De Nederlandse dichter en schrijver Adriaan Bontebal werd als Aad van Rijn op 28 mei 1952 in Leidschendam geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Adriaan Bontebal op dit blog.
ONTWAKEN
Ieder ontwaken
een feest
Ik sta op
rek me uit en
krab me eens flink
aan het onderlijf
Als rijpe vruchten
vallen de eitjes
van mijn schaamluis
op het dauwvochtige
slaapkamerzeil
Iedere morgen
een feest
Zwarte koffie
zware shag en
scharreleieren
bij het ontbijt
PAULUS POTTERSTRAAT
naar De Dapperstraat van J.C.Bloem
De legen kom je aan de randen tegen
Waar stoffig op de schoorsteen prijkt:
‘Over mijn lijk naar de Schilderswijk’
Dat volk ervaart de rust als zegen
Maar zo niet ik, voor mij geen kassen
Hoewel ik van een dorpje ben
De stad niet echt van huis uit ken
Haal ‘k nu mijn lucht uit uitlaatgassen
Als kneuter ben ik afgemeld
Mijn teugen zijn steeds voller teugen
De stedeling hij kent geen maat
Tevreden heb ik vastgesteld
Ik deug niet en ik zal nooit deugen
Dom weg gelukkig in de Potterstraat
Adriaan Bontebal (28 mei 1952 – 11 februari 2012)
De Belgische schrijver Leo Pleysier werd geboren in Rijkevorsel op 28 mei 1945. Zie ook alle tags voor Leo Pleysier op dit blog.
Uit: The Yellow River Is Frozen (Vertaald door Tanis Guest.)
“The first time I saw her in the flesh was in the early fifties when she, one of the last remaining Western nuns, was expelled from the country for good on the orders of the government of the Chinese People’s Republic. I was a small boy of seven or eight. And she was a tall, bony creature dressed in white with a black veil who was staying with us for a while. She looked thin and pale. I had noticed her eyes at once: they were huge, sunk deep in their sockets. I also found her disquietingly silent as she sat there at table with us. Suddenly, instead of sending a letter she had come herself. That in itself was a wonder. So she really did exist. She had a face. Maybe, under her clothes, there was even a body of flesh and blood. And on top of that she had brought someone else with her. A sort of replica of herself. But a much softer version. Applecheeked, even. It turned out she was the daughter of a fruit farmer and came originally from Montenaken, not far from Sint-Truiden. A sweetly smiling guardian angel from Limburg. Born and bred in the Haspengouw hills. Among the apples and pears.
– You can call me Sister Irma.
– Hullo, Sister Irma.
– That’s a clever boy.
But actually she was a sort of watchdog they’d sent to keep an eye on Aunt Roza. Not for nothing was it called The Guardian, the mother house in Leefdaal.
Black nuns and white nuns. The black ones I was familiar with from kindergarten. The white ones, to whom Aunt Roza belonged, were new to me. And I thought her sort and her plumage were much finer. More elegant, especially. There was something of a big, slow bird about her. A seagull. A stork. A pelican who had landed unexpectedly at our house after a long journey. Had come here to rest and get its strength back.
– You’ve got to feed yourself up!”
Time and again I heard my father telling her that and he kept piling much too much food on her plate. She weighed barely forty kilos when she came home from China. She’d weighed as little as that once before, when she was about twenty-five, so my mother said. That time she had gone on hunger strike because Grandfather and Grandmother wouldn’t let her ‘take the veil’. And it had been weeks before her parents gave in to her blackmail.”
Leo Pleysier (Rijkevorsel, 28 mei 1945)
De Duitse schrijver Frank Schätzing werd geboren in Keulen op 28 mei 1957. Zie ook alle tags voor Frank Schätzing op dit blog.
Uit: Mordshunger
„Sie hatte ihm eine Gurke geschenkt mit dem Ratschlag,sie sich sonst wohin zu stecken, und war ausgezogen.
»Ein guter Kriminalist«, pflegte er zu sagen, »wird verlassen. Er muss verlassen werden. Würde er der Idee verfallen, hinter Wahnsinnigen und Mördern herzulaufen, wenn man ihn nicht verlassen hätte? Fähige Polizisten neigen zum Verlust der Freundin, die Genies sind allesamt geschieden. Schön, ich hab nur eine Freundin. Aber ich bin ein guter Polizist! Folglich wird sie mich verlassen, irgendwann, das ist die Tragik meiner Profession.
Ich frage mich eigentlich nur, ob ich sie vorher schnell heiraten sollte, um hinterher ein ganz besonders genialer Polizist zu sein. Verzwickt, das Ganze! Geht mir im Kopf rum, immer wieder. Im Allgemeinen gehe ich dann was essen und sage mir, langsam Cüpper. Sechsunddreißigmal kauen, jeden Bissen. Hat alles noch Zeit.«
Es hatte keine Zeit.
Sie hatte ihm eine Gurke geschenkt, weil sie wusste, dass er keine Gurken mochte, dass es nur drei Dinge gab, die er von Herzen verabscheute: Gurken, Kümmel, Kokos.
Er war um die Gurke herumspaziert, als könne sie den Lauf der Dinge biegen, während im Nebenzimmer Blusen, Röcke, Jeans, Dessous flupp flupp in den Koffer flogen. Dann kamen die Packer, und man trug die Couch und den Glastisch und die zwei CD-Regale und die komplette Stereoanlage und noch bedenklich viel mehr an ihm vorbei nach draußen und fütterte einen schier unersättlichen Möbelwagen. Währenddessen lag die Gurke lang und dunkelgrün vor ihm und begann ihn auf merkwürdige Weise zu faszinieren, bis einer der Männer sie kurzerhand auf die Fensterbank legte, um das Schränkchen wegzutragen, das ihm, wie er sich mit einem Mal entsann, auch nicht gehörte.“
Frank Schätzing (Keulen, 28 mei 1957)
De Ierse schrijfster en columniste Maeve Binchy werd geboren op 28 mei 1940 in Dalkey. Zie ook alle tags voor Maeve Binchy op dit blog.
Uit: Scarlet Feather
“On the radio show they were asking people what kind of a New Year’s Eve did they really want. It was very predictable. Those who were staying at home doing nothing wanted to be out partying, those who were too busy and rushed wanted to go to bed with a cup of tea and be asleep before the festivities began.
Cathy Scarlet smiled grimly as she packed more trays of food into the van. There could hardly be anyone in Ireland who would answer the question by saying that they really and truly wanted to spend the night catering a supper party for a mother-in-law. Now that was the punishment posting tonight, feeding Hannah Mitchell’s guests at Oaklands. Why was she doing it then? Partly for practice, and of course it would be a good way to meet potential customers. Jock and Hannah Mitchell knew the kind of people who could afford caterers. But mainly she was doing it because she wanted to prove to Hannah Mitchell that she could. That Cathy, daughter of poor Lizzie Scarlet, the maid who cleaned Oaklands, who had married the only son of the house, Neil, was well able to run her own business and hold her head as high as any of them.
Neil Mitchell was in his car when he heard the radio program. It annoyed him greatly. Anyone looking at him from another car would have seen his sharp, handsome face frown. People often thought they recognized him; his face was familiar from television, but he wasn’t an actor. He just turned up on the screen so often, pushing the hair out of his eyes, passionate, concerned and caring, always the spokes- person for the underdog. He had the bright burning eyes of a crusader. This kind of whining and moaning on a radio show really drove him mad. People who had everything, a home, a job, a family, all telephoning a radio station to complain about the pressures of life.”
Maeve Binchy (28 mei 1940 – 30 juli 2012)
De Ierse dichter en songwriter Thomas Moore werd geboren op 28 mei 1779 in Dublin. Zie ook alle tags voor Thomas Moore op dit blog.
Come, Send Round the Wine
Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages and reasoning fools;
This moment’s a flower too fair and brief
To be wither’d and stain’d by the dust of the schools.
Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But, while they are fill’d from the same bright bowl,
The fool who would quarrel for difference of hue,
Deserves not the comfort they shed o’er the soul.
Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneel not before the same altar with me?
From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly?
To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss?
No, perish the hearts, and the laws that try
Truth, valour, or love, by a standard like this!
Thomas Moore (28 mei 1779 – 25 februari 1852)
Standbeeld in Dublin
De Britse schrijver Ian Fleming werd geboren op 28 mei 1908 in Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Ian Fleming op dit blog.
Uit: From Russia With Love
“Bond’s thoughts were interrupted by the stewardess. ‘Fasten your seat-belts, please.’ As she spoke the plane dropped sickeningly and soared up again with an ugly note of strain in the scream of the jets. The sky outside was suddenly black. Rain hammered on the windows. There came a blinding flash of blue and white light and a crash as if an anti-aircraft shell had hit them, and the plane heaved and bucketed in the belly of the electric storm that had ambushed them out of the mouth of the Adriatic.
Bond smelt the smell of danger. It is a real smell, something like the mixture of sweat and electricity you get in an amusement arcade. Again the lightning flung its hands across the windows. Crash! It felt as if they were the centre of the thunder clap. Suddenly the plane seemed incredibly small and frail. Thirteen passengers! Friday the Thirteenth! Bond thought of Loelia Ponsonby’s words and his hands on the arms of his chair felt wet. How old is this plane, he wondered? How many flying hours has it done? Had the deathwatch beetle of metal fatigue got into the wings? How much of their strength had it eaten away? Perhaps he wouldn’t get to Istanbul after all. Perhaps a plummeting crash into the Gulf of Corinth was going to be the destiny he had been scanning philosophically only an hour before.
In the centre of Bond was a hurricane-room, the kind of citadel found in old-fashioned houses in the tropics. These rooms are small, strongly built cells in the heart of the house, in the middle of the ground floor and sometimes dug down into its foundations. To this cell the owner and his family retire if the storm threatens to destroy the house, and stay there until the danger is past. Bond went to his hurricane room only when the situation was beyond his control and no other possible action could be taken. Now he retired to this citadel, closed his mind to the hell of noise and violent movement and focused on a single stitch in the back of the seat in front of him, waiting with slackened nerves for whatever fate had decided for BEA Flight No. 130.”
Ian Fleming (28 mei 1908 – 12 augustus 1964)
Scene uit de film “From Russia With Love”, 1963
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 28e mei ook mijn blog van 28 mei 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2en ook deel 3.