De Amerikaanse
schrijver Thomas Pynchon werd op 8 mei 1937 geboren in Glen Cove, Long
Island, New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Thomas Pynchon op dit blog.
Uit: Against
the Day
July Fourth started hot and grew hotter, early
light on the peaks descending, occupying, the few clouds bright and shapely and
unpromising of rain, nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks well before
the sun had cleared the ridge. Among stockmen and rodeo riders, today was known
as "Cowboy's Christmas," but to Webb Traverse it was more like
Dynamite's National Holiday, though you found many of the Catholic faith liked
to argue that that ought to be the Fourth of December, feast of St Barbara,
patron saint of artillerymen, gunsmiths, and by not that big of a stretch,
dynamiters too.
Everybody today,
drovers and barkeeps, office clerks and hardcases, gentle elderly folks and
openmouth reckless youth, would be seized sooner or later by the dynamitic
mania prevailing. They would take little fractions of a stick, attach cap and
fuse, light them up and throw them at each other, drop it in reservoirs and
have all-day fish fries, blast picturesque patterns in the landscape that'd be
all but gone next day, put it lit into empty beer barrels to be rolled down
mountainsides, and take bets on how close to town before it all blew to bits -
a perfect day all round for some of that good Propaganda of the Deed stuff,
which would just blend right in with all the other percussion.
Webb staggered up out of his bedroll after one
of those nights when he did not so much sleep as become intermittently
conscious of time. Already warm-up blasts could be heard up and down the
valley. Today's would be a fairly routine job, and Webb was looking forward to
a little saloon time at the end of it. Zarzuela was out by the fence waiting,
having known Webb long enough to have an idea that whatever the day held in
store, it would include explosion, which the colt was used to and even looked
forward to.
Thomas Pynchon
(Glen Cove, 8 mei 1937)
Cover
De Ierse schrijver Roddy Doyle werd geboren in Dublin op 8 mei 1958. Zie ook alle tags voor Roddy Doyle op dit blog.
Uit: Paddy
Clarke ha ha ha
Today, we were coming home
from the building site. Wed got a load of six-inch nails and a few bits of
plank for making boats, and wed been pushing bricks into a trench full of wet
cement when Aidan started running away. We could hear his asthma, and we all
ran as well. We were being chased. I had to wait for Sinbad. I looked back and
there was no one after us but I didnt say anything. I grabbed Sinbads hand
and ran and caught up with the rest of them. We stopped when we got out of the
fields onto the end of the road. We laughed. We roared through the gap in the
hedge. We got into the gap and looked to see if there was anyone coming to get
us. Sinbads sleeve was caught in the thorns.
-The mans coming! said Kevin,
and he slid through the gap.
We left Sinbad stuck in the
hedge and pretended wed run away.
We heard him snivelling. We
crouched behind the gate pillars of the last house before the road stopped at
the hedge, ODriscolls.
- Patrick
., Sinbad whinged.
- Sin-bahhhd
., said Kevin.
Aidan had his knuckles in his
mouth. Liam threw a stone at the hedge.
- Im telling Mammy, said
Sinbad.
I gave up. I got Sinbad out of
the hedge and made him wipe his nose on my sleeve. We were going home for our
dinner; shepherds pie on a Tuesday.
Roddy Doyle
(Dublin, 8 mei 1958)
De Engelse schrijfster Pat
Barker werd geboren in Thornaby-on-Tees op 8 mei 1943. Zie ook alle tags voor Pat Barker
op dit blog.
Uit: The Ghost Road
In deck-chairs all
along the front the bald pink knees of Bradford businessmen nuzzled the sun.
Blly Prior leant on
the sea-wall. Ten or twelve feet below him a family was gathering its things
together for the trek back to boarding-house or railway station. A fat,
middle-aged woman, swollen feet bulging over lace-up shoes, a man with a
lobster-coloured tonsure -my God, he'd be regretting it tomorrow -and a small
child, a boy, being towelled dry by a young woman. His little tassel wobbled as
he stood, square-mouthed with pain, howling, 'Ma-a-am.' Wet sand was the
problem. It always was, Prior remembered. However carefully you tiptoed back
from that final paddle, your legs got coated all over again, and the towel
always hurt.
The child wriggled
and his mother slapped him hard, leaving red prints on his chubby buttocks. He
stopped screaming, gulped with shock, then settled down to a persistent
grizzle. The older woman protested, 'Hey, our Louie, there's no need for that.'
She grabbed the towel. 'C'mon, give it here, you've no bloody patience, you.'
The girl-but she was
not a girl, she was a woman of twenty-five or twenty-six, perhaps -retreated,
resentful but also relieved. You could see her problem. Married, but the war,
whether by widowing her or simply by taking her husband away, had reduced her
to a position of tutelage in her mother's house, and then what was the point?
Hot spunk trickling down the thigh, the months of heaviness, the child born on
a gush of blood -if all that didn't entitle you to the status and independence
of a woman, what did? Oh, and she'd be frustrated too. Her old single bed back,
or perhaps a double bed with the child, listening to snores and creaks and
farts from her parents' bed on the other side of the wall.
Pat Barker (Thornaby-on-Tees, op 8 mei 1943)
De Amerikaanse dichter Gary Snyder werd
geboren op 8 mei 1930 in San Francisco. Zie ook alle tags voor Gary
Snyder op dit blog.
For Lew Welch In A
Snowfall
Snowfall in March:
I sit in the white glow reading a thesis
About you. Your poems, your life.
The author's my student,
He even quotes me.
Forty years since we joked in a kitchen in Portland
Twenty since you disappeared.
All those years and their moments
Crackling bacon, slamming car doors,
Poems tried out on friends,
Will be one more archive,
One more shaky text.
But life continues in the kitchen
Where we still laugh and cook,
Watching snow.
There Are Those Who Love To Get Dirty
There are those who love to get dirty
and fix things.
They drink coffee at dawn,
beer after work,
And those who stay clean,
just appreciate things,
At breakfast they have milk
and juice at night.
There are those who do both,
they drink tea.
Gary Snyder (San
Francisco, 8 mei 1930)
Als student Aziatische
cultuur en talen in 1956
De Oostenrijkse
schrijfster Gertrud Fussenegger werd geboren op 8 mei 1912 in Pilsen. Zie ook alle tags voor Gertrud Fussenegger op dit blog.
Uit: Der Tabakgarten
Dann jedoch trat ein, woran sich jeder erinnern
wird, der damals einen Garten oder ein Feld zu bestellen hatte: in einer Reihe
trockener Sommer war jener Sommer der trockenste. Zu allen anderen Plagen kam
die Plage der Dürre über unser Land. Wochenlang fiel kein Regen, über den
halbzerstörten Städten kochte die Hitze. Jeden Nachmittag erhob sich ein
glühender Wind, er trieb den roten Ziegelstaub von den Trümmerstätten hoch, der
Staub quälte unsere Kehlen und unsere Lungen. Die Brunnen versiegten, und die
Behörden gaben den Erlaß heraus, daß Gärten und Rasen - bei hoher Strafe -
nicht mehr aus den nur noch unergiebig fließenden Leitungen besprengt werden
dürften.
Wir Gartenleute trauerten. Der eine oder andere
ließ es sich nicht nehmen, ein Tönnchen voll Wasser aus dem Fluß
heraufzukarren. Den meisten war das zuviel Mühe. Sie, die kühleren Köpfe,
rechneten richtig, wenn sie sagten, sie könnten so viel Kraft nicht an das
lumpige Grünzeug vergeuden. So müsse es eben verdorren.
Gertrud Fussenegger (8 mei 1912 19 maart 2009)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 8e mei ook mijn
blog van 8 mei 2012 deel 2.
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