine O'Flaherty) werd geboren op 8 februari 1851 in St. Louis. Zie ook alle tags voor Kate Chopin op dit blog.

Uit: A Respectable Woman

“Mrs. Baroda was a little provoked to learn
that her husband expected his friend, Gouvernail, up to spend a week or two on the plantation.
They had entertained a good deal during the winter; much of the time had also been passed in New Orleans in various forms of mild dissipation. She was looking forward to a period of unbroken rest, now, and undisturbed tete-a-tete with her husband, when he informed her that Gouvernail was coming up to stay a week or two.
This was a man she had heard much of but never seen. He had been her husband's college friend; was now a journalist, and in no sense a society man or "a man about town," which were, perhaps, some of the reasons she had never met him. But she had unconsciously formed an image of him in her mind. She pictured him tall, slim, cynical; with eye-glasses, and his hands in his pockets; and she did not like him. Gouvernail was slim enough, but he wasn't very tall nor very cynical; neither did he wear eyeglasses nor carry his hands in his pockets. And she rather liked him when he first presented himself.
But why she liked him she could not explain satisfactorily to herself when she partly attempted to do so. She could discover in him none of those brilliant and promising traits which Gaston, her husband, had often assured her that he possessed. On the contrary, he sat rather mute and receptive before her chatty eagerness to make him feel at home and in face of Gaston's frank and wordy hospitality. His manner was as courteous toward her as the most exacting woman could require; but he made no direct appeal to her approval or even esteem.
Once settled at the plantation he seemed to like to sit upon the wide portico in the shade of one of the big Corinthian pillars, smoking his cigar lazily and listening attentively to Gaston's experience as a sugar planter."

 
Kate Chopin (8 februari 1851 – 22 augustus 1904)
Bronzen borstbeeld in de Writer's Corner in St. Louis, Missouri

De Duitse schrijfster Gabriele Reuter werd geboren op 8 februari 1859 in Alexandrië. Zie ook alle tags voor Gabriele Reuter op dit blog.

Uit: Das Tränenhaus

„Das kleine Haus lag in einer freundlichen Wiesengegend Württembergs. Oben auf dem höchsten Punkt des lang hingestreckten Hügels hob ein graues Grafenschloß seine Dächer über das Grün der Parkbäume, die Dorfstraße mit den Bauernhöfen zog sich über den Rücken der Erdhebung. Unten, wo der helle junge Fluß durch Weidengebüsch und über weiße Kiesel plätscherte, gab es noch eine zweite Straße. Hier wohnten nur arme Weiblein in bescheidenen Hütten, mit winzigen, blumenreichen Vorgärten.
Das kleine Haus aber lag ganz allein und abseits von den beiden Dorfstraßen, am linken Abhang des Hügels, in seine Flanke gleichsam verschüchtert hineingedrückt. Der Weg, der vom Dorf zu ihm hinunter führte, war steil und steinicht, voller Löcher und Pfützen. Rechts und links neben den Schlehdornhecken wuchs ein Gestrüpp von Brennnesseln. Alles zeigte, daß niemand ein Interesse daran nahm, den Pfad in gangbarem Zustande zu erhalten. Er führte ja auch nur zu einem Gehöft notorisch verkommener armer Leute, und weiter zu dem kleinen Häuschen, von dem die Frauen im Dorf mit einem gewissen halblauten Ton der Scheu redeten, und die Männer mit einem zweideutigen Grinsen.
Freundlich genug schaute es aus unter dem großen blühenden Birnbaum, durch den die Bienen summten. Helle Gardinen hingen vor allen Fenstern, und seine stattliche Eigentümerin stand meistens würdevoll vor ihrer Türe, irgend etwas Gutes zwischen ihren großen weißen Zähnen behaglich kauend, während die kleine Schar ihrer Gäste um sie her auf der Schwelle oder auf der Bank an der Hauswand zu hocken pflegte, gähnend, träumend oder schwatzend, wie es sich eben fügen mochte.
Die Gäste waren das Bedenkliche in diesem kleinen Hause, von dessen Türe man unendlich weit ins Land schauen konnte, über das heitere Flüßchen hinweg, bis zu den duftigen Umrissen der Schweizeralpen fern am wolkigen Horizont, und das doch trotz dieser weiten und freien Aussicht so schüchtern sich hinter der Hügelflanke versteckte.“

 
Gabriele Reuter (8 februari 1859 – 18 november 1941)
Rond 1900

08-02-2015 om 17:35 geschreven door Romenu  

In Memoriam André Brink

De Zuid-Afrikaanse schrijver André Brink is vrijdagavond aan boord van een KLM-vlucht van Amsterdam naar Kaapstad overleden. Brink was op de terugweg van België, waar hij een eredoctoraat van de Universiteit van Leuven toegekend had gekregen. André Brink werd geboren op 29 mei 1935 in Vrede. Hij is 79 jaar geworden. Zie ook alle tags voor André Brink op dit blog.

Uit: A dry white season

“For some time he was houseboy for a rich Jewish family in Houghton; later he found a better paid job as messenger for a firm of attorneys in the city, and then as an assistant in a bookshop. Somehow he managed to keep up his reading and the manager of the bookshop, pleased by his interest, helped him to continue his studies. In this way he eventually passed Standard Four.
At that stage Gordon went back to the Transkei. A traumatic experience, as it turned out, since there was no work for him back home, apart from lending a hand with the paltry farming activities of a great-uncle: planting maize, scouring the veld with a lean dog in search of hares for meat, sitting in the sun in front of the hut. He'd left the city because he couldn't stand life there any more; but it proved to be worse on the farm. There was something fretful and desultory in his blood after the years he'd been away. All the money he'd brought with him had gone into lobola -- the dowry for a wife; and barely a year after his arrival in the Transkei he returned to the only place he really knew, Johannesburg, Gouthini. After a brief unsettled spell he landed at Ben's school.
One after another his children were born: in Alexandra, then Moroka, then Orlando. The eldest was Jonathan, his favourite. From the outset Gordon had resolved to rear his son in the traditions of his tribe. And when Jonathan turned fourteen he was sent back to the Transkei to be circumcised and initiated.
A year later Jonathan -- or Sipho, which Gordon said was his "real" name-was back, no longer a kwedini but a man. Gordon had always spoken about this day. From now on he and his son would be allies, two men in the house. There was no lack of friction, since Jonathan obviously had a mind of his awn; but on the main issue they agreed: Jonathan would go to school for as long as possible. And it was just after he'd passed Standard Six and secondary school was becoming an expensive business, that they turned to Ben for help.”

 
André Brink (29 mei 1935 – 6 februari 2015)

08-02-2015 om 10:28 geschreven door Romenu