De Amerikaanse schrijver James Grippando werd geboren op 27 januari 1958 in Waukegan, Illinois. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2010.
Uit: The Abduction
„Allison could feel her heart pounding. Her lungs burned as she fought forair. The treadmill’s digital display told her she was passing the two-milemark. She punched the speed button to slow the pace and catch her breath.Perspiration soaked her, pasting the nylon sweat pants and extra-large T-shirtto her trim forty-eight-year-old body. It was her favorite T-shirt, whitewith bright red and blue lettering.
It read, “Leahy for President–A New Millennium.”
After nearly four years as the United States attorney general, Allison wasjust fifteen days away from the historic date on which voters would decidewhether the nation’s “top cop” would become its first woman president.The race was wide-open and without an incumbent, as her boss–DemocraticPresident Charlie Sires–was at the end of his second and final four-yearterm. Allison was his second-term attorney general, part of the president’sshake-up of his own cabinet upon reelection in 1996. Eight months ago, Allisondidn’t consider herself a serious presidential contender. But when the Republicansnominated Lincoln Howe, the nation’s most beloved black man, the polls madeit clear that the only Democrat who could beat him was a charismatic whitewoman.
Ironically, thirty minutes of walking in place on the treadmill had actuallyput Allison thirty miles closer to her afternoon rally in Philadelphia.She was on the last leg of a two-day bus tour through Pennsylvania, a criticalswing state with twenty-four electoral college votes. Her campaign bus hadlogged nearly ten thousand miles in the past six months.”
James Grippando (Waukegan, 27 januari 1958)
De Duitse schrijver Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre werd op 27 januari 1975 in Bremen geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2010.
Uit: Auch Deutsche unter den Opfern
“Abspann, schnell raus, und ein Lob an Til Schweiger, da ist ihm etwas Außerordentliches gelungen. Kein Strafzettel, Schweiger hat unübersehbar zur Zeit das, was man einen Lauf nennt. Im Auto dann dezidierteres Lob, auch einzwei dezent kritische Anmerkungen – da wird Schweigers Blick blitzkühl, er tritt jetzt ziemlich aufs Gas. Und, auch, was soll`s denn auch. Schweiger kann momentan jeder Kritik den Mittelfinger zeigen, via Rückspiegel. Ohnehin sitzt er in dieser Sorte Wagen, die einem das Gefühl vermittelt, man könne, wenn sich ein kleines, hupendes Nichts einem entgegenstellt, zur Not auch glatt drüberwegfahren.”
Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre (Bremen, 27 januari 1975)
De Engelse dichter en schrijver Lewis Carroll werd op 27 januari 1832 in Daresbury. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2010.
Uit: Alice in Wonderland
„Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think – ‘ (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) ‘ – but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?’ (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke – fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) ‘And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.’
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, ‘Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.“
Lewis Carroll (27 januari 1832 – 14 januari 1898)
De Franse schrijfster Eliette Abécassis werd geboren op 27 januari 1969 in Straatsburg. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2010.
Uit: Une affaire conjugale
„Il n’y a pas de vol entre époux.
La serrure toute simple, ancienne, ne devait pas poser de problème. Elle avait été lubrifiée, sans doute pour pouvoir être fermée à clef facilement. Avec un rayon de roue, pris sur un vieux vélo, je fis rebondir le crochet, en app iquant une pression régulière sur les goupilles.
Je me concentrais sur le geste et non sur l’ouverture. Mes mains étaient correctement positionnées : certaines articulations immobiles, d’autres en mouvement. Pendant que le majeur et l’annulaire fournissaient un point d’appui, l’index manipulait le rayon. Il fallait visualiser la serrure pour en venir à bout. À force de tâtonnements, je commençais à m’en faire une image précise. Je remarquai qu’une seule goupille bloquait l’ouverture des deux plaques. Grâce au crochet, je forçai sur la serrure en
poussant sur la plaque du bas.Tout en maintenant l’ a pression, je consu tai ma montre : il ne devait pas revenir avant deux heures.
Même s’il ne m’avait jamais fait la surprise de rentrer plus tôt, je redoutais une arrivée intempestive. Les oreilles dressées comme un chien pour entendre l’a porte d’entrée s’ouvrir, j’étais prête à bondir à la minute même où il surgirait. La serrure semblait de plus en plus réceptive. Je la sentis prête, cette fois, à céder. Je tentais de rester calme. Encore un tout petit effort. Enfin, j’entendis le déclic. La porte s’ouvrit.“
Eliette Abécassis (Straatsburg, 27 januari 1969)
De Brits-Amerikaanse schrijver Alexander Stuart werd geboren op 27 januari 1955 in Brighton. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 januari 2010.
Uit: Only in Miami (About making The End of America)
„I had lived in Miami – specifically, in increasingly trendy South Beach – for almost eight years, and had written a book about the insanity of everyday existence there called Life On Mars, but of course by the time we came to make the documentary I had moved to Los Angeles, and thus we had to find a justification for me coming back. One of the reasons I had written a non-fiction book about the place was that when I tried to write a novel, I realised that the people I knew – John Hood, for instance, an affluently born white boy who lived his life like a 50s B-movie gangster, right down to the suit and hat – were stranger than anything I could invent.
So for the documentary we thought we’d try the same approach: I would return to Miami from LA to research a movie script, also to be called The End Of America, and we would film me meeting Miami natives – many of them teenagers, like the club kids I had written about in the book – and try to persuade them actually to perform in the drama they inspired. That way, we could make a film which explored, in true docu-soap fashion, the real lives of these characters, while also seeing how those lives might be shaped into some kind of fiction – a loose plot I had developed based on an incident a friend had told me about, when she had shot a gun at a wall in frustration, and realised that she might have accidentally killed someone on the other side.“
Alexander Stuart (Brighton, 27 januari 1955)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 27e januari ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag en eveneens mijn derde blog van vandaag.