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De Amerikaanse schrijver, dichter en componist Paul Bowles werd geboren in New York op 30 december 1910. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 30 december 2007.
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Uit: The Stories of Paul Bowles
The melting snow dripped from the balconies. People hurried through the little street that always smelled of frying fish. Now and then a stork swooped low, dragging his sticklike legs below him. The small gramophones scraped day and night behind the walls of the shop where young Amar worked and lived. There were few spots in the city where the snow was ever cleared away, and this was not one of them. So it gathered all through the winter months, piling up in front of the shop doors.
But now it was late winter; the sun was warmer. Spring was on the way, to confuse the heart and melt the snow. Amar, being alone in the world, decided it was time to visit a neighboring city where his father had once told him some cousins lived.
Early in the morning he went to the bus station. It was still dark, and the empty bus came in while he was drinking hot coffee. The road wound through the mountains all the way.
When he arrived in the other city it was already dark. Here the snow was even deeper in the streets, and it was colder. Because he had not wanted to, Amar had not foreseen this, and it annoyed him to be forced to wrap his burnous closely about him as he left the bus station. It was an unfriendly town; he could tell that immediately. Men walked with their heads bent forward, and if they brushed against a passer-by they did not so much as look up. Excepting the principal street, which had an arclight every few meters, there seemed to be no other illumination, and the alleys that led off on either side lay in utter blackness; the white-clad figures that turned into them disappeared straightway.
"A bad town," said Amar under his breath. He felt proud to be coming from a better and larger city, but his pleasure was mingled with anxiety about the night to be passed in this inimical place. He abandoned the idea of trying to find his cousins before morning, and set about looking for a fondouk or a bath where he might sleep until daybreak.
Only a short distance ahead the street-lighting system terminated. Beyond, the street appeared to descend sharply and lose itself in darkness. The snow was uniformly deep here, and not cleared away in patches as it had been nearer the bus station. He puckered his lips and blew his breath ahead of him in little clouds of steam. As he passed over into the unlighted district he heard a few languid notes being strummed on an oud. The music came from a doorway on his left. He paused and listened. Someone approached the doorway from the other direction and inquired, apparently of the man with the oud, if it was "too late."
Paul Bowles (30 december 1910 18 november 1999)
De Britse schrijver en dichter Joseph Rudyard Kipling werd geboren op 30 december 1865 in Bombay, India. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 30 december 2007.
Uit: The Light That Failed
The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable without pistol-practice. After much forethought and self-denial, Dick had saved seven shillings and sixpence, the price of a badly constructed Belgian revolver. Maisie could only contribute half a crown to the syndicate for the purchase of a hundred cartridges. 'You can save better than I can, Dick,' she explained; 'I like nice things to eat, and it doesn't matter to you. Besides, boys ought to do these things.'
Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, but went out and made the purchase, which the children were then on their way to test. Revolvers did not lie in the scheme of their daily life as decreed for them by the guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in the place of a mother to these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years, during which time she had made her profit of the allowances supposed to be expended on his clothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness, partly through a natural desire to pain,--she was a widow of some years anxious to marry again,--had made his days burdensome on his young shoulders.
Where he had looked for love, she gave him first aversion and then hate.
Where he growing older had sought a little sympathy, she gave him ridicule. The many hours that she could spare from the ordering of her small house she devoted to what she called the home-training of Dick Heldar. Her religion, manufactured in the main by her own intelligence and a keen study of the Scriptures, was an aid to her in this matter. At such times as she herself was not personally displeased with Dick, she left him to understand that he had a heavy account to settle with his Creator; wherefore Dick learned to loathe his God as intensely as he loathed Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame of mind for the young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, but an economical and self-contained one, never throwing away the least unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible, that might make his life a little easier. The treatment taught him at least the power of living alone,--a power that was of service to him when he went to a public school and the boys laughed at his clothes, which were poor in quality and much mended. In the holidays he returned to the teachings of Mrs. Jennett, and, that the chain of discipline might not be weakened by association with the world, was generally beaten, on one account or another, before he had been twelve hours under her roof.
Rudyard Kipling (30 december 1865 18 januari 1936)
De Duitse schrijver Theodor Fontane werd geboren in Neuruppin op 30 december 1819. Fontanes ouders waren hugenoten, die vanuit Zuid-Frankrijk waren overgekomen en in Neuruppin een apotheek hadden geopend. Daar, en eveneens in Swinemünde, bracht Fontane zijn jeugd door. Hij beëindigde de school vroegtijdig om in Leipzig en later Berlijn als apothekersleerling te werken. In Berlijn kwam hij in 1842 met Georg Herwegh in contact; zijn eerste gedichten waren geïnspireerd door de Vormärz. Zijn eerste successen kwamen echter als lid van het collectief Tunnel über der Spree: de Preußenlieder waren ballades over verdienstelijke figuren. In 1850 huwde hij; hij maakte een aantal reizen naar Engeland. Na zijn terugkeer wierf de Pruisische staat hem als journalist aan; hij werd in 1860 redacteur bij de Kreuzzeitung, een conservatieve krant. Hij werd populair met een reeks verhalen over de streek, die in episoden gepubliceerd werden: de Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg, waarbij hij historische anekdotes over de regio in zeer groot detail beschreef. De Wanderungen bleven van 1862 tot 1882 bestaan. Hij realiseerde zich dat Pruisen in feite nog geen boekcultuur van grote maatschappelijke romans bezat en begon ze dus zelf te schrijven. In totaal schreef hij op late leeftijd nog 16 romans; enerzijds misdaadverhalen, anderzijds burgerlijke familiegeschiedenissen waarvoor hij naar stof uit de Wanderungen teruggreep. Zijn romans luidden het naturalisme in; in zijn theaterrecensies gaf hij zijn goedkeuring aan de nieuwe generatie dramatici, zoals Gerhart Hauptmann.
Uit: Effie Briest
Solche Karten trafen nun täglich ein, aus Innsbruck, aus Verona, aus Vicenza, aus Padua, eine jede fing an: »Wir haben heute vormittag die hiesige berühmte Galerie besucht«, oder wenn es nicht die Galerie war, so war es eine Arena oder irgendeine Kirche »Santa Maria« mit einem Zunamen. Aus Padua kam, zugleich mit der Karte, noch ein wirklicher Brief. »Gestern waren wir in Vicenza. Vicenza muß man sehen wegen des Palladio; Geert sagte mir, daß in ihm alles Moderne wurzele. Natürlich nur in bezug auf Baukunst. Hier in Padua (wo wir heute früh ankamen) sprach er im Hotelwagen etliche Male vor sich hin: 'Er liegt in Padua begraben', und war überrascht, als er von mir vernahm, daß ich diese Worte noch nie gehört hätte. Schließlich aber sagte er, es sei eigentlich ganz gut und ein Vorzug, daß ich nichts davon wüßte. Er ist überhaupt sehr gerecht. Und vor allem ist er engelsgut gegen mich und gar nicht überheblich und auch gar nicht alt. Ich habe noch immer das Ziehen in den Füßen, und das Nachschlagen und das lange Stehen vor den Bildern strengt mich an. Aber es muß ja sein. Ich freue mich sehr auf Venedig. Da bleiben wir fünf Tage, ja vielleicht eine ganze Woche. Geert hat mir schon von den Tauben auf dem Markusplatz vorgeschwärmt, und daß man sich da Tüten mit Erbsen kauft und dann die schönen Tiere damit füttert. Es soll Bilder geben, die das darstellen, schöne blonde Mädchen, 'ein Typus wie Hulda', sagte er. Wobei mir denn auch die Jahnkeschen Mädchen einfallen. Ach, ich gäbe was drum, wenn ich mit ihnen auf unserem Hof auf einer Wagendeichsel sitzen und unsere Tauben füttern könnte. Die Pfauentaube mit dem starken Kropf dürft ihr aber nicht schlachten, die will ich noch wiedersehen. Ach, es ist so schön hier. Es soll auch das Schönste sein. Eure glückliche, aber etwas müde Effi.«
Frau von Briest, als sie den Brief vorgelesen hatte, sagte:
»Das arme Kind. Sie hat Sehnsucht.«
»Ja«, sagte Briest, »sie hat Sehnsucht. Diese verwünschte Reiserei ...«
»Warum sagst du das jetzt? Du hättest es ja hindern können. Aber das ist so deine Art, hinterher den Weisen zu spielen. Wenn das Kind in den Brunnen gefallen ist, decken die Ratsherren den Brunnen zu.«
»Ach, Luise, komme mir doch nicht mit solchen Geschichten. Effi ist unser Kind, aber seit dem 3. Oktober ist sie Baronin Innstetten. Und wenn ihr Mann, unser Herr Schwiegersohn, eine Hochzeitsreise machen und bei der Gelegenheit jede Galerie neu katalogisieren will, so kann ich ihn daran nicht hindern. Das ist eben das, was man sich verheiraten nennt.«
»Also jetzt gibst du das zu. Mir gegenüber hast du's immer bestritten, immer bestritten, daß die Frau in einer Zwangslage sei.«
»Ja, Luise, das hab ich. Aber wozu das jetzt. Das ist wirklich ein zu weites Feld.«
Theodor Fontane (30 december 1819 - 20 september 1898)
De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en criticus Joshua Clover werd geboren op 30 december 1962 in Berkeley, California. Hij studeerde aan de Boston University en nam deel aan de Iowa Writer's Workshop. Hij doceert English Literature and Critical Theory aan de University of California. Clover schrijft ook regelmatig bijdragen voor de Village Voice, The New York Times en het magazine Spin.
The map room
We moved into a house with 6 rooms: the Bedroom,
the Map Room, the Vegas Room, Cities
in the Flood Plains, the West, & the Room Which Contains All
of Mexico. We honeymooned in the Vegas Room where
lounge acts wasted our precious time. Then there was the junta's
high command, sick dogs of the Map Room, heel-
prints everywhere, pushing model armies into the unfurnished
West. At night: stories of their abandoned homes in the Cities
in the Flood Plains, how they had loved each other
mercilessly, in rusting cars, until the drive-in went under.
From the Bedroom we called the decorator & demanded
a figurehead... the one true diva to be had
in All of Mexico: Maria Felix [star of The Devourer, star
of The Lady General]. Nightly in Vegas, "It's Not Unusual"
or the Sex Pistols medley. Nothing ever comes back
from the West, it's a one-way door, a one-shot deal,--
the one room we never slept in together. My wife
wants to rename it The Ugly Truth. I love my wife for her
wonderful, light, creamy, highly reflective skin;
if there's an illumination from the submerged Cities,
that's her. She suspects me of certain acts involving Maria Felix,
the gambling debts mount...but when she sends the junta off to Bed
we rendezvous in the Map Room & sprawl across the New World
with our heads to the West. I sing her romantic melodies from the Room
Which Contains All of Mexico, tunes which keep arriving
like heaven, in waves of raw data, & though I wrote
none of the songs myself & can't pronounce them, these are my
greatest hits
Joshua Clover (Berkeley, 30 december 1962)
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