Berichten van 21 september 2013 tot 22 september 2013

De Britse dichter en schrijver Dannie Abse werd geboren op 22 september 1923 in Cardiff, Wales. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Dannie Abse op dit blog.

 

 

 

Talking to Myself

 

In the mildew of age
all pavements slope uphill

 

slow slow
towards an exit.

 

It's late and light allows
the darkest shadow to be born of it.

 

Courage, the ventriloquist bird cries
(a little god, he is, censor of language)

 

remember plain Hardy and dandy Yeats
in their inspired wise pre-dotage.

 

I, old man, in my new timidity,
think how, profligate, I wasted time

 

– those yawning postponements on rainy days,
those paperhat hours of benign frivolity.

 

Now Time wastes me and there's hardly time
to fuss for more vascular speech.

 

The aspen tree trembles as I do
and there are feathers in the wind.

 

Quick quick
speak, old parrot,
do I not feed you with my life?

 

 

 

 

The Origin Of Music

 

When I was a medical student
I stole two femurs of a baby
from The Pathology Specimen Room.
Now I keep them in my pocket,
the right femur and the left femur.
Like a boy scout, I'm prepared.
For what can one say to a neighbour
when his wife dies? 'Sorry'?
Or when a friend's sweet child
suffers leukaemia? 'Condolences'?
No, if I should meet either friend
or stricken neighbour in the street
and he should tell me, whisper to me,
his woeful, intimate news,
wordless I take the two small femurs
from out of my pocket sadly
and play them like castanets.

 

 

 

Dannie Abse (Cardiff, 22 september 1923)

 

 

 

 

 

De Nederlandse schrijver Lodewijk van Deyssel werd geboren op 22 september 1864 in Amsterdam. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Lodewijk van Deyssel op dit blog.

 

Uit: Af-sterven

 

“In de groote kamer-kooi lijkt het te wezen. Zwart-bruin van de stijve, stom-vlakke wanden de ruimte in, het eene venster blaâr-geelgroen, het andere venster zon-geel-achter-raggend-wit. In de vaal-gespannen ruimte-wasem het vele hoog-op stil-staande in de dag-schildering, die naar buiten uit-ligt, wijd, ver gestrekt heen-liggend, zonder iets.

Onder het goor-witte kamerboven-vlak is het. In het hoofd, dat zoo stil op de jas staat, in het vaal-en-leêg-van-niet-te-zien hoofd-binnen, in de suizend-mistende vlak-bij-stilte-kist, boven-tusschen het ooren-suis-loei-ruischen als van een heele verre machinen-stad, op de gladde vlakke zwart-waterhelling, tusschen de aan en aan ploffende grijs-lila stoomruikers en -pluimen van de randen, sliert het zacht kruip-vloeyend langzaam donker-rood, bruin, donker-blauw en zwart.

Zacht-plots vleugelen de oogen-blaadjes neêr, van-onderen gloed-geel, dan rooderig rood, dan een groot, vaal-licht-rood, van-voren, met de lichtjes-schimmetjes snel ver-bleek-dwijnend, iets daar je voorbij rijdt. In de laagte voelen de lippen zich tastbaar-week, dierlijk.

Groot wenden de vreemde handen op, neêr. De beenen in de diepte, weg en wetenloos.

Het is zoo stil boven de leêge borst. Een holle pop is het lichaam, hoog vol-uit en af-gerond geheel en los, op zich zelf, met alle zijn kromme, rondende, harde wandjes. De oog-blaadjes vlinder-ritselen.

Buiten, de hel-blauw geel-zilver-tinteling, sprankelend de gesprenkelde licht-drup-dag. Min het alomme-licht-mooi van den dag, droog, kil-blauw, duidelijk en klein. De dag een korte kamer met flauwe lamp. De groote duister-zwarte mist van de leêge stilte staat, in al-door-maar-verdere wijdte staat onbewegelijk in de al-hoogte gestard. De blauwe en roode vanen met hun duistere pracht hangen donker heel hoog en stijf en stil daarin. Achter de zwart-vaal-schemerende stilte-hoog-nacht is het groot-helle licht heen-geduisterd, heen als een samene zon-vogel-vlucht achter het gebergte.”

 

 

 

Lodewijk van Deyssel (22 september 1864 - 26 januari 1952)

 

 

De Britse schrijfster Fay Weldon werd geboren op 22 september 1931 in Alvechurch, Engeland. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Fay Weldon op dit blog

 

Uit: Habits of the House

 

“6.58 a.m. Tuesday, 24th October 1899
IN LATE OCTOBER of the year 1899 a tall, thin, nervy young man ran up the broad stone steps that led to No. 17 Belgrave Square. He seemed agitated. He was without hat or cane, breathless, unattended by staff of any kind, wore office dress – other than that his waistcoat was bright yellow above smart striped stove-pipe trousers – and his moustache had lost its curl in the damp air of the early morning. He seemed both too well-dressed for the tradesman’s entrance at the back of the house, yet not quite fit to mount the front steps, leave alone at a run, and especially at such an early hour.
The grand front doors of Belgrave Square belonged to ministers of the Crown, ambassadors of foreign countries, and a sprinkling of titled families. By seven in the morning the back doors would be busy enough with deliveries and the coming and going of kitchen and stable staff, but few approached the great front doors before ten, let alone on foot, informally and without appointment. The visitor pulled the bell handle too long and too hard, and worse, again and again.
The jangling of the bell disturbed the household, waking the gentry, startling such servants who were already up but still sleepy, and disconcerting the upper servants, who were not yet properly dressed for front door work.
Grace, her Ladyship’s maid, peered out from her attic window to see what was going on. She used a mirror contraption rigged up for her by Reginald the footman, the better to keep an eye on comings and goings on the steps below. Seeing that it was only Eric Baum, his Lordship’s new financial advisor and lawyer, Grace decided it was scarcely her business to answer the door. She saw to her Ladyship’s comfort and no one else’s. Baum was too young, too excitable and too foreign-looking to be worthy of much exertion, and her Ladyship had been none too pleased when her husband had moved their business affairs into new hands.”

 

 

 

Fay Weldon (Alvechurch, 22 september 1931)

 

 

 

 

De Hongaarse dichter en schrijver György Faludy werd geboren op 22 september 1910 in Boedapest. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor György Faludy op dit blog.

 

 

REFUGEE, 1940

Like our hosts, we thought the French army
was the mightiest under the sun.
And what did it show to the German Nazis?
Beaten backsides on the run.

The French distrust and despise us aliens  
for fleeing to their land for salvation.
It was their own deceit, not ours,
that callously brought down this nation.

They boast: defeat will bring them peace
(too bad for the Jews). Oh, hunky-dory...
Few of them know that it’s only the start
and very far from the end of the story.

The Nazis will settle into their homes.
They’ll drink their cellars dry, abuse
their women and, should they object,
treat their hosts as they treat the Jews.

 

 

 

Vertaald door Thomas Ország-Land

 

 

 

 

Silver Pirouettes

 

Your ankles grow deep-blue shadows for space,

the universe has you for its vault.

Palm trees sprout deep-green explosions behind

your shoulders. And the clock has stalled.

 

Your face is my reliable sundial,

the light in the window dances its ballet,

my May is jasmine in your armpit;

our nearest neighbor is the Milky Way.

 

Furniture swings with us like a circus trapeze

without the weight. Sometimes I look back:

dust lashes the five continents and seas,

 

but on your divine empire the sun never sets;

what we have here is melodious, oceanic peace

and up there the moon’s silver pirouettes.

 

 

 

Vertaald door Paul Sohar

 

 

 

 

György Faludy (22 september 1910 – 1 september 2006)
Hier met dichter en vriend Eric Johnson in de jaren zestig

 

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijves van de 22e september ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.

De Israëlische Hebreeuwse en Jiddische dichter en politicus Uri Zvi Greenberg werd geboren op 22 september 1896 in Bialikamin, Lviv, in Galicië, destijds behorend tot Oostenrijk-Hongarije. Zie ook alle tags voor Uri Zvi Greenberg op dit blog.

 

 

One Truth and Not Two

Your Rabbis taught: A land is bought with money
You buy the land and work it with a hoe.
And I say: A land is not bought with money
And with a hoe you also dig and bury the dead.
And I say: A land is conquered with blood.
And only when conquered with blood is hallowed to the people
With the holiness of the blood.
And only one who follows after the cannon in the field,
Thus wins the right to follow after his good plow
On this, the field that was conquered.
And only such a field gives nourishing and healthy bread
And the house which arises on its hill is truly a fortress and a temple,
Because in this field there is honorable blood.
Your Rabbis taught: The messiah will come in future generations:
And Judea will arise without fire and without blood.
It will arise with every tree, with every additional house.
And I say: If your generation will be slow
And will not grasp in its hands and forcibly mold its future
And in fire will not come with the Shield of David
And in blood will not come with its horses saddled -
The Messiah will not come even in a far off generation.
Judea will not arise.
And you will be living slaves to every foreign ruler.
Your houses will be straw for the sparks of every wicked one.
And your trees will be cut down with their ripe fruit.
And a man will react the same as a babe
To the sword of the enemy -
And only your ramblings will remain - yours...
And your statue, an eternal curse.
Your Rabbis taught: There is one truth for the nations:
Blood for blood - but it is not a truth for Jews.
And I say: There is one truth and not two.
As there is one sun and as there are not two Jerusalems.
It was written in the Law of Conquest of Moses and Joshua
Until the last of my kings and my traitors have consumed.
And there will be a day when from the river of Egypt until the Euphrates
And from the sea until the mountain passes of Moav my boys will go up
And they will call my enemies and my haters to the last battle.
And the blood will decide: Who is the only ruler here.

 

 

 

Vertaald door Laurence Cramer

 

 

 

 

Uri Zvi Greenberg (22 september 1896 – 8 mei 1981)

 

 

 

 

De Britse schrijfster Rosamunde Pilcher werd op 22 september 1924 geboren in Lelant, Cornwall, Groot-Brittannië. Zie ook alle tags voor Rosamunde Pilcher op dit blog.

 

Uit: Winter Solstice

 

“When these friends departed, they needed reassurance: "You're all right, aren't you, Elfrida?" they would ask. "No regrets? You don't want to come back to London? You're happy?" And she had been able to set their minds at rest. "Of course I am. This is my geriatric bolt-hole. This is where I shall spend the twilight of my years."

So, by now, there was a comfortable familiarity about it all. She knew who lived in this house, in that cottage. People called her by her name. "Morning, Elfrida," or "Lovely day, Mrs. Phipps." Some of the inhabitants were commuting families, the man of the house setting out early each morning to catch the fast train to London and returning late in the evening to pick up his car from the station park and drive the short distance home. Others had lived here all their lives in small stone houses that had belonged to their fathers and their grandfathers before that. Still others were new altogether, inhabiting the council estates that ringed the village, and employed by the electronics factory in the neighbouring town. It was all very ordinary, and so, undemanding. Just, in fact, what Elfrida needed.

Walking, she passed the pub, newly furbished and now called the Dibton Coachhouse. There were wrought-iron signs and a spacious car-park. Farther on, she passed the church, with its yew trees and lych-gate, and a notice-board fluttering with parish news. A guitar concert, an outing for the Mothers and Toddlers group. In the churchyard, a man lit a bonfire and the air was sweet with the scent of toasting leaves. Overhead, rooks cawed. A cat sat on one of the churchyard gate posts, but luckily Horace did not notice him.”

 

 

 

Rosamunde Pilcher (Lelant, 22 september 1924)

 

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Hans Leip werd geboren op 22 september 1893 in Hamburg. Zie ook alle tags voor Hans Leip op dit blog.

 

 

Oevelgönne

 

Oevel-Oevelgönne,
buddelbunter Butt.
Sah ich sieben Segel
mittenmang im Mutt.
Junge, in die sieben
muß ich mich verlieben.

 

Oevel-Oevelgönne,
moije Milchmannsmagd.
Ob ich es wohl könne,
hat sie mich gefragt,
ihr das Schuhband lösen
mit den siebzehn Ösen.

 

Oevel-Oevelgönne,
kleine Muggepick
blieb verdimmich stecken
mittenmang im Schlick.
Mädchen, nimm dein Hemde,
denn es kommen Fremde!

 

 

 

 

Hans Leip (22 september 1893 – 6 juni 1983)

Zelfportret met vogel, 1956

 

 

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter Barthold Heinrich Brockes werd geboren in Hamburg op 22 september 1680. Zie ook alle tags voor Barthold Heinrich Brockes op dit blog.

 

 

Frühlings-Seufzer

 

Grosser Gott, in dieser Pracht
Seh' ich deine Wunder-Macht
Aus vergnügter Seelen an.
Es gereiche Dir zu Ehren,
Daß ich sehen, daß ich hören,
Fülen, schmecken, riechen kann!

 

 

 

Flammende Rose

 

Flammende Rose,
Zierde der Erden,
Glänzender Gärten
Bezaubernde Pracht!
Augen, die deine
Vortrefflichkeit sehen,
Müßten vor Anmut erstaunet
Gestehen,
Daß dich ein göttlicher
Finger gemacht.

 

 

 

 

Die Welt ist allezeit schön

 

Im Frühling prangt die schöne Welt

In einem fast Smaragden Schein.

 

Im Sommer gläntzt das reife Feld,

Und scheint dem Golde gleich zu seyn.

 

Im Herbste sieht man, als Opalen,

Der Bäume bunte Blätter strahlen.

 

Im Winter schmückt ein Schein, wie Diamant

Und reines Silber, Fluth und Land.

 

Ja kurtz, wenn wir die Welt aufmercksam sehn,

Ist sie zu allen Zeit schön.

 

 

 

Barthold Heinrich Brockes (22 september 1680 - 16 januari 1747)

Portret door Balthasar Denner

De Canadese dichter, folk singer-songwriter en schrijver Leonard Cohen werd geboren op 21 september 1934 te Montréal. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Leonard Cohen op dit blog..

 

 

Song

 

I almost went to bed
without remembering
the four white violets
I put in the button-hole
of your green sweater

 

and how i kissed you then
and you kissed me
shy as though I'd
never been your lover

 

 

 

Now of Sleeping

 

Under her grandmother's patchwork quilt
a calico bird's-eye view
of crops and boundaries
naming dimly the districts of her body
sleeps my Annie like a perfect lady

 

Like ages of weightless snow
on tiny oceans filled with light
her eyelids enclose deeply
a shade tree of birthday candles
one for every morning
until the now of sleeping

 

The small banner of blood
kept and flown by Brother Wind
long after the pierced bird fell down
is like her red mouth
among the squalls of pillow

 

Bearers of evil fancy
of dark intention and corrupting fashion
who come to rend the quilt
plough the eye and ground the mouth
will contend with mighty Mother Goose
and Farmer Brown and all good stories
of invincible belief
which surround her sleep
like the golden wheather of a halo

 

Well-wishers and her true lover
may stay to watch my Annie
sleeping like a perfect lady
under her grandmother's patchwork quilt
but they must promise to whisper
and to vanish by morning -
all but her one true lover.

 

 

 

Leonard Cohen (Montréal, 21 september 1934)

In de jaren zestig

 

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Stephen Edwin King werd geboren in Portland, Maine, op 21 september 1947. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Stephen King op dit blog.

 

Uit: The shining

 

“Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.

Ullman stood five-five, and when he moved, it was with the prissy speed that seems to be the exclusive domain of all small plump men. The part in his hair was exact, and his dark suit was sober but comforting. I am a man you can bring your problems to, that suit said to the paying customer. To the hired help it spoke more curtly: This had better be good, you. There was a red carnation in the lapel, perhaps so that no one on the street would mistake Stuart Ullman for the local undertaker.

As he listened to Ullman speak, Jack admitted to himself that he probably could not have liked any man on that side of the desk --- under the circumstances.

Ullman had asked a question he hadn't caught. That was bad; Ullman was the type of man who would file such lapses away in a mental Rolodex for later consideration.

 

 

Scene uit de film van Stanley Kubric uit 1980

 

 

"I'm sorry?"

"I asked if your wife fully understood what you would be taking on here. And there's your son, of course." He glanced down at the application in front of him. "Daniel. Your wife isn't a bit intimidated by the idea?"

"Wendy is an extraordinary woman."

"And your son is also extraordinary?"

Jack smiled, a big wide PR smile. "We like to think so, I suppose. He's quite self-radiant for a five-year-old."

No returning smile from Ullman. He slipped Jack's application back into the file. The file went into a drawer. The desk top was now completely bare except for a blotter, a telephone, a Tensor lamp, and an in/out basket. Both sides of the in/out were empty, too.”.

 

 

 

Stephen King (Portland, 21 september 1947)

 

 

De Franse schrijver Frédéric Beigbeder werd geboren op 21 september 1965 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Frédéric Beigbeder op dit blog.

Uit: L’amour dure trois ans

„On fait semblant d'être indifférent au divorce, mais arrive bientôt le moment terrible où l'on comprend être passé de "La belle au bois dormant" à "Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble". Adieu souvenirs charmants, il faut renoncer aux surnoms adorables qu'on se donnait, brûler les photos du voyage de noces, éteindre la radio quand on y entend une chansons que l'on fredonnait ensemble. (...) Les seules fois où l'on se croisera désormais, ce sera en présence d'une souriante avocate qui aura, par dessus le marché, le mauvais goût d'être enceinte jusqu'aux dents.” 

Scene uit de gelijknamige film uit 2011

 

 

„Il fallait jeter des fleurs blanches dans les vagues en faisant un voeu que les divinités réaliseraient dans l’année. Je ne sais pas ce qui s’est passé : mes fleurs devaient être moches, ou les dieux absents. En tout cas, je n’ai jamais été exaucé.“

(…)

 

„Elles attendent le Prince Charmant, ce concept publicitaire débile qui fabrique des déçues, des futures vieilles filles, des aigries en quête d’absolu, alors que seul un homme imparfait peut les rendre heureuses.“

 

 

 

Frédéric Beigbeder (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 21 september 1965)

 

 

 

 

 

De Vlaamse dichter Xavier Roelens werd op 21 september 1976 in Rekkem (Menen). Zie ook alle tags voor Xavier Roelens op dit blog.

 

 

Lichaam en ziel

 

de liefste broer van de hele wereld dobbelt stenen
van het viaduct, telt de ogen en keert terug naar start

om een sollicitatiebrief te schrappen.
speeksel druipt mee de envelop in,
als lichaam en ziel verlangt het
hereniging, kent niet de reglementering ter zake.

'het kan morgen alleen maar beter.
wij wensen u veel succes.'

broer spingt over de omheining naar de gekantelde vrachtwagen
en verzamelt al wroetend en kwispelend wat overblijft.

 

 

 

Geheugenuitbreiding

 

schenk de slapende uw
ogen voor het uit de kassen
vallen, voel de ouderdom of bij
werkingen van een innoverend me
dicijn aan de tand kleven.
poets grondig treur niet om belasting
van systemen. uit uw nalatenschap,
uit adem van geschrap. het vormt
uw zekeringenkast, preventief,

vóór de implosie

 

 

 

 

Xavier Roelens (Rekkem, 21 september 1976)

 

De Amerikaanse schrijfster en actrice Fannie Flag (eig. Patricia Neal) werd geboren op 21 september in Birmingham (Alabama). Zie ook mijn blog van 21 september 2010en evenneens alle tags voor Fannie Flag op dit blog.

 

Uit: I Still Dream About You

 

“If Maggie had lived most of her life under the spell of her childhood, she wasn’t alone. A lot of people still had a few stars left in their eyes, and no wonder, growing up in a place called the Magic City, with all of its lofty aspirations and illusions of grandeur. You could see it everywhere you looked, from the towering smokestacks of the iron, coal, and steel mills to the grand mansions atop Red Mountain to the sparkle in the cement in the downtown sidewalks. The city was bustling and alive, with block after block of elegant stores, where mannequins stood in haughty poses, dressed in the latest fashions and furs from New York and Paris; blocks of showrooms filled with fine rugs, lamps, and furniture, displayed so beautifully you wanted to walk in and live there forever (or at least Maggie had). There had always been an excitement in the air. A feeling that Birmingham, the Fastest-Growing City in the South, was right on the verge of exploding into the biggest city in the world. Even the streets had been laid out extra wide and stood waiting, as if expecting a tremendous rush of traffic at any moment. From the beginning, Birmingham had been bursting with ambition and hated being second to Pittsburgh in steel production and having the second-largest city transit system in the country. Even the towering iron statue of Vulcan, the Greek god of fire and iron, that stood on the top of Red Mountain was only the second-largest iron statue in the country, and during the war, when headlines announced that Birmingham, Alabama, had been named the number two target city in America to be bombed by Germany and Japan, everybody was terribly disappointed; they would have loved to have been first! Their only consolation: they did have the largest electrical sign in the world, which greeted all visitors as they came out of the train station.”

 

 

 

Fannie Flag (Birmingham, 21 september 1944)

 

 

 

 

 

De Britse schrijver Herbert George Wells werd geboren op 21 september 1866 in Bromley, Kent. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor H. G. Wells op dit blog.

 

Uit: The Time Machine

 

“The earth had come to rest with one face to the sun, even as in our own time the moon faces the earth. Very cautiously, for I remembered my former headlong fall, I began to reverse my motion. Slower and slower went the circling hands until the thousands one seemed motionless and the daily one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale. Still slower, until the dim outlines of a desolate beach grew visible.

"I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking round. The sky was no longer blue. North-eastward it was inky black, and out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale white stars. Overhead it was a deep Indian red and starless, and south-eastward it grew brighter to a glowing scarlet where, cut by the horizon, lay the huge hull of the sun, red and motionless. The rocks about me were of a harsh reddish colour, and all the trace of life that I could see at first was the intensely green vegetation that covered every projecting point on their south-eastern face. It was the same rich green that one sees on forest moss or on the lichen in caves: plants which like these grow in a perpetual twilight.

"The machine was standing on a sloping beach. The sea stretched away to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright horizon against the wan sky. There were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of wind was stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing, and showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living. And along the margin where the water sometimes broke was a thick incrustation of salt, pink under the lurid sky. There was a sense of oppression in my head, and I noticed that I was breathing very fast. The sensation reminded me of my only experience of mountaineering, and from that I judged the air to be more rarefied than it is now.”

 

 

 

H. G. Wells (21 september 1866 - 13 augustus 1946)

Portret door  Pauline Fitzpatrick

 

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter Johann Peter Eckermann werd geboren op 21 september 1792 in Winsen (Luhe). Hij was bovenal de medewerker en vriend van Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.Zie ook mijn blog van 21 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Johann Peter Eckermann op dit blog.

 

 

An die Sommer-Winde

 

Süd und West, ihr linden, kühlen!
Und die ihr südwestlich weht!
Fächelt, säuselt, wenn im Schwülen
Mein geliebtes Mädchen geht!
Lüften könnt ihr, ja verschieben
Ihres Busens leichtes Tuch;
Aber müsst euch nicht verlieben,
Kühlen nur, das ist genug!

 

 

An die Winter-Winde

 

Nord und Ost, ihr eis'gen Winde!
Und die ihr nordöstlich weht!
O, ich bitt' euch, leise! linde!
Wenn mein zartes Mädchen geht.
Dass ihr meine Seelenweide,
Wang' und Augen, nicht betrübt!
Dass ihre schöner Mund nicht leide,
Der so willig Küsse gibt!

 

 

 

Johann Peter Eckermann (21 september 1792 - 3 december 1854)
Slot Winsen