De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Angela Kreuz werd geboren in Ingolstadt op 31 maart 1969. Zie ook alle tags voor Angela Kreuz op dit blog.
Uit:Straßenbahnträumer
„Jens trat ans Fenster und knöpfte sich das Hemd zu, ein bunt gemustertes, das zu keiner Krawatte passte. Jens trug keine Krawatten, nicht einmal bei seiner Firmung hatte er eine getragen, sie hingen im Schrank wie zur Zierde, ein zärtlich-ironischer Anachronismus.
Im zweiten Stock gegenüber brannte Licht, die Balkontüre stand halb offen. Eine Frau mit kurz geschnittenen, rötlichen Haaren saß am Schreibtisch. Sie trug ein orangefarbenes 70er-Jahre-Kleid und soweit er es erkennen konnte, keine Strümpfe; die nackten Beine übereinander geschlagen. Sie sah seiner Cousine verblüffend ähnlich. Bloß mit dem Unterschied, dass kein Mensch auf der Welt Lizzy dazu hätte bringen können, ein Kleid anzuziehen. Ihm wurde heiß. Es sah aus, als schriebe sie einen Brief, doch wer schreibt heute noch Briefe, obendrein mit einer großen weißen Feder. Alt war seine Nachbarin jedenfalls nicht, vielleicht Ende dreißig. Jens konnte sich nie merken, wie alt er selbst war, Mitte dreißig sagte er immer, wenn er gefragt wurde. Wie, Mitte dreißig? Er konnte die Fragerei nicht ausstehen, besonders von Frauen. Im Grunde genommen interessiert das niemanden, was sagt es schon aus, wie alt jemand ist. Wie lange er noch Mitte dreißig sagen könnte?
Seine Haare waren vom Duschen nass und tropften. Er hatte noch vor auszugehen, seine neuen Arbeitskollegen trafen sich im Murphy’s Law, eine gute Gelegenheit, Kontakte zu knüpfen. Socializing, wie ihn das nervte, er hatte keine Lust auf dieses seichte Gequatsche. Jens strich sich übers Kinn, rasieren sollte er sich auch noch, ein Dreitagebart war das nicht mehr. Eine Weile stand er unschlüssig herum und trat von einem Fuß auf den anderen. Wenigstens würde die Musik so laut sein, dass sich eine Unterhaltung ohnehin erübrigte.
Die Frau gegenüber blickte verträumt drein, das machte sie noch anziehender. Sie faltete ihren Brief zusammen, zögerte kurz und steckte ihn in ein Kuvert. Wem sie wohl schrieb? Unvermittelt lächelte sie – irgendetwas schien sie glücklich zu machen. Über der Häuserzeile leuchtete ein prächtiges Abendrot. Wenn die Anwohner der Gasse jetzt noch ihre Wäsche zum Trocknen raushängen würden, sähe es so aus wie in der Altstadt von Lissabon.”
Angela Kreuz (Ingolstadt, 31 maart 1969)
De Amerikaanse schrijfster Judith Rossner werd geboren als Judith Perelman op 31 maart 1935 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Judith Rossner op dit blog.
Uit: Perfidia
“She did not love Wilkie’s two remaining woman-artist tenants. She kicked them out and persuaded Wilkie to get financing to develop the place into the Sky Galleries, later usually shortened to the Sky. She dealt not only with the bankers, but with the architects, contractors and tenants. All this while she was pregnant. My mother was too angry and restless to sit in a classroom and absorb information, but she built the Sky into a major tourist trap because Wilkie let her use her brain. The new building was shaped like half a hexagon that went right to the outer edges of the property. In the center was a lovely courtyard with plants and flowers at the edges, benches in the middle. The stump of one huge tree they’d cut down had become a bench; part of its great trunk was now a table inside for the cash register. Some of the stores changed over the years but the art gallery was at the center and dominated. On its left, facing you as you entered the courtyard, was a store called Farolito, which carried pottery and a lot of Santa Fe souvenirs—chili-pepper key chains, Santa Fe T-shirts, postcards. My mother had a mug made up, sky blue with a big white cloud and Sky Gallery, in Santa Fe turquoise and fuchsia, printed on the cloud. They sold a fantastic number of those mugs over the years in both the gallery and Farolito. (At one point my mother had the mugs taken out of the gallery because she felt people who might have bought a painting were copping out and just buying the mug. Nothing much happened and after a few months, she brought the mugs back in.) Then there was a small jewelry store with a lot of good Navajo jewelry and other silver. To the right were Wilkie’s Coffee Shop (my mother’s idea, from his nickname; his given name was Philip Wilkerson) and the tiny place first occupied by Rahji Cohen, Photographer. When the buzz about the Sky began, artists looking for a gallery started to come by. She was very pregnant, by this time, but she must have tuned in to the social possibilities of running a gallery in a town full of artists who wanted their work shown. She told Wilkie she was going to manage the gallery and set out to learn what she needed to know. It wasn’t much, beyond the size and shape of the artists she liked. The gallery had plenty of space. It was about fifteen feet deep and more than forty feet wide, with the space interrupted only by a couple of windows in the front and an entrance to the storage room at one end of the back.“
Judith Rossner (31 maart 1935 – 9 augustus 2005)
De Engelse dichter Andrew Marvell werd geboren in Winestead, Yorkshire op 31 maart 1621 in Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Andrew Marvell op dit blog.
The Character Of Holland (Fragment)
‘Tis probable Religion after this
Came next in order; which they could not miss.
How could the Dutch but be converted, when
Th’ Apostles were so many Fishermen?
Besides the Waters of themselves did rise,
And, as their Land, so them did re-baptise.
Though Herring for their God few voices mist,
And Poor-John to have been th’ Evangelist.
Faith, that could never Twins conceive before,
Never so fertile, spawn’d upon this shore:
More pregnant then their Marg’ret, that laid down
For Hans-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town.
Sure when Religion did it self imbark,
And from the east would Westward steer its Ark,
It struck, and splitting on this unknown ground,
Each one thence pillag’d the first piece he found:
Hence Amsterdam, Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew,
Staple of Sects and Mint of Schisme grew;
That Bank of Conscience, where not one so strange
Opinion but finds Credit, and Exchange.
In vain for Catholicks our selves we bear;
The Universal Church is onely there.
Nor can Civility there want for Tillage,
Where wisely for their Court they chose a Village.
How fit a Title clothes their Governours,
Themselves the Hogs as all their Subjects Bores
Let it suffice to give their Country Fame
That it had one Civilis call’d by Name,
Some Fifteen hundred and more years ago,
But surely never any that was so.
See but their Mairmaids with their Tails of Fish,
Reeking at Church over the Chafing-Dish.
A vestal Turf enshrin’d in Earthen Ware
Fumes through the loop-holes of wooden Square.
Each to the Temple with these Altars tend,
But still does place it at her Western End:
While the fat steam of Female Sacrifice
Fills the Priests Nostrils and puts out his Eyes.
Or what a Spectacle the Skipper gross,
A Water-Hercules Butter-Coloss,
Tunn’d up with all their sev’ral Towns of Beer;
When Stagg’ring upon some Land, Snick and Sneer,
They try, like Statuaries, if they can,
Cut out each others Athos to a Man:
And carve in their large Bodies, where they please,
The Armes of the United Provinces.
Andrew Marvell (31 maart 1621 – 16 augustus 1678)
Portret door Bartholomeus van der Helst, 1660
De Engelse schrijver en essayist John Fowles werd geboren in Leigh-on-Sea (Essex) op 31 maart 1926. Zie ook alle tags voor John Fowles op dit blog.
Uit: The Journals
“12 November
A self-searching night at the Podges1, with Faith.
Faith, a curious kind of extrovert, conversation-dominating, with the same strident rise in pitch (when she wishes to break in on top of anyone else) as M. Confidential, bold, tomboyish – revealing about her monastic father, whom she says worries her greatly at times.
Podge and Eileen are a perfect duo; in harmony or perfect discord.
During this evening (having felt ill all day, with a certain amount of pain) I keep very quiet and feel unable to assert myself in any way. Not particularly self-conscious and oversensitive but lacking more than lost colour. Two mes: ego, thinking with and at tangents from the others, full of the right words, curious ideas and so on; and the alter ego, not being able to break into the discussions.
An empty walk home with Faith, yawning myself and she whistling and singing. I feel a vague need to explain myself, and also to know what she is thinking. A wet, warm, windy night.
I can feel more concretely a philosophy of life on occasions like these. To be persuasive, to watch and analyse, externally; internally, to record and create. It is absolutely necessary to remain balanced; that is, never to become submerged completely – always to have the intention of creating beauty for others, however reduced this infusion into action and society becomes. Theoretically I want to become a core receiving prehensions, being moulded by them, yet remaining pointed in the one direction, towards creation of beauty. I can’t pretend that this is a natural attitude; it leads to compression of feeling, to a dangerous bottling of the need to express, an overtense introversion. The advantages are 1. the forming-house for creation (although some kind of objectivity and self-criticism must be obtained), 2. that the final axion is one of external expression in fame through beauty created. It is creation which acts as a safety-valve, as well as being the ultimate purpose. The essentials are constant attention to practice of the means and a self-confident devotion to the end.
I think that this is the nearest I can get to self-fulfilment, considering, as I do now, that everything is purely relative, and that no beauty is immortal. I can see little point in immortal fame; yet can believe in the human illogic of doing good by the creation of beauty, even though it will only be temporarily existent. (Not forgetting the time-space question, when nothing that has existed can disappear.) Must strive after living glory; it is unnatural to push, but it is necessary.”
John Fowles (31 maart 1926 – 5 november 2005)
Cover
De Engelse dichter, schrijver en vertaler Edward FitzGerald werd geboren in Woodbridge, Suffolk, op 31 maart 1809. Zie ook alle tags voor Edward FitzGerald op dit blog.
Uit: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly–and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
VIII
And look–a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke–and a thousand scatter’d into Clay:
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamsh{‘y}d and Kaikobád away.
IX
But come with old Khayyám, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobád and Kaikhosrú forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hátim Tai cry Supper–heed them not.
X
With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultán scarce is known,
And pity Sultán Mahmúd on his Throne.
Vertaald door Edward FitzGerald
Edward FitzGerald (31 maart 1809 – 14 juni 1883)
Portret door Eva Rivett-Carnac naar een foto uit 1873
De Franse schrijver, dichter en journalist Robert Brasillach werd geboren in Perpignan op 31 maart 1909. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Brasillach op dit blog.
Psaume II
VOUS avez fait le ciel pour Vous-même, Seigneur,
Et la terre d’ici pour lesenfants des hommes,
Et nous ne savons pas de plus réels bonheurs
Que les bonheurs cernés par le monde où nous sommes,
Nous voulons bien un jour célébrer vos louanges
Et nous unir aux chants de vos désincarnés,
Mais vos enfants, Seigneur, ils ne sont pas des anges,
Et c’est aux coeurs d’en bas que le coeur est lié.
Pardonnez-nous, Seigneur, de ne pas oser croire
Que le bonheur pour nous ait une couleur
Que la joie de la source où nos bouches vont boire
Et du feu où nos mains recueillent la chaleur.
Pardonnez-nous, Seigneur, dans nos prisons captives
De songer avant tout aux vieux trésors humains,
Et de nous retourner toujours vers l’autre rive
Et d’appeler hier plus encore que demain.
Pardonnez-nous, Seigneur, si nos âmes charnelles
Ne veulent pas quitter leur compagnon le corps,
Et si je ne puis pas, ô terre fraternelle,
Goûter de l’avenir, une autre forme encor.
Car les enfants préssés contre notre joue d’homme,
Les êtres qu’ont aimés nos coeurs d’adolescents
Demeurent à jamais devant ceux que nous sommes,
L’espoir et le regret les plus éblouissants.
Et nous ne pourrions pas, pétris de cette terre,
Rêver à quelque joie où ne nous suivaient pas
La peine et le plaisir, la nuit et la lumière
Qui brillaient sur le sol où marquèrent nos pas.
Robert Brasillach (31 maart 1909 – 6 februari 1945)
Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2013.
De Vlaamse schrijver, vertaler en publicist Peter Motte werd geboren in Geraardsbergen op 31 maart 1966.
Zie voor bovenstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 31 maart 2008 en eveneens mijn blog van 31 maart 2009.