De Engelse dichter en schrijver Lewis Carroll werd op 27 januari 1832 in Daresbury. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007.
THE WHITE RABBIT’S VERSES
They told me you had been to her,
And mentioned me to him;
She gave me a good character,
But said I could not swim.
He sent them word I had not gone.
(We know it to be true.)
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?
I gave her one, they gave him two,
You gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.
If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.
My notion was that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him and ourselves and it.
Don’t let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.
MY FANCY
I painted her a gushing thing,
With years perhaps a score;
A little thought to find they were
At least a dozen more;
My fancy gave her eyes of blue,
A curly, auburn head;
I came to find the blue a green
The auburn turned to red.
She boxed my ears this morning–
They tingled very much;
I own that I could wish her
A somewhat lighter touch;
And if you were to ask me how
Her charms might be improved,
I would not have them added to,
But just a few removed!
She has the bear’s ethereal grace,
The bland hyena’s laugh,
The footstep of the elephant,
The neck of the giraffe.
I love her still, believe me,
Though my heart its passion hides;
“She is all my fancy painted her,”
But, oh, how much besides!
Lewis Carroll (27 januari 1832 – 14 januari 1898)
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Bernd Jentzsch werd geboren op 27 januari 1940 in Plauen. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007.
Dieser eine Herbst
Der Lärm des Verblühens, dazwischen der Wald,
Dein Leib bedeckt von den waagrechten Moosen,
Sie stellten dich vor ihren Mündungen auf,
Du fielst mit dem Laub in die Tiefe,
Die Bäume Lautsprecher, dröhnend.
Bernd Jentzsch (Plauen, 27 januari 1940)
De Duitse schrijver Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre werd op 27 januari 1975 in Bremen geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007.
Uit: Festwertspeicher der Kontrollgesellschaft, Remix 2
„Bodylanguage
Wären alle Menschen taubstumm – im Sommer wären immer noch genügend Worte in der Luft. Auf den T-Shirts nämlich. Aus unterschiedlichsten Gründen, mit unterschiedlichsten Techniken, in unterschiedlichster Auflage werden Textilien beschriftet. Aufgebügelt, auf
gesiebdruckt, eingewebt, aufgemalt wird, was das Zeug hält. Und das Zeug hält natürlich alles, das Zeug hat ja keinen eigenen Willen. Was manchmal schade ist. Aber dann gibt es ja immer noch die Waschmaschine, und die löst das Ganze durch buddhistische Zerrüttungstaktik – und auch die schlimmsten T-Shirt-Beschriftungen sind irgendwann abgeschrappt, bleichgespült, und der Kampf ist gewonnen. Bis dahin geht er weiter. Auch RAF-Logo-T-Shirts verkaufen sich noch immer gut. Ein beschriftetes Shirt funktioniert wie ein Vereinstrikot, wie jede andere Art Uniform: Es weist den Träger aus als Mitglied einer Gruppe, Anhänger einer Idee, Humorsorte, Einkommensklasse. Der Auftritt dieser Person wird charakterisierend konnotiert, die Umwelt wird, ohne dass sie gefragt hätte, informiert. Bei der morgendlichen Kleidungswahl ist sich der Träger dieses Mitteilungsdauerfeuers bewusst, man kann also sicher sein, dass der Träger eines Wort-Shirts uns ohne zu sprechen etwas sagen möchte: wen er verehrt, was er ausgegeben hat für sein Shirt, wo er schon mal war, wie er in irgendjemandes Arm aussieht auf einem aufgebügelten Foto, wie seine Meinung daunddazu ist, bei welchem Konzert er war. Vor einigen Jahren warb MTV mit Schwarz-Weiß-Fotos junger Menschen, auf deren Shirts stand, wofür sich diese Menschen hielten oder wofür MTV sie hielt. Diese Menschen sahen ganz nett aus, die Titulierungen waren charmante Bezichtigungen. Kurz darauf waren diese T-Shirts Mode. Vielleicht auch schon davor, und MTV hat es auf der Straße abgeguckt, das wäre ja nicht schlimm, bloß normal. Wer immer alles zuerst entdeckt haben will, kann sich schon mal eine Schablone ausschneiden und zu siebdrucken beginnen: Angeber, Hosenträger.
Trotzdem ist natürlich die Codierung ein wichtiger Punkt: Auch wenn eine T-Shirt-Beschriftung ja auf Wahrnehmung durch andere abzielt – wenn sie Nachahmung in einer zu hohen Quote erreicht, wird sie für die Erst-, Zweit- und Drittträger untragbar, unerträglich, dann müssen sie sich etwas Neues ausdenken, so läuft es, und dadurch gibt es immer etwas Neues. Vor Jahrzehnten liefen auf Feierlichkeiten bedenklichen Zuschnitts fröhliche Menschen mit POLIZEI-Shirts herum. Mittlerweile kann man die an jedem Autobahnrasthof kaufen, und damit sind sie der Trage-Avantgarde untragbar geworden, sie haben aber auch nicht genug Muskeln, um ohne Shirt rumlaufen zu können, außerdem ist es ja fast immer zu kalt, also lassen sie sich wieder etwas Neues einfallen. Weiter so.“
Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre (Bremen, 27 januari 1975)
De Canadese Schrijver Mordecai Richler werd geboren op 27 januari 1931 in Montreal. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007.
Uit: St. Urbain’s Horseman
“Sitting with the Hershes, day and night, a bottle of Remy Martin parked between his feet, such w as Jake’s astonishment, commingled with pleasure, in their responses, that he could not properly mourn for his father. He felt cradled, not deprived. He also felt like Rip Van Winkle returned to an innocent and ordered world he had mistakenly believed long extinct. Where God watched over all, doing His sums. Where everything fit. Even the holocaust which, after all, had yielded the state of Israel. Where to say, “Gentlemen, the Queen,” was to offer the obligatory toast to Elizabeth II at an affair, not to begin a discussion on Andy Warhol. Where smack was not habit forming but what a disrespectful child deserved; pot was what you simmered the chicken soup in; and camp was where you sent the boys for the summer. It was astounding, Jake was incredulous, that after so many years and fevers, after Dachau, after Hiroshima, revolution, rockets in space, DNA, bestiality in the streets, assassinations in and out of season, there were still brides with shining faces who were married in white gowns, posing for the Star social pages with their prizes, pear-shaped boys in evening clothes. There were aunts who sold raffles and uncles who swore by the Reader’s Digest. French Canadians, like overflying airplanes distorting the TV picture, were only tolerated. DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET, THE TROUBLE IS TEMPORARY. Aunts still phoned each other every morning to say what sort of cake they were baking. Who had passed this exam, who had survived the operation. A scandal was when a first cousin was invited to the bar mitzvah kiddush, but not the dinner. Eloquence was the rabbi’s sermon. They were ignorant of the arts, they were over dressed, they were overstuffed, and their taste was appallingly bad. But within their self-contained world, there was order. It worked.”
Mordecai Richler (27 januari 1931 – 3 juli 2001)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Ethan Mordden werd geboren op 27 januari 1947 in Pennsylvania. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007.
Uit: Some Men are Lookers
“Virgil and Cosgrove have a new sport they call the Commercial Game. They cruise the television with the mute button on, seeking commercial breaks for which they provide their own extemporaneous soundovers. It’s hectic but simple. All car pitches are for Subaru. All horror movie trailers are for something Cosgrove has entitled Exorcis –“You can run, you can hide,” he gloats, “but it’s coming to get you” — and all cereal spots are for Sugar Boy Pops, a brand I am unfamiliar with.
They were playing the Commercial Game one evening when Lionel dropped by Dennis Savage’s to tell us that Tom Driggers was back in the hospital for what was almost certainly the last time, and had asked to see Dennis Savage. Tom and he had been very close once — very, very close was my impression. But they hadn’t spoken in quite some time now.
“Subaru!” Virgil cried. “The car in a million!”
“With hatchback and full accessories!” Cosgrove added. “Radio, tape deck, mascara tray.”
“He’s really bought the farm,” Lionel was telling us. “All that money and power, and down he goes to nothing.”
“You’ll ride like a king!” Virgil announced. “It’s Subaru!”
“See how it goes!” said Cosgrove, as a Pontiac sailed by.
“You should be there,” Lionel went on. “He’s got a roomful of … of toadies and pimps and comparable phantasmagoria of the bad old days. That’s what he’s dying to. There’s nobody human in that room.”
Virgil, Dennis Savage’s live-in, is, like Cosgrove, considerably younger than most of our circle. So he isn’t as well informed as we are and, again like Cosgrove, often keeps one ear on our conversations, sifting through the terms and concepts for material he can use in the act: his life. I saw him sifting now, losing touch with the television as he took in this new thing about toadies and death and power.
“Tom had everything and now he has nothing,” Lionel continued. “I’m afraid to have to admit that this is a very gay story. What ups and what downs, I mean? He looks like a beanbag sculpture. So, if we could only not maximize his failure …”
Dennis Savage looked at him.
“Okay?” said Lionel.
Dennis Savage looked at me.
“As a kind of restabilizing act of mercy?” Lionel added. “For me? Okay?”
Dennis Savage said, “Not okay.”
“Ladies, aren’t you tired of your derodeant?” Cosgrove declaimed, smoothy-announcer-style. “Don’t you want Mamzelle Hint O’Spring instead?”
“That’s not deodorant, Cosgrove, that’s laundry de –”
“I think a man deserves something better than to die with all his would-be heirs drooling over him,” Lionel went on.
“What about that carpenter Tom was living with?” I asked. “With all the tattoos? I thought that was supposed to be love for life.”
Lionel sighed. He gestured then, resolute but resigned, one of those things hands do in the air when words can’t tell. “It sort of was, actually. Love. Which was very unusual for Tom. Tuffy, his name is. He isn’t around all that often. Tom won’t talk about it, but apparently Tuffy has developed a prodigious case of plague necrophobia. He’s a simple guy, you know, very basic, and he just doesn’t get it, or anything. He is very desperately threatened.”
Cosgrove heard that. I saw him whisper “He is very desperately threatened” to himself.
“What kind of man,” said Dennis Savage, “has a lover named Tuffy? What’s his morality, if you gay commissars will pardon me for asking?”
Ethan Mordden (Pennsylvania, 27 januari 1947)
De Amerikaanse schrijver James Grippando werd geboren op 27 januari 1958 in Waukegan, Illinois. Hij groeide op in een Roomskatho;ike familie met vijf kinderen. Hij studeerde rechten aan de University of Florida en werkte daarna 12 jaar lang als advocaat. Zijn eerste roman, The Pardon, verscheen in 1994. In dat boek introduceerde hij ook voor het eerst de strafpleiter Jack Swyteck uit Miami. Zijn tweede roman The Informant verscheen in 1996. Vanaf dat jaar werd Grippando fulltime schrijver.
Werk o.a.: The Abduction (1998); Found Money (1999); Under Cover of Darkness (2000); A King’s Ransom (2001); Beyond Suspicion (2002); Last to Die (2003); Hear No Evil (2004); Got the Look (2006); Leapholes (voor jonge volwassenen) (2006); When Darkness Falls (2007) and Lying with Strangers (2007).
Uit: When darkness falls
“Sergeant Vincent Paulo couldn’t see the man who had climbed to the very top of the William Powell Bridge. Paulo couldn’t even see the damn bridge. He heard the desperation in the man’s voice, however, and he knew this one was a jumper. After seven years as a crisis negotiator with the City of Miami Police Department, there were some things you just knew, even if you were blind.
Especially if you were blind.
“Falcon,” he called out for the umpteenth time, his voice amplified by a police megaphone. “This is Vincent Paulo you’re talking to. We can work this out, all right?”
The man was atop a lamppost—as high in the sky as he could possibly get—looking down from his roost. The views of Miami had to be spectacular from up there. Paulo, however, could only imagine the blue-green waters of the bay, the high-rise condominiums along the waterfront like so many dominoes ready to topple in a colossal chain reaction. Cruise ships, perhaps, were headed slowly out to sea, trails of white smoke puffing against a sky so blue that no cloud dared to disturb it. Traffic, they told him, was backed up for miles in each direction, west toward the mainland and east toward the island of Key Biscayne. There were squad cars, a SWAT van, teams of police officers, police boats in the bay, and a legion of media vans and reporters swarming the bridge. Paulo could hear the helicopters whirring all around, as local news broadcasted the entire episode live into South Florida living rooms.“
James Grippando (Waukegan, 27 januari 1958)
Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007.
De Duitse schrijver Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch werd geboren op 27 januari 1836 in Lemberg.
De Russische schrijver Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin werd geboren op 27 januari 1826 in Spas-Ugol, Tver.
De Russische schrijver Ilja Ehrenburg werd geboren op 27 januari 1891 in Kiev.
De Franstalige, maar oorspronkelijk Nederlandse schrijfster Neel Doff werd geboren in Buggenum op 27 januari 1858.