De Britse schrijver en cameraman Jasper Fforde werd geboren op 11 januari 1961 in Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Jasper Fforde op dit blog.
Uit: The Big Over Easy
“That one?” replied Mary without emotion. “Never. It’s plastic.”
“I’m a policeman,” he said unhappily, “not a sodding gardener.”
And he walked off, mumbling darkly to himself.
She turned from the window, approached Briggs’s closed door and paused. She gathered her thoughts, took a deep breath and stood up straight. Reading wouldn’t have been everyone’s choice for a transfer, but for Mary, Reading had one thing that no other city possessed: DCI Friedland Chymes. He was a veritable powerhouse of a sleuth whose career was a catalog of inspired police work, and his unparalleled detection skills had filled the newspaper columns for over two decades. Chymes was the reason Mary had joined the police force in the first place. Ever since her father had bought her a subscription to Amazing Crime Stories when she was nine, she’d been hooked. She had thrilled at “The Mystery of the Wrong Nose,” been galvanised by “The Poisoned Shoe” and inspired by “The Sign of Three and a Half.” Twenty-one years further on, Friedland was still a serious international player in the world of competitive detecting, and Mary had never missed an issue. Chymes was currently ranked by Amazing Crime second in their annual league rating, just behind Oxford’s ever-popular Inspector Moose.
“Hmm,” murmured Superintendent Briggs, eyeing Mary’s job application carefully as she sat uncomfortably on a plastic chair in an office that was empty apart from a desk, two chairs, them- and a trombone lying on a tattered chaise longue.
“Your application is mostly very good, Mary,” he said approvingly. “I see you were with Detective Inspector Hebden Flowwe. How did that go?”
It hadn’t gone very well at all, but she didn’t think she’d say so.
“We had a fairly good clear-up rate, sir.”
“I’ve no doubt you did. But more important, anything published?”
It was a question that was asked more and more in front of promotion boards and transfer interviews and listed in performance reports. It wasn’t enough to be a conscientious and invaluable assistant to one’s allotted inspector—you had to be able to write up a readable account for the magazines that the public loved to read. Preferably Amazing Crime Stories, but, failing that, Sleuth Illustrated.”
De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Katharina Hacker werd geboren op 11 januari 1967 in Frankfurt am Main. Zie ook alle tags voor Katharina Hacker op dit blog.
Uit: Morpheus (Vertaald door Helen Atkins)
“From Elpenor
Oh no, not again!
What do I mean? What do you think I mean? It just keeps on happening, and there’ll be no end to it. It’s not as if you’ll be the last.
The last what? The last person to blunder into me, wake me up, have nothing better to do than blindly plant his feet down just where I’m sitting. As if the world weren’t a big enough place. As if there weren’t enough people one could barge into and disturb. Now for goodness sake don’t knock my bottle of wine over as well. I’ve had enough to drink, have I? And how would you know, might I ask? Drink myself into the grave? Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past two and a half thousand years. No, nothing, forget it. Anyway, I expect you’re in a hurry. I mean, I don’t suppose you’re here at the station just for fun. Hasn’t arrived? You came to meet someone and they didn’t turn up? Well, I suggest you go back home then.
No, I’m not in a bad mood, I haven’t felt a louse running over my liver, as you put it. For one thing I rather doubt if I have a liver. For another, vermin steer clear of me. They have a good nose-lice, I mean, and fleas too-just like dogs. The other day that Alsatian, the one over there with the policeman, practically climbed on top of me while I was asleep. It was scratching and pawing at me, and when I woke up with a start it set up a howling as if the ground had suddenly opened up at its feet. You should have seen that policeman’s face! He yelled at the cur and gave it such a kick in the ribs that it skidded a yard along the floor, squealing like one of Circe’s swine. That noise-first thing on waking, too!-revolting. I made myself scarce, otherwise I’d have been next. With that squealing in my ears. You think time’s passing, you keep hoping for a bit of a change, but no. The same ugly mugs, the identical noises and irritations.”
De Amerikaanse schrijver en columnist Marc Acito werd geboren op 11 januari 1966 in Bayonne, New Jersey. Zie ook alle tags voor Marc Acito op dit blog.
Uit: Commencement Address at Whidbey Writers Workshop
“Let me tell you one last story. It occurred the first time I came up to Whidbey. I was on the ferry. Being summer, the day was cold and gray, Puget Sound was unsound, cresting silver and rocking the boat. So I was the only idiot outside on deck enjoying the rough, temperamental beauty that is the Pacific Northwest.
As the ferry lurched, I turned and saw I’d been joined by a kid of about sixteen–all floppy hair and skinny limbs–his face alive with wonder as he gazed into the wind.
“Pretty astonishing,” I said, gesturing to the elements.
He nodded.
“This your first crossing?” I asked.
“No, I do it all the time,” he said. “I live on Whidbey.”
In an instant, I liked this kid, because I saw that he was the kind of person who takes the time to notice something spectacular on a routine journey. I glanced down and noted that he was carrying a copy of The Great Gatsby in his arms. Which, I hasten to remind you, did not make the bestseller list in its day.
“How are you liking Gatsby?” I asked.
“I love it,” he said, smiling. Sincere.
“Why?” I asked, being pedagogical. “What do you love about it?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Fitzgerald’s descriptions are so vivid. There’s this scene where two windows are open and a breeze blows through and he describes the women on the couch as being buoyed up. It’s amazing.”
Hier met componistJeffrey Stock (rechts)
De Griekse dichter, schrijver en zeeman Nikos Kavvadias werd geboren op 11 januari 1910 in Nikolski Ousouriski. Zie ook alle tags voor Nikos Kavvadias op dit blog.
Fata Morgana
I’ll take communion with sea water,
distilled from your body drop by drop,
in an ancient copper cup from Algiers,
as done by pirates of old before the fight.
Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana*.
A leather sail, all smeared with wax,
smelling of cedar-wood, of incense and of varnish,
like the smell of the hold in an aging ship
built in olden times on Euphrates in Phoenicia.
Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.
Fire-hued rust in the mines of Sina,
the capes of Gerakini and Stratoni.
That ship-coating, that old blessed rust ages us,
It feeds us, feeds on us, and then it kill us!
Where are you coming from? From Babylon.
Where are you going? To the eye of the cyclone.
Whom do you love? A Gypsy maid.
What is her name? Fata Morgana.
Vertaald door Arthur Altman
De Nederlandse (sport)journalist, schrijver en radio- en televisiepresentator Martinus Jan (Mart) Smeets werd geboren in Arnhem op 11 januari 1947. Zie ook alle tags voor Mart Smeets op dit blog.
Uit: Het werd muisstil (Column)
“Niet lang geleden schreef ik Het laatste geel, een boek over de Tour van 1989. Ik vroeg, gericht en zonder sensationele bijbedoeling, aan de 28 renners die ik interviewde of zij in die dagen al van epo hadden gehoord en of zij ermee in aanraking waren gekomen.
Er was een renner die ruiterlijk toegaf en zijn verhaal onomslachtig vertelde. Na lezing van het concept (volgens afspraak) kwam hij bij me terug. Of het gewraakte stukje eruit kon. Hij zou op staande voet ontslagen worden bij zijn nieuwe werkgever als zijn eerlijke antwoord naar buiten zou komen. Ik stemde toe, want doorzag vooral zijn sociale problemen die opdoemden. Verlies van baan, inkomen, toekomst, hypotheek…toestanden dus.
Andere renners ontkenden, een paar gaven ruiterlijk toe. Het maakte toen niets los bij officials. Het passeerde, als een lauwe zomerwind. Zoals ik ooit, in Parijs, in een rechtstreekse televisie-uitzending aan Eddy Merckx vroeg of hij wel eens…
Hij antwoordde, zeer tot mijn verbazing, dat hij dat wel eens gedaan had. Niets of niemand reageerde; de mededeling passeerde. Andere tijd, andere moraal?
Misschien. Jans Koerts zei, ook live tijdens de uitzending waar de schermutselingen rond Michael Rasmussen in Pau prachtig in beeld kwamen, dat hij aan de epo was gegaan. Dat hij wel moest om mee te blijven doen. De dappere renner was blij het juk van zijn schouders gegooid te hebben. Reactie: niets, nihil.
Koerts werd er wel eens bij de kruidenier over aangesproken. Geen enkele instantie reageerde; geen UCI, geen KNWU, geen mensen van welke dopingautoriteit. Het passeerde”.
De Braziliaanse schrijver Oswald de Andrade werd geboren op 11 januari 1890 in São Paulo. Zie ook alle tags voor Oswald de Andrade op dit blog.
ESCAPED BLACK
Geronimo was on another farm
Grinding flour in the kitchen
They came in
They got him
The pestle fell
He tripped
And fell
They got on top of him
EPITAPH
I am round, round
Round, round I know
I am a round island
Of the women I have kissed
Because I died for oh! love
Of the women of my island
My skull will laugh ha ha ha
Thinking of the rounded
Vertaald door Jean R. Longland
De Spaanse schrijver Eduardo Mendoza werd geboren in Barcelona op 11 januari 1943. Zie ook alle tags voor Eduardo de Mendoza op dit blog.
Uit: De stad der wonderen (Vertaald door F. Mendelaar, H. Peteri, Harriët Peteri)
“Ze woonden in hutten van blik, hout en karton op het strand. […] Honderden vrouwen en kinderen wemelden rond in dit kamp dat opgetrokken was op een steenworp afstand van de funderingen en skeletten die reeds de silhouetten tekenden van wat binnenkort paleizen en paviljoenen zouden zijn. […] De vrouwen brachten hun tijd door met het ophangen van vochtige kleren aan touwen die gespannen waren tussen in het zand gestoken rietstengels om de kleren in de zachte zeebries en de brandende zon te luchten. Ook kookten ze voor de deuren van de hutten op vuren […]. Ondertussen hielden ze een oogje op de kinderen die zo vuil waren dat ze nauwelijks meer herkenbaar waren. Ze hadden een opgeblazen buik, liepen naakt rond en bekogelden iedereen met stenen. […] De vrouwen maakten onderling doorlopend ruzie en scholden elkaar uit. Dikwijls kwam het tot een handgemeen.”
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 11e januari ook mijn twee blogs van 11 januari 2011.