De Britse schrijver George Orwell (pseudoniem van Eric Arthur Blair) werd op 25 juni 1903 geboren in Motihari, India. Zie ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor George Orwell op dit blog.
Uit: 1984
„As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of the Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.
What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs-to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. En this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one in which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of the Times which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed; always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy.“
George Orwell (25 juni 1903 – 21 januari 1950)
De Oostenrijkse dichteres Ingeborg Bachmann werd geboren op 25 juni 1926 in Klagenfurt. Zie ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Ingeborg Bachmann op dit blog.
Nebelland
Im Winter ist meine Geliebte
unter den Tieren des Waldes.
Dass ich vor Morgen zurück muss,
weiß die Füchsin und lacht,
Wie die Wolken erzittern! Und mir
auf den Schneekragen fällt
eine Lage von brüchigem Eis.
Im Winter ist meine Geliebte
ein Baum unter Bäumen und lädt
die glückverlassenen Krähen
ein in ihr schönes Geäst. Sie weiß,
dass der Wind, wenn es dämmert,
ihr starres, mit Reif besetztes Abendkleid hebt und mich heimjagt.
Im Winter ist meine Geliebte
unter den Fischen und stumm.
Hörig den Wassern, die der Strich
ihrer Flossen von innen bewegt,
steh ich am Ufer und seh,
bis mich Schollen vertreiben,
wie sie taucht und sich wendet.
Und wieder vom Jadruf des Vogels
getroffen, der seine Schwingen
über mir steift, stürz ich
auf offenem Feld: sie entfiedert
die Hühner und wirft mir ein weißes
Schlüsselbein zu, Ich nehm’s um den Hals
und geh fort duch den bitteren Flaum.
Treulos ist meine Geliebte,
ich weiß, sie schwebt manchmal
auf hohen Schuh’n nach der Stadt,
sie küßt in den Bars mir dem Strohhalm
die Gläser tief auf den Mund,
und es kommen ihr Worte für alle.
Doch diese Sprache verstehe ich nicht.
Nebelland hab ich gesehen,
Nebelherz hab ich gegessen.
Exil
Ein Toter bin ich der wandelt
gemeldet nirgends mehr
unbekannt im Reich des Präfekten
überzählig in den goldenen Städten
und im grünenden Land
abgetan lange schon
und mit nichts bedacht
Nur mit Wind mit Zeit und mit Klang
der ich unter Menschen nicht leben kann
Ich mit der deutschen Sprache
dieser Wolke um mich
die ich halte als Haus
treibe durch alle Sprachen
O wie sie sich verfinstert
die dunklen die Regentöne
nur die wenigen fallen
In hellere Zonen trägt dann sie den Toten hinauf.
Abends frag ich meine Mutter
“Abends frag ich meine Mutter
heimlich nach dem Glockenläuten,
wie ich mir die Tage deuten
und die Nacht bereiten soll.
Tief im Grund verlang ich immer
alles restlos zu erzählen,
in Akkorden auszuwählen,
was an Klängen mich umspielt.
Leise lauschen wir zusammen:
meine Mutter trämt mich wieder,
und sie trifft, wie alte Lieder,
meines Wesens Dur und Moll.”
Ingeborg Bachmann (25 juni 1926 – 17 oktober 1973)
De Amerikaanse schrijver, columnist en homoactivist Larry Kramer werd geboren in Bridgeport, Connecticut op 25 juni 1935. Zie ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2009 en ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2010
Uit: Faggots
“In a handsome apartment of English and French antiques, deftly combined with American Ward Bennett, on East 66th Street, between Madison and Park, lives the Winston Man. Yes, Virginia, there is a Winston Man.
It is unfortunate that his personality is so submerged in this nefarious product, but the fact remains that to his friends and to his fellow models as the Hans Zoroaster Agency his known, not be his given name, which is Duncan Heinz (his father is a very distant and almost as rich cousin to the pickle-soup-ketchup family, though devoted not to foodstuffs in his own financial empire but to the manufacture of rubber good for home and farm, more specifically, though naturally the family does not spread this about, the production of items of “prophylaxis” for the conduct of sexual intercourse, their Model B-12 widely used in animal husbandry, particularly suited for well-endowed bulls), but as Winnie.
Winnie’s is the true beauty of our moment in time, the fact that, years from now, when we remember, and we shall remember, will be looked back upon as representing our era. His glacially green eyes, his perfect classical nose, his hay hair, his skin of an overall perfection that could sell cream to cows or butter to Danes, all represent today’s desirability and have served to make him not only America’s highest-paid male model but also the ideal god every faggot looks up to as what he’d choose to look like if he could choose to look like anyone.
Winnie’s Philadelphia Main Line background was evident in the tweed and flannel button-downed and Shetlanded aura he had maintained ever since being expelled from the University of Virginia for disinclination to read. He still looked thirty, claimed to be forty, and still didn’t have to work, his father’s “health products” fortune more than ample to provide for him But a Master of Winnie’s at the Hill School in Pottstown had encouraged in him a lifelong desire to go his own way, be his own man, when he had taken the then thirteen-year-old lad aside after a particularly clumsy dropping of a right-field fly and told him point-blank that he was going to be a fairy when he grew up.
Larry Kramer (Bridgeport, 25 juni 1935)
De Amerikaanse schrijfster en journaliste Ariel Gore werd geboren op 25 juni 1970 in Carmel, Californië. Zie ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2009 en ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2010
Uit: Traveling Death and Resurrection Show
„The baby, riding with me today, whimpers in his car seat, rubs his sleepy eyes, reminds me of a clean-licked newborn kitten. Shock of black hair. Wide, dark eyes. “I’m hungry,” he moans. Poor little fellow. This is our life: new day, new state, same show.
“The Virgin Mary herself will cast your fortune,” Madre roars, undaunted by the city’s silence. “Your destiny in Our Lady’s hands!”
A towheaded little boy, maybe five years old, pale face blushed against the ocean wind, leaps from the doorway of the “I Buy Almost Anything” antique store. “Is it a circus?” he calls out, excited. But before Madre can answer him, a waif of a woman rushes out to the curb and pulls the boy back inside.
“It is a circus!” Madre yells to the crows perched on the roof of an old hotel. “Six p.m. tonight, the River Theater. Admission by donation. No one turned away!”
A white woman with dreadlocks stumbles out of a corner bar. “I’ll be there,” she promises, waving a tattooed arm before she reaches for the near cement wall to catch her balance.
“This is a show you can’t miss,” Madre cries with renewed enthusiasm. “One night only, ladies and gentlemen. Levitating mystics, saints performing the stigmata, Mary Magdalen flying through the air like grace itself!”
The caravan rolls to a stop in front of a little blue theater under the truss bridge. I’m driving the second hatchback, park it a few yards ahead of the others. No fans await us in handsome gray Astoria, but at least the church protesters aren’t out — the sallow-eyed men and women with their dark crucifixes and homemade picket signs assuring us all eternal damnation. You’d think we were a traveling brigade of abortionists, the reception we get in some towns. It’s just a show, I always want to tell them. Isn’t Satan up to anything real you can get your panties in a wad about? But I stay quiet. I understand their indignation more than I’d like to admit. And sometimes, I swear I can see my grandmother’s face in those crowds. I cross myself silently, then. “It’s just a show,” I whisper to the heavens.
A humble mural covers the side of the theater building, pictures the river itself as a stage. Spotlights hang in the clouds. A few spectators float in black inner tubes, watching a lone performer who stands atop the water like some kind of prophet. A little marquee at the corner of the painting announces our coming:
— Tonight Only —
The Death &
Resurrection Show „
Ariel Gore (Carmel, 25 juni 1970)
De Canadese schrijver Michel Tremblaywerd geboren in Quebec op 25 juni 1942. Zie ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2009 en ook mijn blog van 25 juni 2010
Uit: Demain matin, Montréal m’attend
«LOLA LEE : C’est ça, la piasse ! Toujours la piasse ! On dirait que vous faites c’te métier-là rien que pour la piasse, vous autres !
UNE FILLE : Ben certain !
LOLA LEE : À votre âge, moé, à votre âge, j’faisais dix fois moins d’argent que vous autres pis j’travaillais dix fois plus fort !
UN GARÇON : Tiens, v’là le long playing qui recommence !
LOLA LEE : Pis mes shows, j’les faisais proprement.
UNE FILLE : Ça, on n’était pas là pour le voir…»
Michel Tremblay (Quebec, 25 juni 1942)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 25e juni ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag en eveneens mijn eerste blog van vandaag.