80 Jaar Leonard Cohen
De Canadese dichter, folk singer-songwriter en schrijver Leonard Cohen werd geboren op 21 september 1934 te Montréal. Leonard Cohen viert vandaag zijn 80e verjaardag. Zie ook mijn blog van 21 september 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Leonard Cohen op dit blog..
Suzanne
Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river.
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night beside her.
And you know she’s half crazy,
But that’s why you want to be there.
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her,
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you’ve always been her lover.
And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you know she will trust you,
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.
And Jesus was a sailor, when he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower.
And when he knew for certain, only drowning men could see him,
He said: “All men will be sailors then, until the sea shall free them.”
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open,
Foresaken, almost human,
He sank beneath your wisdom, like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you’ll trust him
For he’s touched your perfect body with his mind.
Now Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river.
She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters.
And the sun pours down like honey on our Lady of the Harbor.
And she shows you where to look, among the garbage and the flowers.
There are heros in the seaweed,
There are children in the morning,
They are leaning out for love,
They will lean that way forever,
While Suzanne holds the mirror.
And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you know you can trust her
For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.
I wonder how many people in this
I wonder how many people in this city
live in furnished rooms.
Late at night when i look out at the buildings
I swear I see a face in every window
looking back at me
and when I turn away
I wonder how many go back to their desks
and write this down.
I’m your man
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuCpTi0EtbU&w=560&h=315]
Leonard Cohen (Montréal, 21 september 1934)
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: Carrie
“The locker room was filled with shouts, echoes, and the subterranean sound of showers splashing on tile. The girls had been playing volleyball in Period One, and their morning sweat was light and eager.
Girls stretched and writhed under the hot water, squalling, flicking water, squirting white bars of soap from hand to hand. Carrie stood among them stolidly, a frog among swans. She was a
chunky girl with pimples on her neck and back and buttocks, her wet hair completely without
color. It rested against her face with dispirited sogginess and she simply stood, head slightly
bent, letting the water splat against her fl esh and roll off. She looked the part of the sacrificial
goat, the constant butt, believer in left-handed monkey wrenches, perpetual foul-up, and she was.
She wished forlornly and constantly that Ewen High had individual—and thus private—
showers, like the high schools at Westover or Lewiston. They stared. They always stared.
Showers turning off one by one, girls stepping out, removing pastel bathing caps, toweling,
spraying deodorant, checking the clock over the door. Bras were hooked, underpants stepped
into. Steam hung in the air; the place might have been an Egyptian bathhouse except for the
constant rumble of the Jacuzzi whirlpool in the corner. Calls and catcalls rebounded with all the snap and flicker of billiard balls after a hard break.
“—so Tommy said he hated it on me and I—”
“—I’m going with my sister and her husband. He picks his nose but so does she, so they’re
very—”
“—shower after school and—”
“—too cheap to spend a goddam penny so Cindi and I—”
Miss Desjardin, their slim, nonbreasted gym teacher, stepped in, craned her neck around briefly, and slapped her hands together once, smartly. “What are you waiting for, Carrie? Doom? Bell in five minutes.” Her shorts were blinding white, her legs not too curved but striking in their unobtrusive muscularity. A silver whistle, won in college archery competition, hung around her neck.“
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’Egoiste Romantique
« C’est impossible ce que tu me demandes. Je n’arriverai jamais à ne plus t’aimer.
La pire des drogues reste l’amour. Tu m’as rendu à la vie, redonné gout aux émotions. Partout où j’allais, je ne voyais que ta bouche fraîche et mes yeux s’embuaient en ton absence. Un reste d’innocence me donnait le rouge aux joues. A partir de maintenant et jusqu’à ma mort, chaque fois que quelqu’un prononcera ton prénom devant moi, il est possible que mon regard se perde un petit peu dans le vague. Les autres diront : “il a trop bu, il a des absences”, mais moi, je m’en moquerai, je serai déjà loin, contre toi, à Los Angeles entre tes bras dorés,ou à Porto Ercole perdu dans tes longs cheveux salés, à Istanbul et Moscou et Amsterdam contre tes seins crémeux, dans le paradis de l’amour réciproque, ce rêve impossible auquel tu m’as un jour, de nouveau, donné l’accès. »
(…)
« On dit souvent que la beauté est aux femmes ce que le pouvoir est aux hommes : leur premier atout de séduction. On ne dit pas qu’un joli visage est aussi une barrière. La beauté attire les crétins vulgaires et laids, et effraie les timides intelligents et tendres. Elle effectue un mauvais tri ; c’est pourquoi les jolis filles sont toujours avec des connards. La beauté physique devrait plutôt être comparée à la célébrité qu’au pouvoir : éphémère comme elle, tout aussi factice et destructrice, elle est le pire critère d’une rencontre.»
Frédéric Beigbeder (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 21 september 1965)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 21e september ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.