De Amerikaanse schrijver Dave Eggers werd geboren op 12 maart 1970 in Chicago. Zie ook alle tags voor Dave Eggers op dit blog.
Uit: The Circle
“My God, Mae thought. It’s heaven.
The campus was vast and rambling, wild with Pacific color, and yet the smallest detail had been carefully considered, shaped by the most eloquent hands. On land that had once been a shipyard, then a drive-in movie theater, then a flea market, then blight, there were now soft green hills and a Calatrava fountain. And a picnic area, with tables arranged in concentric circles. And tennis courts, clay and grass. And a volleyball court, where tiny children from the company’s day care center were running, squealing, weaving like water. Amid all this was a workplace, too, 400 acres of brushed steel and glass on the headquarters of the most influential company in the world. The sky above was spotless and blue.
Mae was making her way through all of this, walking from the parking lot to the main hall, trying to look as if she belonged. The walkway wound around lemon and orange trees, and its quiet red cobblestones were replaced, occasionally, by tiles with imploring messages of inspiration. “Dream,” one said, the word laser-cut into the stone. “Participate,” said another. There were dozens: “Find Community.” “Innovate.” “Imagine.” She just missed stepping on the hand of a young man in a gray jumpsuit; he was installing a new stone that said, “Breathe.”
On a sunny Monday in June, Mae stopped in front of the main door, standing below the logo etched into the glass above. Though the company was less than six years old, its name and logo — a circle surrounding a knitted grid, with a small ‘c’ in the center — were already among the best known in the world. There were more than 10,000 employees on this, the main campus, but the Circle had offices all over the globe and was hiring hundreds of gifted young minds every week. It had been voted the world’s most admired company four years running.
Mae wouldn’t have thought she had a chance to work at such a place but for Annie. Annie was two years older, and they roomed together for three semesters in college, in an ugly building made habitable through their extraordinary bond, something like friends, something like sisters — or cousins who wished they were siblings and would have reason never to be apart. Their first month living together, Mae broke her jaw one twilight, after fainting, flu-ridden and underfed, during finals. Annie had told her to stay in bed, but Mae went to the Kwik Trip for caffeine and woke up on the sidewalk, under a tree.”
Dave Eggers (Chicago, 12 maart 1970)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Jack Kerouac werd geboren op 12 maart 1922 in Lowell, in de Amerikaanse staat Massachusetts. Zie ook alle tags voor Jack Karouac op dit blog.
Bus East
Society has good intentions Bureaucracy is like a friend
5 years ago – other furies other losses –
America’s
trying to control the uncontrollable Forest fires, Vice
The essential smile In the essential sleep Of the children Of the essential mind
I’m
all thru playing the American
Now I’m going to live a good quiet life
The
world should be built for foot walkers
Oily
rivers Of spiney Nevady
I
am Jake Cake
Rake
Write like Blake
The
horse is not pleased Sight of his
gorgeous finery
in the dust Its silken
nostrils
did disgust
Cats
arent kind Kiddies anent sweet
April
in Nevada – Investigating Dismal Cheyenne Where the war parties
In fields
of straw
Aimed over oxen At Indian Chiefs
In wild headdress Pouring thru
the gap
In Wyoming plain
To make the settlers
Eat more dust than dust
was eaten In the States From East at Seacoast Where wagons made up To dreadful
Plains
Of clazer vup
Saltry
settlers
Anxious to masturbate The Mongol Sea (I’m too tired in Cheyenne –
No sleep in 4 nights now, & 2 to go)
Jack Kerouac (12 maart 1922 – 21 oktober 1969)
Portret door Ben Tjoelker, 2000
De Amerikaanse dichteres en schrijfster Naomi Shihab Nye werd geboren op 12 maart 1952 in St. Louis, Missouri. Zie ook alle tags voor Naomi Shihab Nye op dit blog.
So Much Happiness
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.
Naomi Shihab Nye (St. Louis,12 maart 1952)
Portret door Jack Richard Smith, 2007
De Amerikaanse schrijver, journalist en columnist Carl Hiaasen werd geboren op 12 maart 1953 in Plantation, Florida. Zie ook alle tags voor Carl Hiaasen op dit blog.
Uit: Chomp
“Pop, you’re gonna be okay,” Wahoo would tell his father every morning. “Just hang in there.”
Looking up with hound- dog eyes from the couch, Mickey Cray would say, “Whatever happens, I’m glad we ate that bleeping lizard.”
On the day his dad had come home from the hospital, Wahoo had defrosted the dead iguana and made a peppercorn stew, which his mom had wisely refused to touch. Mickey had insisted that eating the critter that had dented his skull would be a spiritual remedy. “Big medicine,” he’d predicted.
But the iguana had tasted awful, and Mickey Cray’s headaches only got worse. Wahoo’s mother was so concerned that she wanted Mickey to see a brain specialist in Miami, but Mickey refused to go.
Meanwhile, people kept calling up with new jobs, and Wahoo was forced to send them to other wranglers. His father was in no condition to work.
After school, Wahoo would feed the animals and clean out the pens and cages. The backyard was literally a zoo—gators, snakes, parrots, mynah birds, rats, mice, monkeys, raccoons, tortoises and even a bald eagle, which Mickey had raised from a fledgling after its mother was killed.
“Treat ’em like royalty,” Mickey would instruct Wahoo, because the animals were quite valuable. Without them, Mickey would be unemployed.
It disturbed Wahoo to see his father so ill because Mickey was the toughest guy he’d ever known.
One morning, with summer approaching, Wahoo’s mother took him aside and told him that the family’s savings account was almost drained. “I’m going to China,” she said.
Wahoo nodded, like it was no big deal.
“For two months,” she said.
“That’s a long time,” said Wahoo.
“Sorry, big guy, but we really need the money.”
Carl Hiaasen (Plantation, 12 maart 1953)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Edward Albee werd geboren op 12 maart 1928 in Washington DC. Zie ook alle tags voor Edward Albee op dit blog.
Uit: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
[Martha looks around their living room.]
Martha: What a dump. [pauses] Hey, w-what’s that from? “What a dump!”
George: How would I know?
Martha: Oh, come on, what’s it from? You know!
George: Martha…
Martha: What’s it from, for chrissake?!
George: What’s what from?
Martha: I just told you. I just did it. “What a dump!” Huh? What’s that from?
George: I haven’t the faintest idea.
Martha: Dumbbell.
(…)
[George lies on the bed, face down. Martha sits on his legs, slapping and jabbing his back as she sings. He groans and yells while she’s doing this.]
Martha: [To “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”] Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf / Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf / Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf…
[She cackles, then pauses.]
Martha: What’s the matter? Didn’t ya think that was funny? I thought it was a scream.
George: [mumbles into pillow]
Martha: You laughed your head off when you heard it at the party.
George: I smiled. I didn’t laugh my head off.
Martha: You laughed your goddamn head off.”
Edward Albee (Washington DC, 12 maart 1928)
Scene uit de film van Mike Nichols met Richard Burton en Elizabeth Taylor (1966)
De Nederlandse dichter De Schoolmeester (Gerrit van de Linde) werd geboren op 12 maart 1808 in Rotterdam. Zie ook alle tags voor De Schoolmeester op dit blog.
De hond
Een hond is vermaard
Om zijn gezellige aard
En ’t kwispelen van zijn staart.
Zijn neus, doorgaans rond,
staat gewoonlijk in ’t front,
En zo lang die maar nat en fris is,
Is ’t een bewijs, dat meneer zo gezond als een vis is
Een hond is iemand, die van zijn baas bijzonder veel houdt,
Die hij, om zo te spreken, als zijn derde vader beschouwt,
En die hem dikwijls een hele boerewoning toevertrouwt,
Waar hij door zijn blaffen bedelaars en dieven vandaan weet te jagen
En de post van portier waarneemt, zonder er ooit geld voor te vragen.
Als een haas niet op zijn tellen past,
Wordt hij dikwijls door een hond verrast;
Doch een hond loopt er ook wel tegen aan,
Als men hem in de hondsdagen uit laat gaan.
Menig een blinde hond
Is verdronken, omdat hij geen zwemmen verstond;
Doch zodra zij dit verstaan,
Kan men ze rustig uit baaien laten gaan.
Honden zijn dol op kalfslever en benen;
Doch, volgens Esopus, loopt er dikwijls een derde mee henen.
Ook nuttigt een hond met plezier water en droog brood;
Doch een pak slaag, daar heeft hij een broer aan dood.
hond.gif
Het opzetten is ook iets, daar hij niets om geeft,
Als het maar niet begonnen wordt, terwijl hij nog leeft.
Ook blaffen honden niet langer, als ze eenmaal dood zijn;
Anders zou het leven op een hondenkerkhof te groot zijn.
De Schoolmeester (12 maart 1808 – 27 januari 1858)
Omslag uit 1865
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 12e maart mijn blog van 12 maart 2012 deel 2.