Maand: juli 2011

Simon Vinkenoog, Steffen Popp, Alicia Steimberg, Jevgeni Jevtoesjenko

De Nederlandse dichter en schrijver Simon Vinkenoog werd op 18 juli 1928 in Amsterdam geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Simon Vinkenoog op dit blog.

 

Ver als de horizon ben je

ver als de horizon ben je
in de glazen kist van het weer geborgen
beukend op de blikken deksels
van het najaar
ik zie de bliksem langs je lichaam trillen
en de regen loopt onrustig door je ogen

ik kan de afstand die mij van je scheidt
in lichtjaren tellen
en in de meter van het geluid
zoemen de seconden

mijn handen opnieuw in gebruik gesteld
sluiten het onweer in je borsten buiten

alleen de regen is thuis
op de platte daken van de nachten
zonder duizelingen

 

Het spiegelend evenbeeld

Wat is leven? Ogen die elkaar niet zien,
hout op hout de woede van het lichaam,
draaiend in het cirucusspel van heden.

Het is een straatnaam aan een huis,
de ogen rode tekens aan een voorhoofd,
terend op de gedachte aan gisteren:

‘Ik loop in zoveel duisternis
dat ik blind ben van vragen.
’s Nachts de koele mist van de liefde
bij dag de godsdienst van het ademhalen’.

Terend op een wanhoop die morgen is:
alleen met anderen die alleen zijn,
samen met de eigen stem, die niet klinkt
in een wankel en vermoeid bestaan
waar geen geluid meer doordringt.

En ik die dit leven niet ken
ik, een toerist in eigen land,
vreemde voeding in mijn cellen,
vreemde rook in mijn mond.

Ik loop langs alle wegen die mij dragen
en vraag, maar kan niet meer vragen,
Geef mij het einde, zodat ik mijzelf herken.

 

Simon Vinkenoog (18 juli 1928 – 12 juli 2009)

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William M. Thackeray, Nathalie Sarraute, Aad Nuis, Ludwig Harig, Jan Stanisław Skorupski

De Engelse schrijver William Makepeace Thackeray werd geboren in Calcutta op 18 juli 1811. Zie ook alle tags voor William Makepeace Thackeray op dit blog en mijn blog van 18 juli 2010.

Uit: George Cruikshank

“A ccusations of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, are made against every inhabitant of this wicked world, and the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the fierce waves of the crowd, bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself somewhat above water–fighting for reputation, or more likely for bread, and ceaselessly occupied to-day with plans for appeasing the eternal appetite of inevitable hunger to-morrow–a man in such straits has hardly time to think of anything but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety. In the midst of such a combat as this, the “ingenious arts, which prevent the ferocity of the manners, and act upon them as an emollient” (as the philosophic bard remarks in the Latin Grammar) are likely to be jostled to death, and then forgotten. The world will allow no such compromises between it and that which does not belong to it–no two gods must we serve; but (as one has seen in some old portraits) the horrible glazed eyes of Necessity are always fixed upon you; fly away as you will, black Care sits behind you, and with his ceaseless gloomy croaking drowns the voice of all more cheerful companions. Happy he whose fortune has placed him where there is calm and plenty, and who has the wisdom not to give up his quiet in quest of visionary gain.

Here is, no doubt, the reason why a man, after the period of his boyhood, or first youth, makes so few friends. Want and ambition (new acquaintances which are introduced to him along with his beard) thrust away all other society from him. Some old friends remain, it is true, but these are become as a habit–a part of your selfishness; and, for new ones, they are selfish as you are. Neither member of the new partnership has the capital of affection and kindly feeling, or can even afford the time that is requisite for the establishment of the new firm. Damp and chill the shades of the prison-house begin to close round us, and that “vision splendid” which has accompanied our steps in our journey daily farther from the east, fades away and dies into the light of common day.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (18 juli 1811 – 24 december 1863)
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Ricarda Huch, Tristan Corbiere, Jan Gerhard Toonder, Josepha Mendels, Bobby Henderson

De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Ricarda Huch werd op 18 juli 1864 in Braunschweig geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 18 juli 2009.

 

Wiedersehen

Aus der Trennung Schale
Trank ich tropfenweis den bittren Wein;
Ganz in einem Male
Soll das Wiedersehn genossen sein.

Gib mir beide Hände!
Aus dem nie erschöpften Überfluß
Unsrer Huld verschwende
Alle Zärtlichkeit in einem Kuß!

Hauche deine Seele
Tief in meines Busens Grund hinein;
Nicht im Wort erzähle:
Was du denkst, wird so im Fühlen mein.

 

Wie liebten wir so treu in jenen Tagen

Wie liebten wir so treu in jenen Tagen,
Fest wie die Sonne stand das Herz uns da.
Getrennt, wie hatten wir uns viel zu sagen,
Und sagten stets nur eines: Liebst Du? Ja!
O Liebe, kannst du wie ein Traum der Nächte
Vorübergehen, die du unendlich scheinst?
Mir ist, als ob er fernher mein gedächte

Und fragte: Liebst Du mich? Sag ja wie einst!

 

Ricarda Huch (18 juli 1864 – 17 november 1947)

Portret door Martin Lauterburg, 1930

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In Memoriam John Kraaijkamp sr.

In Memoriam John Kraaijkamp sr.

De Nederlandse acteur Jan Hendrik (Johnny) Kraaijkamp is gisteren overleden. Johnny Kraaijkamp werd geboren op 19 april 1925 in Amsterdam. Na een lange periode van komische rollen – zo speelde hij in 1978 met zijn zoon in De verlegen versierder, een door Berend Boudewijn vertaald blijspel van Robin Hawdon – was Kraaijkamp van 1979 tot 1984 actief bij het RO Theater, waar hij onder andere King Lear speelde. Kraaijkamp overleed op 17 juli 2011 in het Rosa Spier Huis in het Noord-Hollandse Laren. Hij werd 86 jaar

Scene uit King Lear, links: Lou Landré, rechts: John Kraaijkamp sr

Uit: King Lear (vertaling: Jan Jonk)

“Cordelia
Wij zijn niet de eersten,
die het beste wilden, maar het slechtste kregen.
Gekrenkte Koning, jouw lot kan mij deren;
zelf zou ik de valse grijns van het lot pareren.
Zien wij die dochters en die zusters nog?
Lear
Nee, nee, nee, nee. Kom vlug naar onze cel.
Daar zingen wij als vogels in een kooi.
Als jij mijn zegen vraagt, kniel ik en vraag
jou om vergeving. Zo zullen wij leven,
bidden, zingen, van sprookjes spreken, lachen
om vergulde vlinders, van arme drommels
het hofnieuws horen, en met hen bespreken
wie wint en wie verliest, wie in, wie uit is.
Daar schouwen wij het mysterie van ons zijn,
als godeninformanten, in die kerker,
verslijten wij de kliek van hoge heren,
wier tij daalt en rijst met de maan.
Edmund
Voer ze af.
Lear
Op zulk een heilig offer, lieve Cordelia,
strooien de Goden wierook. Heb ik jou gestrikt?
Alleen een hemelfakkel scheidt ons nog,
en drijft ons weg als vossen. Droog je ogen.
Laat de duivels ze vreten, huid en haar,
wij huilen niet. Eerst komt hun hongerdood.
Kom.
Lear en Cordelia af

John Kraaijkamp sr. (19 april 1925 – 17 juli 2011)

James Purdy, Martin R. Dean, Eelke de Jong, Roger Garaudy, Alie Smeding, Clara Viebig

De Amerikaanse schrijver James Purdy werd geboren in Fremont in de staat Ohio op 17 juli 1914. Zie ook alle tags voor James Purdy op dit blog.

Uit: Color of Darkness

“Sometimes he thought about his wife, but a thing had begun of late, usually after the boy went to bed, a thing which should have been terrifying but which was not: he could not remember now what she had looked like. The specific thing he could not remember was the color of her eyes. It was one of the most obsessive things in his thought. It was also a thing he could not quite speak of with anybody. There were people in the town who would have remembered, of course, what color her eyes were, but gradually he began to forget the general structure of her face also. All he seemed to remember was her voice, her warm hearty comforting voice.
Then there was the boy, Baxter, of course. What did he know and what did he not know. Sometimes Baxter seemed to know everything. As he hung on the edge of the chair looking at his father, examining him closely (the boy never seemed to be able to get close enough to his father), the father felt that Baxter might know everything.
“Bax,” the father would say at such a moment, and stare into his own son’s eyes. The son looked exactly like the father. There was no trace in the boy’s face of anything of his mother.
“Soon you will be all grown up,” the father said one night, without ever knowing why he had said this, saying it without his having even thought about it.
“I don’t think so,” the boy replied.
“Why don’t you think so,” the father wondered, as surprised by the boy’s answer as he had been by his own question.
The boy thought over his own remark also.
“How long does it take?” the boy asked.
“Oh a long time yet,” the father said.

“Will I stay with you, Daddy,” the boy wondered.
The father nodded. “You can stay with me always,” the father said.
The boy said Oh and began running around the room. He fell over one of his engines and began to cry.
Mrs. Zilke came into the room and said something comforting to the boy.
The father got up and went over to pick up the son. Then sitting down, he put the boy in his lap, and flushed from the exertion, he said to Mrs. Zilke: “You know, I am old!”

 

James Purdy (17 juli 1914 – 13 maart 2009)

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Rainer Kirsch, Mattie Stepanek, Jakob Christoph Heer, Bruno Jasieńsk, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Christina Stead, Michio Takeyama

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Rainer Kirsch werd geboren op 17 juli 1934 in Döbeln. Zie ook alle tags voor Rainer Kirsch op dit blog.

 

Aufschub

Damit wir später reden können, schweigen wir.
Wir lehren unsere Kinder schweigen, damit
Sie später reden können.
Unsere Kinder lehren ihre Kinder schweigen.
Wir schweigen und lernen alles
Dann sterben wir.
Auch unsere Kinder sterben. Dann
Sterben deren Kinder, nachdem
Sie unsere Urenkel alles gelehrt haben
Auch das Schweigen, damit die
Eines Tages reden können.
Jetzt, sagen wir, sit nicht die Zeit zu reden.
Das lehren wir unsere Kinder
Sie ihre Kinder
Die ihre.
Einmal, denken wir, muß doch die Zeit
kommen.

 

Rainer Kirsch (Döbeln, 17 juli 1934)
Döbeln, centrum

 

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Tony Kushner, Reinaldo Arenas, Georges Rodenbach, Anita Brookner, Jörg Fauser

De Amerikaanse schrijver Tony Kushner werd geboren op 16 juli 1956 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Tony Kushner op dit blog.

 

Uit: The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

“GUS

You are.But this… (A shrug.)Complicated, honey.

(Little pause.)

You remember, I think I told you this, the Daily News strike, I helped out, I was ILWU liaison with the teamsters, the paper and printing trades, when they went out against the Daily News? With the writers, the writers went out too, word and muscle, 1991? Same year the Committees of Correspondence broke from the party, same year I left, I left the party, later I rejoined but — 1991, the year pop died, and Gorbachev was, you know, that whole (gesture, something immense).The coup attempt in Moscow and Yeltsin and Gus Hall, that (another gesture, throwing away).

The first Iraq — all that crazy s— that year. Anyway. This old guy, this printer, who I met then on the pickets, we liked each other a lot, he was a smart man, he had a perspective, maybe not… (To Clio:) But a perspective.

CLIO

Yeah.

GUS

So a year after all that, I got a call that this old printer, the guy’s been felled by a heart attack, wham, in a hospital. I went to see him, eyes screwed shut, with a stupid tube down his throat, tape around his mouth to, to hold it, and I saw, I sat for a while, and I noticed his hands was going

(He shows how the printer’s hands were going.)

Like, I thought, what is it, is he, is this, like, piano practicing.

(Again with the hands. The gestures aren’t much like piano playing: the fingers are rapidly moving unseen objects up, down, sideways.)

Then I thought, oh I get what — it made me cry, I cried. I thought, his hands want to pull out that tube, dumb Irish, probably he’d let some c—sucking Priest –

(A quick gesture to Pill, placating and acknowledging; Pill lets him off the hook.)

GUS

Some creep got to him, talked him out of a living will, so… And here he was, a prisoner, in that bed. So his hands were going –

(The printer’s hands again:)

His grandson offered me a Kleenex box, and I said, I said look at his hands, he… Maybe you think he wants to get at that tube, or, or the power cord to that goddamn pump?His grandson says, no, that’s just muscle memory. He’s a typesetter, a compositor. His hands are still working, see? He’s still setting stories and headlines in lead type.

(Little pause.)

That’s what it was, the kid was right. But so was I: His hands were working. Homo laborans. Homo faber. Man the maker. Man the worker. That’s what hands do.

(A look at his hands, then:)

My friend the printer. They left him alone that night, and somehow he managed to pull out the breathing tube. He asphyxiated.

The work of your hands makes the world.

And while you still have the use of them, they can unmake the goddam world, just as well.“

 

Tony Kushner (New York, 16 juli 1956)

Hier met de acteur Daniel Craig (rechts)

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Dag Solstad, Bernard Dimey, Andrea Wolfmayr, Pierre Benoit, Franz Nabl

De Noorsde schrijver Dag Solstad werd geboren op 16 juli 1941 in Sandefjord. Zie ook alle tags voor Dag Solstad op dit blog.

Uit: Professor Andersens Nacht (Vertaald door Ina Kronenberger)

„Es war Heiligabend, und Professor Andersen hatte in seinem Wohnzimmer einen Weihnachtsbaum.

Er sah ihn an. »Na, so was«, dachte er. »Ich muß schon sagen.« Er wandte sich ab und ging durch das Zimmer, während er den Weihnachtsliedern im Fernsehen lauschte. »Ja, ich muß schon sagen «, wiederholte er. »Ja, was will ich eigentlich sagen?« fragte er sich sodann nachdenklich. Er betrachtete den schön gedeckten Tisch im Eßzimmer. Für eine Person gedeckt. »Seltsam, wie tief es doch sitzt«, dachte er, »und noch dazu ohne jegliche Ironie«, dachte er und schüttelte den Kopf.

Er freute sich auf das Essen. Unter dem Weihnachtsbaum lagen zwei Geschenke, von jedem seiner beiden erwachsenen Neffen eins. »Wenn ich hoffe, daß mir die Speckschwarte schön knusprig gelingt, liegt darin dann ein Hauch von Ironie?

Nein«, dachte er, »gelingt mir die Speckschwarte nicht, werde ich richtig wütend und fluche laut, obwohl Heiligabend ist«, dachte er. So wie er laut geflucht hatte, als er sich damit abmühte, den Baum in den Baumständer zu zwingen, damit dieser richtig saß und anschließend gerade und nicht schief stand, so wie ein Weihnachtsbaum im Haus zu stehen hat. Wie er ebenfalls geflucht hatte, als er die elektrischen Kerzen an den Zweigen des Baums befestigt hatte und feststellte, daß er auch in diesem Jahr im Kreis gegangen war, weswegen sich das Kabel in sich verdreht hatte und er kehrtmachen und wieder zurückgehen mußte, eine Kerze nach der anderen abnehmen und noch einmal fast ganz von vorn beginnen. Verflucht, hatte er da gesagt. Verflucht. Laut und vernehmlich, doch das war gestern gewesen. »Seltsam, wie tief Heiligabend in uns sitzt«, dachte er. Die feierliche Stimmung. Die Heilige Nacht. Die um Mitternacht eingeläutet wird. Nicht vorher, wie so viele in Norwegen glauben, heute ist der Abend vor der Heiligen Nacht. Oder der Stillen Nacht.“

 

Dag Solstad (Sandefjord, 16 juli 1941)

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Iris Murdoch, Richard Russo, Jean Christophe Grangé, Driss Chraïbi, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Rivière

De Iers-Britse schrijfster en filosofe Iris Murdoch werd geboren in Dublin op 15 juli 1919. Zie ook alle tags voor Iris Murdoch op dit blog.

Uit: The Black Prince

„I lived then and had long lived in a ground-floor flat in a small shabby pretty court of terrace houses in North Soho, not far from the Post Office Tower, an area of perpetual seedy brouhaha. I preferred this genteel metropolitan poverty to the styleless surburban affluence favoured by the Baffins. My ‘rooms’ were all at the back. My bedroom looked on to dustbins and a fire escape. My sitting-room on to a plain brick wall caked with muck. The sitting-room, half a room really (the other half, stripped and degraded, was the bedroom) had wooden panels of that powdery dignified shade of green which can only be achieved by about fifty years of fading. This place I had crammed with too much furniture, with Victorian and oriental bric-à-brac, with tiny heterogeneous objets d’art, little cushions, inlaid trays, velvet cloths, antimacassars even, lace even. I amass rather than collect. I am also meticulously tidy though resigned to dust. A sunless and cosy womb my flat was, with a highly wrought interior and no outside. Only from the front door of the house, which was not my front door, could one squint up at sky over tall buildings and see above the serene austere erection of the Post Office Tower.

So it was that I deliberately delayed my departure. What if I had not done so? I was proposing to disappear for the whole summer, to a place incidentally which I had never seen but had adopted blind. I had not told Arnold where I was going. I had mystified him. Why I wonder? Out of some sort of obscure spite? Mystery always bulks larger. I had told him with a firm vagueness that I should be travelling abroad, no address. Why these lies? I suppose I did it partly to surprise him. I was a man who never went anywhere. Perhaps I felt it was time I gave Arnold a surprise. Neither had I informed my sister Priscilla that I was leaving London. There was nothing odd in that. She lived in Bristol with a husband whom I found distasteful. Suppose I had left the house before Francis Marloe knocked on the door? Suppose the tram had arrived at the tram stop and taken Prinzip away before the Archduke’s car came round the corner?

I repacked the suitcases and transferred to my pocket, for re-reading in the train, the third version of my review of Arnold’s latest novel. As a one-book-a-year man Arnold Baffin, the prolific popular novelist, is never long out of the public eye. I have had differences of opinion with Arnold about his writing. Sometimes in a close friendship, where important matters are concerned, people agree to differ and, in that area, fall silent. So, for a time, it had been with us. Artists are touchy folk. I had, however, after a superficial glance at his latest book, found things in it which I liked, and I had agreed to review it for a Sunday paper. I rarely wrote reviews, being in fact rarely asked to.“

Iris Murdoch (15 juli 1919 – 8 februari 1999)
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Robert Wohlleben, Heinrich Peuckmann, Clive Cussler, Jacques Derrida, Kunikida Doppo, Hammond Innes

De Duitse dichter, schrijver, vertaler, essayist en uitgever Robert Wohlleben werd geboren op 15 juli 1937 in Rahlstedt. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Wohlleben op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 15 juli 2010.

 

An mich

Lasierter Himmel ohne große Farben
bleicht langsam hin – das sagt mir wohl was jetzt?
Ich spür zu scharf das Kinn, rasurverletzt.
Verheilen tuts bereits für weitre Narben.

Der Schmerz ebbt weg, wie andre längst verdarben,
in Hirnverliesen erst mal weggeätzt.
Da steh ich da: versetzt, verpetzt, vergrätzt
und weiß nicht mal, wohin die Schmerzen starben.

Die Bomben, schlechte Zeit, die jungen Jahre
verschwimmen kaum und gehn doch in die Binsen,
vom Rand her nimmt die Schärfe mählich ab.

Sie solls nicht – doch wie oft ich mich auch paare
und fruchtbar bin: Mein väterliches Grinsen
geht schief, weil ich zu knapp nach Atem schnapp.

 

Altwerden

In Kladde ohne Ton gefragt: was war?
Den Tigern springen Funken von den Ketten.
Die Stadt brennt. Schwarzgepudert die Reinetten.
Der Sterne flic flac. Falsch und wunderbar.

Mit Flügeln schlägt ein abgeknallter Star.
Den Triggerfinger kann nu nix mehr retten.
Dann dreh die Platte um. Laß Ella scatten.
Im Jive verkettet jetzt sich Paar um Paar.

Im Schädel bleicht die Mahd der Bordgeschütze.
Kartoffelsackbedeckte Haufen. Kamen
von fern hierher. Wo Tod das Leben frißt.

Ich leb. Den Schädel deckt die Baskenmütze.
Die Bilder führ ich mit. Und all die Namen.
Von der und dem. Da weiß ich doch: was ist.

 

Robert Wohlleben (Rahlstedt, 15 juli 1937)
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