De Nederlandse schrijver Anton Koolhaas werd op 16 november 1912 in Utrecht geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Anton Koolhaas op dit blog.
Uit: Fame, Fortune and the Ant (Vertaald door Iain Macintyre)
“He woke up in the middle of the night and at first had no idea where he was. But he soon remembered es erg thing. Often things that are still more or less formless when we fall asleep are suddenly equipped with a clear solution the next morning.
He would push the sugar cube to the biggest anthill in the world, make his entrance unannounced, and show all the ants in the anthill once and for all what an ant can do! Yes, it would be an incredible achievement. First, he would have to shift it halfway across the city (the Supreme Court was right in the middle), then make his way down the long road to the forest, to where the biggest anthill in the world was (right in the middle again). In fact, it was a plan that only the strongest ant in the world could have countenanced. Sugar is energy, which was just as well. Once he had made his plans, he ate some sugar from the cube and was soon impatient to start his journey. He decided to keep pushing at the short end of the sugar cube, because if he bumped into some obstacle or other he wouldn’t have to run along the full length of the cube to see what it was, but just part of the short side! And he would only eat from the place where he was pushing. That would create a little hollow, of course, but most of the ants who saw him arrive would hardly accuse him of any deception, since the chance that they had ever even seen an entire double sugar cube was extremely remote, and those who had would doubtless find the whole affair that much more interesting, because they could point this out to the others. At half past six in the morning the ant dis-lodged the sugar cube from the bottom step and began to push against the narrow side, off towards the road that led to the forest. It was a year later when he reached the road. Already he was slightly deformed from all the pushing. His poor legs. always braced with all their might at loll stretch, had developed balloon-like calves – something never seen even on the most industrious ant; his eyes were glazed over. the extent of his terrible experiences far eclipsed those of any soldier at the front. The only way he could count himself lucky was that the great highway was no longer concrete. It had been asphalted some time before. But in the meantime he had eaten so much sugar from the area where he was pushing that a hole had been created, in which he had disappeared, so deep that only two legs still protruded as he pushed against the asphalt he now encountered. He had to eat away at the floor of the hole to regain the use of all his legs. This made the sugar cube a rather sorry sight, and not just to the expert eye. On the other hand, on his travels through the city, he had come across several hundred ants who had quizzed him about his purpose for the past two months, and some of them had even come up to him and said: ‘Sir, you must be the ant who is on his way with the double sugar cube,’ ‘Indeed, I am’ – had been his only response.”
De Nigeriaanse dichter en schrijver Chinua Achebe werd geboren op 16 november 1930 in Ogidi. Zie ook alle tags voor Chinua Achebe op dit blog.
Vlinder
Snelheid is geweld
Macht is geweld
Gewicht is geweld
De vlinder zoekt veiligheid in lichtheid
In gewichtloze, golvende vlucht
Maar op een kruispunt waar gevlekt licht
Van bomen op een onbezonnen nieuwe snelweg valt
Ontmoeten onze convergerende territoria elkaar
Ik met genoeg kracht voor twee
En de tere vlinder biedt
Zichzelf aan als felgele offergave
Op mijn harde siliconen schild.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 16e november ook mijn blog van 16 november 2018 en eveneens mijn blog van 16 november 2014 deel 2.