De Engelse schrijfster Zadie Smith werd geboren op 27 oktober 1975 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2009.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Uit: The Autograph Man
You're either for me or against me, thought Alex-Li Tandem, referring to the daylight and, more generally, to the day. He stretched flat and made two fists. He was fully determined to lie right here until he was given something to work with, something noble, something fine. He saw no purpose in leaving his bed for a day that was against him from the get-go. He had tried it before; no good could come from it. A moment later he was surprised to feel a flush of warm light dappled over him, filtered through a blind. Nonviolent light. This was encouraging. Compare and contrast with yesterday morning's light, pettily fascist, cruel as the strip lighting in a hospital hallway. Or the morning before yesterday morning, when he had kept his eyes closed for the duration, afraid of whatever was causing that ominous red throb beneath the eyelids. Or the morning before that, the Morning of Doom, which no one could have supposed would continue for seventy-two hours. NOW OPTIMISTIC, ALEX grabbed the bauble that must be twisted to open blinds. His fingers were too sweaty. He shuttled up the bed, dried his left hand on the wall, gripped and pulled. The rain had come in the night. It looked as if the Flood had passed through Mountjoy, scrubbed it clean. The whole place seemed to have undergone an act of accidental restoration. He could see brickwork, newly red-faced and streaky as after a good weep, balconies with their clean crop of wet white socks, shirts and sheets. Shiny black aerials. Oh, it was fine. Collected water had transformed every gutter, every depression in the pavement, into prism puddles. There were rainbows everywhere.
Alex took a minute to admire the gentle sun that kept its mildness even as it escaped a gray ceiling of cloud. On the horizon a spindly church steeple had been etched by a child over a skyline perfectly blue and flatly colored in. To the left of that sat the swollen cupola of a mosque, described with more skill. So people were off to see God, then, this morning. All of that was still happening. Alex smiled, weakly. He wished them well.
Zadie Smith (Londen, 27 oktober 1975)
De Belgische dichter en schrijver Albrecht Rodenbach werd geboren te Roeselare op 27 oktober 1856. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2006 en mijn blog van 27 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2009.
Uit de dichterliefde
Een knecht bemint een meiske, 't bemint ene andere knecht, die andere bemint nog ene andere en stort zich met haar in de echt.
Uit wanhoop neemt het meiske, goed kome het uit, een vent, de eerste de gereedste; de knecht, hij, is miscontent:
Dat is een oude historie, maar ze is nog altijd nieuw, en wie zij voorvalt gaat het alsof men hem 't hert doorhiew.
Fantasiën
Het drijven watten wolkjes,
van zonnelicht doorboomd.
De jongeling ziet ze drijven
en droomt...
En onbewust elk wolkje na
drijft zachtjes een fantasia,
doch in de ruimte smelten bei
voorbij, voorbij,
voorbij.
Het drijven blanke zeilen,
waar 't meer de hemel zoomt.
De jongeling ziet ze drijven
en droomt...
En onbewust elk schipje na
drijft zachtjes een fantasia,
doch over zee verzinken zij
voorbij, voorbij,
voorbij.
Het drijven wondere beelden,
van tovermacht omstroomd.
De jongeling ziet ze drijven
en droomt...
En elke omstraalde beeltnis na
ijlt jagend een fantasia,
doch naar de Lethe* spoeden zij
voorbij, voorbij,
voorbij.
Albrecht Rodenbach (27 oktober 1856 23 juni 1880)
Beeld in Roeselare
De Britse schrijfster Enid Algerine Bagnold werd geboren op 27 oktober 1889 in Rochester, Kent. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2009.
Uit: A Diary Without Dates (1917)
I suffer awfully from my language in this ward. I seem to be the only VAD nurse of whom they continually ask, "What say, nurse?' It isn't that I use long words, but my sentences seem to be inverted. "An antitetanic injection for Corrigan," said Sister. And I went to the dispensary to fetch the syringe and the needles. "But has he any symptoms?" I asked. In the Tommies' ward one dare ask anything; their isn't that mystery which used to surround the officers' illnesses. "Oh, no," she said, "it's just that he hasn't had his full amount in France." So I hunted up the spirit-lamp and we prepared it, talking of it. But we forget to talk of it to Corrigan. The needle was into his shoulder before he knew why his shirt was held up. His wrath came like an avalanche; the discipline of two years was forgotten, his Irish tongue was loosened. Sister shrugged her shoulders and laughed; I listened to him as I cleaned the syringe. I gathered that it was the indignity that had shocked his sense of individual pride. "Treating me like a cow" I heard him say to Smiff - who laughed, since it wasn't his shoulder that carried the serum.
Enid Bagnold ( 27 oktober 1889 3 maart 1981)
De Amerikaanse schrijfster Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitz werd geboren op 27 oktober 1950 in Morristown, New Jersey. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2008
Uit: Taking a Letter
My neighborhood is located in Greenwich Village, a quarter of the city well known for its interesting artistic qualities. These qualities are to be found not only in its atmosphere and residents but also in its public servants. There is, in fact, not a single local postal employee who does not possess a temperament of such lush moodiness that one assumes that only an unfortunate lack of rhythm has kept them from careers devoted to the composition of tragic opera. Exhaustive research soon established that this was no accident but a carefully planned effort to bring the post office closer to those it serves. The Greenwich Village Postal System is a separate entity dedicated to the proposition that nowhere on earth are men created more equal than downtown on the West Side. Thus its offices exhibit a clean Bauhaus influence. The wanted posters refer to desires more personal than federal. Uniforms are chosen on the basis of cut and fabric. And they have punched up the official motto with the Greenwich Village Addendum so that it reads as follows: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can stay these couriers from swift completion of their appointed rounds. However, offended sensibility, painful memory, postman's block, and previous engagements may stay the courier for an indefinite period of time. C'est la vie."
Fran Lebowitz (Morristown, 27 oktober 1950)
Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 27 oktober 2008.
De Iraanse schrijver en filmmaker Reza Allamehzadeh werd geboren op 27 oktober 1943 in Sari, Mazandaran.
De Poolse schrijver Kazimierz Brandys werd geboren op 27 oktober 1916 in Lodz.
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