Neal Cassady, Robin Block, Eva Strittmatter, Elizabeth Bishop, Gert Jonke, John Grisham
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: The Fast Life of a Beat Hero (Biografie door David Sandison)
„Even Jack Kerouac bought into the Bridey phenomenon and for a time seemed prepared to give Cayce the benefit of the doubt. “[S]udden realization that Cayce must be right,” he wrote to the Cassadys, “and Bridey Murphy excitement, which has carried over to my sister, and she and I want you to send us Cayce’s literature address at Atlantic Beach so we can send for literature, my sister especially het up now on Astrology.”
Jack had even started to take Oral Roberts seriously. From the start, Roberts’s reputation as a miraculous healer had been offset by his equally convincing reputation as a charlatan. In his later years, when completion of his extravagant project the City of Faith Hospital complex was threatened because of lack of funds, Roberts claimed to have been visited by a 900-foot Jesus. Roberts had “only seen Jesus once before,” but “there I was, face to face with Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. He reached down, put his Hands under the City of Faith, lifted it, and said to me, ‘See how easy it is for Me to lift it!’”
Jack’s leap of faith was facilitated by his discovery that “Oral Roberts is a Cherokee Indian. A real old-fashioned witchdoctor’s what he is . . . he has great compassionate heart. I don’t disbelieve him.” Carolyn insists that this last sentence was a joke for Neal’s benefit.
In any event, the Cassadys continued to pursue the Cayce doctrine, and at the 1956 Cayce spring conference the featured speaker was none other than Starr Daily, author of Release. Neal immediately turned to him for answers. Ex-con Daily certainly looked like Cassady’s sort of man, a bullish and rugged religious convert who would surely give appropriate advice. But this was not the case. With some degree of irony for Catholic-raised Cassady, Caycean Starr Daily seemed more like the kind of tough Irish priest that featured regularly in the gangster movies of the 1930s—morally inflexible but still capable of slugging a sinner if the need arose. His advice to Neal amounted to little more than “pray like the devil and discipline yourself,” whereas what Neal was probably hoping for was an epiphany followed by a fast-track route to enlightenment and salvation.“
Neal Cassady (8 februari 1926 – 4 februari 1968)
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.
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.
A Summer’s Dream
To the sagging wharf
few ships could come.
The population numbered
two giants, an idiot, a dwarf,
a gentle storekeeper
asleep behind his counter,
and our kind landlady—
the dwarf was her dressmaker.
The idiot could be beguiled
by picking blackberries,
but then threw them away.
The shrunken seamstress smiled.
By the sea, lying
blue as a mackerel,
our boarding house was streaked
as though it had been crying.
Extraordinary geraniums
crowded the front windows,
the floors glittered with
assorted linoleums.
Every night we listened
for a horned owl.
In the horned lamp flame,
the wallpaper glistened.
The giant with the stammer
was the landlady’s son,
grumbling on the stairs
over an old grammar.
He was morose,
but she was cheerful.
The bedroom was cold,
the feather bed close.
We were awakened in the dark by
the somnambulist brook
nearing the sea,
still dreaming audibly.
Sonnet
I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
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.
Stammbuchverse III
Reden wir nicht weiter darüber:
Das Leben ist, wie es ist.
Jeder kriegt seinen Nasenstüber,
den er nicht mehr vergisst.
---
Alle sehn schrecklich ähnlich aus,
wenn man genau hinsieht.
Die meisten leben für ein Haus.
Doch manche für ein Lied.
Werte
Die guten Dinge des Lebens
sind alle kostenlos:
die Luft, das Wasser, die Liebe.
Wie machen wir das bloß,
das Leben für teuer zu halten,
wenn die Hauptsachen kostenlos sind?
Das kommt vom frühen Erkalten.
Wir genossen nur damals als Kind
die Luft nach ihrem Werte
und Wasser als Lebensgewinn,
und Liebe, die unbegehrte,
nahmen wir herzleicht hin.
Nur selten noch atmen wir richtig
und atmen die Zeit mit ein,
wir leben eilig und wichtig
und trinken statt Wasser Wein.
Und aus der Liebe machen
wir eine Pflicht und Last.
-----------------------------------
Und das Leben kommt dem zu teuer,
der es zu billig auffasst.
Eva Strittmatter (8 februari 1930 – 3 januari 2011)
De Oostenrijkse schrijver Gert Jonke werd geboren op 8 februari 1946 in Klagenfurt. Zie ook alle tags voor Gert Jonke op dit blog.
Uit: Der Projektor
“Ich war gerade 13 oder 14, als ich damit anfangen wollte, regelmäßig ins Kino zu gehen. Das war aber gar nicht so einfach, denn entweder fehlte das Geld für die Eintrittskarte, oder der Film war »Jugendverbot «. Der Kinobesitzer hatte einen »Tick«: Er konnte es nicht ertragen, wenn sich einer hinter seinem Rücken heimlich in den Kinosaal schwindelte. Nach dem Beginn des Hauptfilms verschwand er aus dem Kinosaal ins Foyer zum Glaskasten der Kartenverkäuferin, um die Anzahl der im Kinosaal sitzenden Zuschauer mit der Anzahl der verkauften Karten zu vergleichen. Für den Rest der Vorstellung setzte er sich in den Vorführraum hinter den neben dem Projektor stehenden Vorführer.
War der Film zu Ende, kam es manchmal vor, dass der Vorführer ganz unerwartet die Filmrollen sofort wieder zurückspulte, und das in einem vielfach verschnellert rasenden Rücklauf des gesamten Films innerhalb weniger Sekunden, dass die schmutzig-grelle Leinwand ohrenbetäubend brüllte. Alle
fühlten sich dann so elend und leer, es war als wäre man noch gar nicht im Kino gewesen.
Der Vorführer hatte es nämlich verstanden, während des rasend schnellen Filmrücklaufs nicht nur die Filmrollen zurückzuspulen, sondern mit Hilfe seines Projektors auch im Kinosaal aus den Köpfen der den Film gerade zu Ende gesehen habenden Zuschauer den ganzen Film in voller Länge im
Rückwärtsgang wieder aus den Gehirnen heraus zu ziehen, und in den Köpfen, wo die Erinnerung an den eben gesehenen Film ihren Platz hätte einnehmen sollen, öffnete sich stattdessen ein migränegähnender Hohlraum. Irgendwer hatte nicht gezahlt, so war das, ganz einfach, und das war die Rache des Kinobesitzers, der sich dafür an allen schadlos hielt.“
Gert Jonke (8 februari 1946 – 4 januari 2009)
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: The Rainmaker
„My decision to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession. I was a young teenager, clumsy, embarrassed by my awkwardness, frustrated with life, horrified of puberty, about to be shipped off to a military school by my father for insubordination. He was an ex-Marine who believed boys should live by the crack of the whip. I’d developed a quick tongue and an aversion to discipline, and his solution was simply to send me away. It was years before I forgave him.
He was also an industrial engineer who worked seventy hours a week for a company that made, among many other items, ladders. Because by their very nature ladders are dangerous devices, his company became a frequent target of lawsuits. And because he handled design, my father was the favorite choice to speak for the company in depositions and trials. I can’t say that I blame him for hating lawyers, but I grew to admire them because they made his life so miserable. He’d spend eight hours haggling with them, then hit the martinis as soon as he walked in the door. No hellos. No hugs. No dinner. Just an hour or so of continuous bitching while he slugged down four martinis then passed out in his battered recliner. One trial lasted three weeks, and when it ended with a large verdict against the company my mother called a doctor and they hid him in a hospital for a month.
The company later went broke, and of course all blame was directed at the lawyers. Not once did I hear any talk that maybe a trace of mismanagement could in any way have contributed to the bankruptcy.
Liquor became his life, and he became depressed. He went years without a steady job, which really ticked me off because I was forced to wait tables and deliver pizza so I could claw my way through college. I think I spoke to him twice during the four years of my undergraduate studies. The day after I learned I had been accepted to law school, I proudly returned home with this great news. Mother told me later he stayed in bed for a week.“
John Grisham (Jonesboro, 8 februari 1955)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 8e februari ook mijn blog van 8 februari 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2.
