De Oostenrijkse dichteres en schrijfster Friederike Mayröcker werd op 20 december 1924 in Wenen geboren. Zie ook alle tags voorFriederike Mayröcker op dit blog.
Mysterium
Das Heiligenbild hat
einen blauen Dorn. Jesus wird orangefarben
getauft. Beinah jenseits
immer wieder das Jüngste Gericht.
Selige die lächeln und
Chöre bilden. Lichtgrün
geht die Erde unter, aber
die Himmel stillen sich bald.
Lichter wehn wie silberne
Fahnen die sich langsam bewegen,
und die höchste Kerze duftet
und strebt.
Ich bin vor Dir im kalten Staub
ich bin vor Dir irgendwoher
aus einer erstarrten Dunkelheit
ich bin vor Dir und lobsinge:
preisende Blicke haben mich aus
den müden Steigbügeln meiner
Empfindung gehoben geräuschlos.
*
wie ich dich nenne
wenn ich an dich denke
und du nicht da bist:
meine Walderdbeere
meine Zuckerechse
meine Trosttüte
mein Seidenspinner
mein Sorgenschreck
meine Aurelia
meine Schotterblume
mein Schlummerkind
meine Morgenhand
mein Vielvergesser
mein Fensterkreuz
mein Mondverstecker
mein Silberstab
mein Abendschein
mein Sonnenfaden
mein Rüsselhase
mein Hirschenkopf
meine Hasenpfote
mein Treppenfrosch
mein Lichterkranz
mein Frühlingsdieb
mein Zittergaul
meine Silberschnecke
mein Tintenfasz
mein Besenfuchs
mein Bäumefäller
mein Sturmausreiszer
mein Bärenheger
mein Zähnezeiger
mein Pferdeohr
mein Praterbaum
mein Ringelhorn
meine Affentasche
meine Winterwende
meine Artischocke
meine Mitternacht
mein Rückwärtszähler
(da capo!)
Friederike Mayröcker (Wenen, 20 december 1924)
De Canadese dichter, schrijver en acteur Sky Gilbert werd geboren op 20 december 1952 Norwich, Connecticut. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.
Thoughts on “Bringing up Baby”
It was a sad Sunday
And I didn’t like it at first
I was all prepared to be cranky about Howard Hawkes
I mean let’s face it
It’s all a set up really
Katherine Hepburn’s little voice is very annoying and fake
And Cary Grant’s coke bottle glasses are so obvious
It wasn’t delightful at all, to me
As I struggled awake through Saturday night’s hangover
and memories of bad sex
the night before
And then somewhere, I think it was when I realized
she was carrying a butterfly net to catch a leopard
yes, it was there, I think
that I realized that this movie had absolutely nothing to do with reality
and that’s what made it so fabulous
So I was gone
And when they’re singing
“I can’t give you anything but love, baby”
to the leopard outside the psychiatrist’s window
and the leopard is howling along, and so is the dog
and the psychiatrist’s wife says to Katherine Hepburn
with the condescension of the sane:
“You just keep on singing dear”
and Katherine Hepburn doesn’t miss a beat when she says “Oh, I will!”
And that is, of course, what we all have to do, in the midst of all the
insanity and death
(sorry, I didn’t mean to mention death)
we have to keep on singing
And before long, everyone is in jail, and no one knows their names anymore,
and Katherine Hepburn is acting butch, and this is what we’ve been waiting
for, the whole movie, for her to drop that plummy accent and the femmy
gestures and just get down to business
And the point isn’t merely that the insane are more sane or that power
structures must be toppled (hence the dinosaur skeleton falling at the end)
no it’s that there, within insanity lies truth, beauty
Yes beauty
or else why would I have been at the baths the other night
with a boy I love
watching him screw other people?
I can’t explain why I love him
It’s like when David says he just has to get fucked up the bum
or else he thinks the guy doesn’t really love him
It’s like when Pasolini explains that he is obsessed with boys
because their body hair keeps on growing until they’re twenty-five
One tries to categorize and organize one’s love, one’s desire
And then one realizes that one is using a butterfly net to catch a leopard
isn’t one?
For there is a certain blessedness in being hysterical
Forgetting who we are is perhaps the only answer
And for certain we will find out if there’s a “good leopard”
or a “bad leopard”
at the end of that rope
It will either tear us to pieces or purr
But as Katherine Hepburn reminds us
at the end of the movie
all the time we were merely searching for a good bone
a good hard clean bone that might finish off that dinosaur skeleton
Watch out!
The skeleton is shaking…
But oh, what a fall
Sky Gilbert (Norwich, 20 december 1952)
De Amerikaanse schrijfster Hortense Calisher werd geboren in New York op 20 december 1911. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.
Uit: Tattoo for a Slave
„As she lay there, the feather mattress she would never discard floated her high, as if it meant to keep her at center still, not just a tiny person who had had a fall. Nowadays we know that the hip breaks before the fall, but this was before. A word that would always have a special sound to me. This is 1924. Born just before the end of 1911, I am twelve.
“Ninety-seven,” my one aunt had said, the other one adding softer, “Though out of vanity she only admitted to ninety-four.”
Even now a flutter of smiles, though my father, head bent, had not joined in.
“They were married in 1852,” an uncle said. “Pa came over from England in ’27, we were always told. That book he and his crowd are in lists him as an elder-in 1832. But neither one ever spoke age.”
“We could look it up,” the second uncle had said. “Maybe time we should.”
My father had raised his head, silencing them with a look I already knew the meaning of. Pay respect.
Our family doctor, who usually ran in at the slightest, had come and gone, respecting us. As for hospitals, those were for bloody events, like my tonsils. “Will she have to go?” My father’s proud smile had reassured me days ago. “We were all born at home. Including you. We die there.”
But that, too, had been before. His fists are at his forehead now. She is floating on her pillow. I have never seen her in disarray. Death-please don’t do that to her. He must feel the same.
But that was the moment when my mother had glided toward me-so much younger than they, she was never quite of their circle. Whispering, “Wait in Granma’s sitting room.”
Hortense Calisher (20 december 1911 – 15 januari 2009)
De Zwitserse schrijver Jürg Laederach werd geboren op 20 december 1945 in Basel. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.
Uit: Depeschen nach Mailland
Gesendet: Montag, 18. März 2002 18:15
Ich fand dein neuestes Mail glänzend. Was schreibst du denn so, und wo schreibst du rum? Die verdichteten satirischen Beobachtungen sind, ich sagte es, glänzend.Wir müßten uns mal kurz über Technik unterhalten, d. h. Taylorismus, wie schafft man was mit wieviel Aufwand. Du mußt, Horror, etwas entdichten, etwas normalisieren, ichmeine,wenn du public goest.
Und du mußt eine überzeugende, manchmal durchaus pedestrische Linie in die Sequenz deiner Glanzpunkte reinbringen, sonst hüpft’s zu sehr; womit man nur kurze Sachen schreiben kann. Du müßtest dich für einen slightly banaleren Mettler zu interessieren anfangen, am besten fängst du gleich mal mit dem ganz banalen an. Insbesondere mußt du Frau Rosa Prosa dann untersuchen, wenn du mal alle Pointen wegläßt, also schutzloser du selber bist. Du mußt, mit einemWort, eine Art
Produktionsform finden, die deine Identität dennoch transportiert.
Ich wollte mich ganz ernsthaft bedanken, daß du mich in die Sendung geholt hast. Wer so wenig an die Öffentlichkeit geht wie ich, ist an einem konzentrierten Auftritt mit gesicherter Publikumsquote
interessiert. Mir ging erst nachher auf, daß die Jazzsendung diese Bedingungen ideal erfüllt: zudem erscheint man zweimal hintereinander: als PR fabelhaft. Heute sprach mich bereits ein Mitpatient darauf an: also, bis so einer dich irgendwo hört oder liest . . . Perfekt, vielen Dank, ich kann lange in der Eremitenhütte bleiben. Im übrigen: Ich brenne locker weiter und schreibe keine innerlichen Dissertationen, ehe ich dir was schicke. Ab, weg ist es, gib’s einfach weiter, wenn’s nicht paßt.”
Jürg Laederach (Basel, 20 december 1945)
De Turkse dichter en schrijver Aziz Nesin werd geboren op 20 december 1915 in Istanbul. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 december 2010.
Uit: Istanbul Boy (Vertaald door Joseph S. Jackson)
„Someday, somehow, I will take the final rest–but what a pity–then, I won’t be able to know I am at rest.
When someone asks me, “How can you write so much?” really, I feel an anger that can’t be shown.
”After all, do I write for pleasure? I am forced to, for I am in dire straits.”
But if I were to be born again (something I don’t believe in at all), if again I came to this world, I would choose no other path; I would like to be exhausted and go in the same way, in the same happy fatigue of such work.
If I write in very different genres, novel forms, and treat varied subjects, I think it is because of my living together with mixed people of different levels of our society and from different circles. Well, here are a few of the jobs I’ve done up to now: peddler, shepherd, soldier, accountant, painter, newsboy, bookstore, private teacher, photographer, writer, newspaperman, groceryman, convict (that’s a job too, and one of the most difficult), unemployed (that’s the hardest job of all), shoeshine boy, barber and other jobs.
My memories are not great; I know that they don’t ever have the smallest importance in themselves. But from the view of the lives of all of you, as a reflection of our society and the period in which we have lived, with the hope that this may attract your interest, I will relate my recollections to you, without falsehood or deceit.“
Aziz Nesin (20 december 1915 – 6 juli 1995)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 20e december ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag en eveneens mijn eerste blog van vandaag.