Berichten van 7 december 2011 tot 8 december 2011

De Britse schrijver Louis de Bernières werd geboren in Londen op 8 december 1954. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2009. en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.

 

Uit: Birds Without Wings

 

„Yusuf the Tall strode up and down the room, waving his hands, protesting and expostulating, sometimes burying his face in his hands. Kaya had not seen him so anguished and begrieved since the death of his mother three years before. He had painted the tulip on the headstone with his own hands, and had taken bread and olives so that he could eat at the graveside, imagining his mother underneath the stones, but unable to picture her as anything but living and intact.
Yusuf had passed the stage of anger. The time had gone when these patrollings of the room had been accompanied by obscenities so fearful that Kaya and her children had had to flee the house with their hands over their ears, their heads ringing with his curses against his daughter and the Christian: "Orospu çocu¢gu! Orospu çocu¢gu! Piç!"
By now, however, Yusuf the Tall was in that state of grief which foreknew in its full import the horror of what was inescapably to come. His face glistened with anticipatory tears, and when he threw his head back and opened his mouth to groan, thick saliva strung itself across his teeth.
Overtaken, finally, by weariness, Kaya had given up pleading with him, partly because she herself could see no other way to deal with what had occurred. If it had been a Muslim, perhaps they could have married her to him, or perhaps they could have repeated what had been done with Tamara Hanim. Perhaps they could have kept her concealed in the house, unmarried for ever, and perhaps the child could have been given away. Perhaps they could have left it at the gates of a monastery. Perhaps they could have sent her away in disgrace, to fend for herself and suffer whatever indignities fate and divine malice should rain upon her head. It had not been a Muslim, however, it had been an infidel.

Yusuf was an implacable and undeviating adherent to his faith. Originally from Konya, he was not like the other Muslims of this mongrel town who seemed to be neither one thing nor the other, getting converted when they married, drinking wine with Christians either overtly or in secret, begging favours in their prayers from Mary Mother of Jesus, not asking what the white meat was when they shared a meal, and being buried with a silver cross wrapped in a scrap of the Koran enfolded in their hands, just because it was wise to back both camels in salvation’s race.“

 

 

Louis de Bernières (Londen, 8 december 1954)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Mary Catherine Gordon werd geboren op 8 december 1949 in Far Rockaway, New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2009. en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.

 

Uit: The Love of My Youth

 

„“I hope it won’t be strange or awkward. I mean, what seemed strange to me, or would seem strange, is not to do it. Because in a way it is strange, isn’t it, really, the two of you in Rome at the same time, the both of you phoning me the same day?”

Irritation bubbles up in Miranda. Had Valerie always been so garrulous? So vague? Had she, Miranda, always found her so annoying — the qualifications, the emendations, laid down, thrown out like straw on a road to muffle the noise of passing carriages when there’d been a death in the house? Where did that come from? Some novel of the nineteenth century. The early twentieth. And now it is the twenty-first, the first decade nearly done for. There’s no point in thinking this way, focusing on Valerie’s habits of speech and diction. As if that were the point. The point is simply: she must decide whether or not to go.

It has been nearly forty years since she has seen him. Or to be exact — and it is one of the things she values in herself, her ability to be exact — thirty-six years and four months. She saw him last on June 23, 1971. The day had changed her.

Adam tries to remember if he had ever been genuinely fond of Valerie. What he can recall is that, of Miranda’s many friends, Valerie was the one who seemed most interested in him. The one who asked him questions and then listened to his answers, who assumed he had a life whose details might be worthy of her attention. 1966, ’67, ’68, ’69, ’70, ’71. A time when he spent his days trying to determine the perfect fingering, the ideal tempo, for a Beethoven sonata, a Bach partita. A way of spending time that Miranda’s friends considered almost criminally beside the point. The point was stopping the war. Stopping racism. Stopping poverty. Diminishing the injustice of the world.

  

 

 

Mary Gordon (Far Rockaway, 8 december 1949)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Bill Bryson werd geboren in Des Moines (Iowa) op 8 december 1951. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2007 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2009. en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010. 

Uit: A Walk In The Woods

 

“Stephen, you awake?" I whispered.
"Yup," he replied in a weary but normal voice.
"What was that?"
"How the hell should I know."
"It sounded big."
"Everything sounds big in the woods."
This was true. Once a skunk had come plodding through our camp and it had sounded like a stegosaurus. There was another heavy rustle and then the sound of lapping at the spring. It was having a drink, whatever it was.
I shuffled on my knees to the foot of the tent, cautiously unzipped the mesh and peered out, but it was pitch black. As quietly as I could, I brought in my backpack and with the light of a small flashlight searched through it for my knife. When I found it and opened the blade I was appalled at how wimpy it looked. It was a perfectly respectable appliance for, say, buttering pancakes, but patently inadequate for defending oneself against 400 pounds of ravenous fur.
Carefully, very carefully, I climbed from the tent and put on the flashlight, which cast a distressingly feeble beam. Something about fifteen or twenty feet away looked up at me. I couldn't see anything at all of its shape or size--only two shining eyes. It went silent, whatever it was, and stared back at me.
"Stephen," I whispered at his tent, "did you pack a knife?"
"No."
"Have you get anything sharp at all?"
He thought for a moment. "Nail clippers."
I made a despairing face. "Anything a little more vicious than that? Because, you see, there is definitely something out here."
"It's probably just a skunk."
"Then it's one big skunk. Its eyes are three feet off the ground."
"A deer then."
I nervously threw a stick at the animal, and it didn't move, whatever it was. A deer would have bolted. This thing just blinked once and kept staring.
I reported this to Katz.
"Probably a buck. They're not so timid. Try shouting at it."

 

 

 

Bill Bryson (Des Moines, 8 december 1951)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Delmore Schwartz werd geboren op 8 december 1913 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2009. en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.

 

 

Faust In Old Age

 

"Poet and veteran of childhood, look!

See in me the obscene, for you have love,

 

For you have hatred, you, you must be judge,

Deliver judgement, Delmore Schwartz.

 

Well-known wishes have been to war,

The vicious mouth has chewed the vine.

 

The patient crab beneath the shirt

Has charmed such interests as Indies meant.

 

For I have walked within and seen each sea,

The fish that flies, the broken burning bird,

 

Born again, beginning again, my breast!

Purple with persons like a tragic play.

 

For I have flown the cloud and fallen down,

Plucked Venus, sneering at her moan.

 

I took the train that takes away remorse;

I cast down every king like Socrates.

 

I knocked each nut to find the meat;

A worm was there and not a mint.

 

Metaphysicians could have told me this,

But each learns for himself, as in the kiss.

 

Polonius I poked, not him

To whom aspires spire and hymn,

 

Who succors children and the very poor;

I pierced the pompous Premier, not Jesus Christ,

 

I picked Polonius and Moby Dick,

the ego bloomed into an octopus.

 

Now come I to the exhausted West at last;

I know my vanity, my nothingness,

 

now I float will-less in despair's dead sea,

Every man my enemy.

 

Spontaneous, I have too much to say,

And what I say will no one not old see:

 

 

If we could love one another, it would be well.

But as it is, I am sorry for the whole world, myself

apart. My heart is full of memory and desire, and in

its last nervousness, there is pity for those I have

touched, but only hatred and contempt for myself."

 

 

 

 

Delmore Schwartz (8 december 1913 – 11 juli 1966)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver James Thurber werd geboren op 8 december 1894 in Columbus, Ohio. Zie ook alle tags voor James Thurber op dit blog.

 

Uit: The Last Clock

 

“Wuld wuzzle?” the ogre wanted to know. He hiccuped, and something went spong!

“That was an area man, but the wrong area,” the ogress explained. “I’ll get a general practitioner.” And she went away and came back with a general practitioner.

“This is a waste of time,” he said. “As a general practitioner, modern style, I treat only generals. This patient is not even a private. He sounds to me like a public place — a clock tower, perhaps, or a belfry..”

“What should I do?” asked the ogress. “Send for a tower man, or a belfry man?”

“I shall not venture an opinion,” said the general practitioner. “I am a specialist in generals, one of whom has just lost command of his army and of all his faculties, and doesn’t know what time it is. Good day.” And the general practitioner went away.

The ogre cracked a small clock, as if were a large walnut, and began eating it. “Wulsy wul?” the ogre asked.

The ogress, who could now talk clocktalk fluently, even oilily, but wouldn’t, left the room to look up specialists in an enormous volume entitled “Who’s Who in Areas.” She soon became lost in a list of titles: clockmaker, clocksmith, clockwright, clockmonger, clockician, clockometrist, clockologist, and a hundred others dealing with clockness, clockism, clockship, clockdom, clockation, clockition, and clockhood.

The ogress decided to to call on an old inspirationalist who had once advised her father not to worry about a giant he was worrying about. The inspirationalist had said to the ogress’s father, “Don’t pay any attention to it, and it will go away.” And the ogress’s father had paid no attention to it, and it had gone away, taking him with it, and this had pleased the ogress. The inspirationalist was now a very old man whose inspirationalism had become a jumble of mumble. “The final experience should not be mummum,” he mumbled.

The ogress said, “But what is mummum?”

“Mummum,” said the inspirationalist, “is what the final experience should not be.” And he mumbled to a couch, lay down upon it, and fell asleep.

  

 

 

James Thurber (8 december 1894 – 2 november 1961)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver William Hervey Allen werd geboren op 8 december 1889 in Pittsburgh. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2009. en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.
 

 

Beyond debate

 

Out from the wrought-iron gate
Miss Perdee drives in state;
Miss Perdee wears the thin smile
And the sleeves of 1888.
Miss Perdee's face is stifled as a sonnet;
Upon her wire-tight hair a duck-shaped bonnet
Nests, nodding with a cachepeigne  
Of violets on it.
East Bay, some tea and talk, them home by King.   
The horses have an antiquated plod;
The team is old, but not too old to balk
If driven north of Broad.   
Miss Perdee wears the sure air of a queen,
Which only queens and Perdees can achieve.
The Perdees had blue blood in Adam's veins
When Adam had the rib he gave to Eve.
Back through the wrought-iron gate
Miss Perdee drives in state.
Miss Perdee lives down on the Battery!
Beyond debate.

 

 

 

Hervey Allen (8 december 1889 – 28 december 1949)

 

 

 

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

De Franse theaterauteur Georges Feydeau werd geboren op 8 december 1862 in Parijs. Zie ook alle tags voor George Feydeau op dit blog.

 

Uit: On purge bébé

 

„Surgissant en trombe par la porte, pan coupé. Tenue de souillon ; peignoir-éponge dont la cordelière non attachée traîne par ; petit jupon de soie sur la chemise de nuit qui dépasse par en bas : bigoudis dans, les cheveux ; bas tombant sur les savates. Elle tient un seau de toilette plein d’eau à la main.

JULIE :                     Alors, quoi ? Tu ne peux pas te déranger ? Non ?
FOLLAVOINE :       Ah! Je t’en prie, n’entre donc pas toujours comme une bombe!… Ah!
JULIE :                      Oh! Pardon!  Tu ne peux pas te déranger ? Non ?
FOLLAVOINE :       Eh bien! Et toi ? Pourquoi faut-il que ce soit moi qui me dérange plutôt que toi ?
JULIE :                      C’est juste! C’est juste! Nous sommes mariés, alors!…
FOLLAVOINE :       Quoi ? Quoi ? Quel rapport ?…
JULIE :                      Ah! Je serais seulement la femme d’un autre, il est probable que!…
FOLLAVOINE :       Ah! Laisse-moi donc tranquille! Je suis occupé, v’là tout!
JULIE :                     Occupé! Monsieur est occupé! C’est admirable!
FOLLAVOINE :       Oui, occupé! Ah!
JULIE :  Quoi ?
FOLLAVOINE :       Ah çà! Tu es folle ? Tu m’apportes ton seau de toilette ici, à présent ?
JULIE :                     Quoi, "mon seau" ? Où ça, "mon seau" ?
FOLLAVOINE :       Ça!
JULIE :                     Ah! Là! C’est rien. C’est mes eaux sales.
FOLLAVOINE :       Qu’est-ce que tu veux que j’en fasse ?
JULIE :                      Mais c’est pas pour toi! C’est pour les vider.
FOLLAVOINE :       Ici ?
JULIE :                      Mais non, pas ici! Que c’est bête ce que tu dis-là ! Je n’ai pas l’habitude de vider mes eaux dans ton cabinet de travail ; j’ai du tact.
FOLLAVOINE :       Alors, pourquoi me les apportes-tu ?
JULIE :                      Mais pour rien! Parce que j’avais le seau en main pour aller le vider quand Rose est venue me rapporter ta charmante réponse : alors, pour ne pas te faire attendre…
FOLLAVOINE :       Tu ne pouvais pas le laisser à la porte ?
JULIE :                      Ah! Et puis tu m’embêtes ! Si ça te gêne tant, tu n’avais qu’à te déranger quand je te demandais de venir ; mais Monsieur était occupé ! à quoi ? Je te le demande.“
 

 

 

Georges Feydeau (8 december 1862 - 5 juni 1921)

Opvoering van On purge bébé in de Salle polyvalente de Tonnerre, 2010

 

 

 

De Romeinse dichter en schrijver Quintus Horatius Flaccus werd geboren op 8 december 65 v. Chr. Zie ook alle tags voor Horatius op dit blog.

 

 

Ode I.22

 

Een man van onbesproken levenswandel,
die heeft geen assegaaien noodig, Fuscus,
geen koker pijlen in vergif gedrenkt,

 

al reist hij naar het Africaansche strand,
de barre toppen van den Caucasus,
de droomomsponnen oevers van den Ganges.

 

Zoo ging voor mij een wolf laatst op den loop,
terwijl ik onbezorgd en ongewapend
in het Sabijnsche woud, heel ver van huis,
mijn lieve Lalage liep te bezingen,
een beest nogwel, als zelfs het Daunisch land
niet herbergt in zijn wijde wildernissen,
noch de Sahara in haar zandwoestijnen,
de dorre voedster van den fellen leeuw.

 

Verplaatst mij naar het druilend Poolgebied,
waar zomerzon geen enklen boom verkwikt,
waar kille mist den rand der aarde dekt,
of naar den vuurgloed van het brandend Zuid,
dat voor ons menschen onbewoonbaar heet:
ik blijf den lieven lach, de lieve stem
van Lalage, zoo daar als hier, beminnen.

 

 

 

Vertaald door Dr. A. Rutgers van der Loeff

 

 

 

Horatius (8 december 65 v. Chr. - 27 november 8 v. Chr.)

Op een Italiaanse postzegel

 

 

 

 

De Spaanse schrijfster, vertaalster en journaliste  Carmen Martín Gaite werd geboren op 8 december 1925 in Salamanca. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.

 

Uit: Los parentescos (Relaties)

 

“Mon père m'a fait un chèque pour mon anniversaire et parce que j'ai réussi, avec de bonnes notes, mon examen d'entrée à l'université. C'est pour cette raison que nous nous sommes donné rendez-vous ici. A la maison on se voit peu. [...]
- C'est mon fils, Baltasar - dit mon père a son ami, tout juste arrivé.
j'ouvre les yeux, je ne le connais pas. Je lui sourit sans envie, car il est en train de me poser les questions basiques, quel âge j'ai et qu'est-ce que je fais comme études. Moi, je me tais et la même voix qui avant me sermonnait, dit que je ferais surement de l'économie mais que je veux entreprendre trop de choses et que je ne me centre sur aucune. Et l'autre dit qu'il a le même problème avec ses enfants, enfin, à tous les jeunes, c'est le manque de stimulation, ce n'est pas non plus de leur faute, l'université espagnole est encombrée, c'est une vraie tombola, tu vois des gens qui font de l'architecture alors que ce qui les branchait c'était d'être médecin, et des licenciés en Histoire de l'Art travaillant dans un bar, le mieux c'est un Master aux Etats-Unis. J'ai entendu ce discours beaucoup trop de fois, je bois mon martini à petites gorgées, j'aime cette couleur de rubis avec les reflets de lumière; lui je ne crois pas que ce soit un ami à mon père car il vient juste de dire: "je ne savais pas que tu avais des enfants", et il ne lui a rien demandé à propos de maman.”

 

 

 

Carmen Martín Gaite (8 december 1925 – 22 juli 2000)  

 

 

 

 

 

De Griekse dichter en schrijver Nikos Gatsos werd geboren op 8 december 1911 in Kato Asea in Arcadië. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.

 

 

Amorgos (Fragment)

 

With their country tied to their sails and their oars hung on

      the wind

The shipwrecked slept tamely like dead beasts on a bedding

      of sponges

But the eyes of seaweed are turned toward the sea

Hoping the South Wind will bring them backwith their

       lateen-sails new-painted

For one lost elephant is always worth much more than the

       quivering breasts of a girl

Only if the roofs of deserted chappels should light up with the

       caprice of the Evening Star

Only if birds should ripple amid the masts of the lemon trees

With the firm white flurry of lively footsteps

Will the winds come, the bodies of swans that remained im-

       maculate, unmoving and tender

When steamrollers rolled through shops, when hurricanes

       whirled through vegetation

When the eyes of women became coal and the hearts of the

       chestnut hawkers were broken

When the harvest was done and the hopes of crickets began.

 

And indeed this is why, my brave young men, with kisses, wine,

        and leaves on your mouth

I would like to stride naked by the rivers

To sing of the Barbary Coast like the woodsman hunting the

         mastic shrub

Like the viper slithering through gardens of barley

With the proud eyes of irritation

Like the lightning-bolt as it threshes youth.

Vertaald door Kimon Friar

 

 

 

 

Nikos Gatsos (8 december 1911 – 12 mei 1992) 

 

 

  

 

Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 8 december 2010.

 

De Oostenrijkse schrijver Jura Soyfer werd op 8 december 1912 in Charkov, Oekraïne, geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008.

 

De Noorse dichter, schrijver, journalist en politicus Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson werd geboren op 8 december 1832 in Kvikne bij Tynset. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008.

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Joel Chandler Harris werd geboren op 8 december 1848 in Eatonton, Georgia. Zie ook mijn blog van 8 december 2008.

De Zuid-Afrikaanse dichter en schrijver Tatamkhulu Afrika werd geboren op 7 december 1920 in Egypte. Zie ook alle tags voor Tatamkhulu Afrika op dit blog.

 

 

The knifing

 

Black workers pass
me carrying their tools.
I call to them for help:
the stone
masks of their faces turn
aside,
do not look my way again.
He flails the blade
across the top of my skull
(does he see it as a fruit,
splittable, spewing seed?),
slashes, then,
the tender guardians of my wrists,
drives the knife-point in
below my left side’s bottom rib,
and runs.
I leave a spoor
like a wounded beast’s,
make it to the little Indian shop
that sells boiled eggs with mayonnaise,
sway,
falling about in my own blood,
eyes shouting “Help!”
They carry me to the ambulance.
The clouds sweep
me with their sad sides:
yet I hear someone speak
of the bright day
and what a shame it is that this should be done
to anyone on such a day.
A face stares
at me through the wire-mesh
of a police van.
It is his; he sees
my wretched body pass,
blood leaking at every seam:
blood that is also on his hands;
turns away, then with a suddenness that says
more than any tongue,
burrows his face into his hands.
What does he see?
They stitch and stitch,
let my head hang down
when the lights go round and I feel
sense slipping from me like a skin,
and I am the unadorned
genitals of my need.
She screams and screams,
like a cat on heat,
like a little girl drumming her heels.
But she is seventeen:
he beat her until she was all
broken up inside.
I stare at the fluorescent tube;
it shrinks
to a filament of fire in my brain.
Blood still sees
from the black Khayelitsha youth’s
panga-riven-skull;
black bruises prowl
over the old man opposite’s
white-as-his-sheet-skin.
Only I do not sleep.
Time is a pendulum that swings
unlinked to any clock:
only the black window’s scowling back
tell of night; pain writhes
through me like an eel.
I watch the glucose drip,
drop by dizzying drop,
into my veins, wake
to sunlight on the walls,
starlings flirting past the glass,
Khayelitsha mopping blood from his neck,
grinning, saying
I can borrow his pee-bottle if I want.
I sag on the bed,
glucose mellow-honey in my veins,
small pulse of reluctant life
kick-starting way back.
Khayelitsha takes my hand,
hopes I’ll soon be well;
goes out then,
moving slowly amongst the slow-
moving coterie of his friends.
Desultory Xhosa clicks
snap like trodden sticks,
fade down
an inner tribal trial.
I face him then:
his neck nuzzling my palm.
His face still hidden in his hands.
What does he see?
I think to set him free.
How shall he be free?
Or I?
Testicle to testicle, we are trussed
by the winding round
us, rambling plastic coils.
Roaring down each other’s throats,
bellowing of our need,
we are skewered on the sharp
white lightning of his blade.

 

  

 

 

Tatamkhulu Afrika (7 december 1920 – 23 december 2002)

 

 

 

 

De Oostenrijkse schrijver Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy werd geboren in Wenen op 7 december 1801. Zie ook alle tags voor Johann Nestroy op dit blog.

 

Uit: Einen Jux will er sich machen

 

„Erster Aufzug

Zimmer in Herrn Zanglers Hause; die allgemeine Eingangstüre im Prospekt, jedoch gegen die rechte Seite; links am Prospekt ein ziemlich breiter Ofenschirm, rechts und links eine Seitentüre, zu beiden Seiten Tisch und Stuhl

Erster Auftritt

 

Zangler Ich habe Ihnen jetzt ein für allemal g'sagt –

Sonders Und ich Ihnen ein für allemal erklärt –

Zangler Daß Sie meine Nichte und Mündel nicht kriegen!

Sonders Daß Marie die Meine werden muß!

Zangler Das werd' ich zu verhindern wissen!

Sonders Schwerlich so sicher, als ich es durchzusetzen weiß!

Zangler Kecker Jüngling!

Sonders Hartherziger Mann! Was haben Sie gegen mich? Meine Tante in Brüssel ist reich.

Zangler Gratulier'!

Sonders Ich werde sie beerben.

Zangler Aber wann?

Sonders Sonderbare Frage! Nach ihrem Tode.

Zangler Und bis wann wird sie sterb'n? Aha, da stockt die Antwort. So eine Tant' in Brüssel kann leben, so lang sie will.

Sonders Das wünsch' ich ihr vom Herzen, denn ich weiß, daß sie auch bei Lebzeiten reichlich zu meinem Glücke beitragen wird.

Zangler Reichlich beitragen – wieviel is das in Brüssel? Reichlich beitragen is hier das unbestimmteste Zahlwort, was es gibt, und in unbestimmten Zahlen schließ' ich kein Geschäft. Und kurz und gut, ins Ausland lass' ich meine Mündel schon durchaus nicht heiraten.

Sonders So heirate ich sie und bleibe hier.

Zangler Und derweil schnappt dort ein anderer die Erbschaft weg, das wär' erst gar das Wahre! Mit ei'm Wort, g'horsamer Diener! Plagen Sie sich auch nicht zu sehr mit unnötigem Herumspekulier'n um mein Haus! Meine Nichte is heut' früh an den Ort ihrer Bestimmung abgereist.

Sonders Wie, Marie fort –?

Zangler Ja, nach Dingsda – logiert in der ungenannten Gassen, Numero soundso viel, im beliebigen Stock, rechts bei der zug'sperrten Türe, da können S' anläuten, so oft S' wollen, hineinlassen wer'n s' Ihnen aber nicht.“

 

 

 

 

Johann Nestroy (7 december 1801 - 25 mei 1862)

Wenzel Scholz, Karl Treumann en Nestroy, 
Lithographie van Joseph Kriehuber, 1855

 

 

 

 

De Oostenrijkse schrijver en columnist Friedrich Kilian Schlögl werd geboren op 7 december 1821 in de Weense voorstad Laimgrube (nu Wenen). Zie ook mijn blog van 7 december 2010.

 

Uit: Sonderbare Käuze

 

»Mit dem alten Wien – oder vielmehr mit den Empfindungen der alten Wiener – verfährt die Demolierungsära recht grausam. Stück um Stück, woran die liebsten Erinnerungen haften, fallen in Schutt und Trümmer, und bald wird der letzte Rest der einstigen Heimstätte trauter Gemütlichkeit verschwunden sein, um Platz zu schaffen für die anstürmenden Jünger einer neuen Epoche, für die räumlichen Bedürfnisse einer modernen Weltstadt.«

»Die Metamorphose vollzieht sich rasch und rastlos und unaufhaltsam. Mit Beil und Axt kommen sie herangezogen, die unbarmherzigen Apostel der neuen Lehre, welche da heißt: ›Entwickelung‹, und unter ihren Schlägen stürzen die grünsten Bäume, in deren Schatten wir tausendmal gewandelt, und stürzen die Mauerhüllen der altehrwürdigsten Asyle, wohin wir in trüben Stunden geflüchtet, und unter den Fäusten pietätloser Reformen zerbröckelt, was uns einst wert und teuer war!«

So klagte dieser Tage ein alter Wiener, als er während seines gewohnten Spazierganges dazukam, wie die ersten Spatenstiche den Erdhügel des Paradiesgärtchens aufzuwühlen begannen und Hieb um Hieb auf die ächzenden Bäume und Sträucher niederfielen. – Der arme Mann hatte vielleicht eine kleine Berechtigung zu seufzen und zu jammern. Verjagte man ihn doch aller Orten, wo es ihm wohl und heimisch war und sich sein Herz erfreute. Die Basteien nahm man ihm, mit den schön gepflegten Wegen und der entzückenden Fernsicht nach den blauen Bergen des Südens; das Glacis, die Arena seiner Jugendspiele, verschwand, und statt des grünen Kranzes, der die Stadt umsäumte, erhob sich ein kahler Wall ihm fremdartiger Gebäude; den Prater, das urwüchsige Kleinod Wiens, reguliert man ihm bis zur Unkenntlichkeit, und schon rüttelt ein unheimlich Gerücht auch noch an anderen, viellieben Vermächtnissen edelmütiger Herzen, indem die vandalste Spekulation ihre gierigen Augen gerade auf die populärsten Parkidyllen warf, um statt der nutzlosen Baumgruppen und Blumenbeete dividendenfähige Baukomplexe zu gründen. Inzwischen, bis dieses Crimen patronisiert, demoliert man ihm den letzten Aussichtspunkt: das reizende Paradiesgärtchen.“

 

 

 

Friedrich Schlögl (7 december 1821 - 7 oktober 1892)



Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 7e december ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.

De Franse filosoof en toneelauteur Gabriel Marcel werd geboren op 7 december 1889 in Parijs. Zie ook alle tags voor Gabriel Marcel op dit blog.

 

Uit: Awakenings (Vertaald door Peter S. Rogers)

 

„This summer day of 1899 was a terrible date in the life of a child, as  I learned that we were going to leave Stockholm and return to Paris.  How can I ever forget the heavy heart with which I received this  news? As my father suffered somewhat from the Swedish climate and  didn't much care for the worldly and formal aspects of diplomatic  life, he was going to switch positions with a senior member of the  Council of State, Monsieur Catusse. This meant first of all that I  could no longer hope to spend vacation in Finland or in Norway.  What may seem peculiar is that nothing, or almost nothing, attracted
me in the Paris where we were to settle definitively. I also felt that our  return would be, sooner or later, followed by my entrance into the  lycée, something I vaguely feared since, until then, I had been edu-
cated at home. I can't recall whether it was immediately before or  after our stay in Stockholm that, for some months, I attended classes  at Rue Royale where my fellow students were mainly young girls.

What had I most appreciated in the Swedish capital? Without hesitation I would say the landscapes. I remember a discussion with my  father on the topic during a boat ride on the Saltsjön. He was essen-
tially a man of the Midi, the French South, and this somewhat uniform and sad nature bored him. Yet there was something in it that  exalted me. But what words could I use to translate that emotion?

I must have expressed myself rather awkwardly. But when I think  about what I had lived during that year in Stockholm, I see this: it  was as though I had been removed from the humdrum life I was to
suffer from so much later on, by the fact of being far away, and on  the edge of countries that were still farther away and which attracted me.“

 

  

 

Gabriel Marcel (7 december 1889 - 8 oktober 1973)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse taalkundige, mediacriticus en anarchistisch denker Noam Chomsky werd geboren in Philadelphia op 7 december 1928. Zie ook mijn blog van 7 december 2007 en ook mijn blog van 7 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 7 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 7 december 2010.

 

Uit: Chronicles of Dissent, 1992

 

„QUESTION: One of your books, The Fateful Triangle, focuses specifically on the Middle East, and I was wondering if you could talk about your position on a possible two-state solution to the Palestinian question.

CHOMSKY: I don't think that's the optimal solution, but it has been the realistic political settlement for some time. We have to begin with some fundamentals here. The real question is: there are plainly two national groups that claim the right of self-determination in what used to be Palestine, roughly the area now occupied by Israel minus the Golan Heights, which is part of Syria.

So there are two national groups which claim national self-determination. One group is the indigenous population, or what's left of it -- a lot of it's been expelled or driven out or fled. The other group is the Jewish settlers who came in, originally from Europe, later from other parts of the Middle East and some other places. So there are two groups, the indigenous population and the immigrants and their descendants. Both claim the right of national self-determination. Here we have to make a crucial decision: are we racists or aren't we? If we're not racists, then the indigenous population has the same rights of self-determination as the settlers who replaced them. Some might claim more, but let's say at least as much right. Hence if we are not racist, we will try to press for a solution which accords them -- we'll say they are human beings with equal rights, therefore they both merit the claim to national self-determination. I'm granting that the settlers have the same rights as the indigenous population; many do not find that obvious but let's grant it. Then there are a number of possibilities. One possibility is a democratic secular society. Virtually nobody is in favor of that. Some people say they are, but if you look closely they're not really. There are various models for multi-ethnic societies, say Switzerland or whatever. And maybe in the long run these might be the best idea, but they're unrealistic.“

 

 

Noam Chomsky (Philadelphia, 7 december 1928)

 

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Willa Cather werd geboren op 7 december 1873 in de buurt van Winchester, Virginia. Zie ook mijn blog van 7 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 7 december 2009 ook mijn blog van 7 december 2010.

 

Uit: The Song of the Lark

 

"She was getting back to the earliest source of gladness that she could remember. She had loved the sun, and the brilliant solitudes of sand and sun, long before these other things had come along to fasten themseves upon her and torment her. That night, when she clambered into her big German feather bed, she felt completely released from the enslaving desire to get on in the world. Darkness had once again the sweet wonder that it had in childhood...

(...)

"She used to wonder at her own inactivity. She could lie there hour after hour in the sun and listen to the strident whirr of the big locusts, and to the light, ironical laughter of the quaking asps. All her life she had been hurrying and sputtering, as if she had been born behind time and had been trying to catch up. Now, she reflected...it was as if she were waiting for something to catch up with her. She had got to a place where she was out of the stream of meaningless activity and undirected effort.

(...)

"Here she could lie for half a day undistracted, holding pleasant and incomplete conceptions in her mind--almost in her hands. They were scarcely clear enough to be called ideas. They had something to do with fragrance and color and sound, but almost nothing to do with words. She was singing very little now, but a song would go through her head all morning, as a spring keeps welling up, and it was a pleasant sensation indefinitely prolonged. It was much more like a sensation than like an idea, or an act of remembering. Music had never before come to her in that sensuous form. It had always been a thing to be struggled with, had always brought anxiety and exaltation and chagrin--never content and indolence."

 

 

 

Willa Cather (7 december 1873 – 24 april 1947)

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter Samuel Gottlieb Bürde werd geboren op 7 december 1753 in Breslau. Zie ook mijn blog van 7 december 2010.

 

 

Geist der Wahrheit, lehre mich

 

Geist der Wahrheit, lehre mich

aller Weisheit Quelle kennen!

Jesum kann ich nur durch dich

meinen Herrn und Heiland nennen.

Du nur kannst ihn mir verklären

und mein Herz in Gott belehren.

 

Du nur machst das Herz gewiß

und erleuchtest meine Seele,

daß ich in der Finsterniß

nicht den Weg des Heils verfehle.

Du nur führst auf Gottes Pfaden,

zeugst von Wahrheit und von Gnaden.

 

Heiligung und Reinigkeit

und ein gottgefällig Leben,

selige Zufriedenheit,

wahre Weisheit kannst du geben.

Selig, die an deinen Gaben

theil durch Lieb und Glauben haben.

 

Was mir fehlt, find ich in dir,

nur durch dich kann ich genesen.

Mache Wohnung ganz in mir,

daß werd neu mein ganzes Wesen!

Dann wird meine Schwachheit Stärke

und ich wirke Gottes Werke.

 

 

 

Samuel Gottlieb Bürde (7 december 1753 - 28 april 1831)

Breslau, raadhuis (Geen portret beschikbaar)