De Zwitserse schrijver Martin Suter werd geboren op 29 februari 1948 in Zürich. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2010.
Uit: Unter Freunden und andere Geschichten aus der Business Class (Der neue Mann)
“Das also ist Meuli, denkt Haberstich, als er Brachingers Büro betritt. Der neue Mann sitzt auf dem Besprechungssofa und steht jetzt auf, um ihm die Hand zu schütteln. Brachinger bleibt sitzen. Zwei leere Kaffeetassen und ein paar zerknüllte Schokopapierchen verraten, dass die beiden schon länger zusammensitzen. Aha, ich bin also nachträglich dazugebeten worden. Wahrscheinlich nachdem die vertraulichen Themen besprochen waren, fährt es Haberstich durch den Kopf.
So sieht er also aus, der Mann, der ihm gefährlich werden könnte. Grösser, als er ihn sich vorgestellt hat. Und jünger. Und mit mehr Haaren. Im ersten Vergleich mit sich selbst schneidet der andere, ehrlich gesagt, etwas besser ab. Äusserlich. Obwohl: Auf der rechten Schulter scheinen ein paar Schuppen zu liegen. Das ist die Kehrseite von dichtem Haarwuchs – Schuppen.
Von seinem Sessel aus verfolgt Brachinger die Begrüssungsszene. Haberstich spürt, wie auch er vergleicht. Damit wird er jetzt leben müssen: Mit Meuli verglichen zu werden. Nun, ihm soll’s recht sein. Er hat keine Vergleiche zu fürchten. Wenigstens keine fachlichen. Und was die äussere Erscheinung angeht: So übel sieht er auch nicht aus. Er hat einfach keine Zeit für Bodyshaping und Hairstudios. Wichtig ist einfach, dass er schon bei der ersten direkten Begegnung gut abschneidet. Er muss Brachinger alerter, reaktionsschneller, informierter und schlagfertiger vorkommen als der Neue. Er muss von Anfang an die Diskrepanz in allen Belangen (ausser vielleicht den äusserlichen) deutlich machen.“
Martin Suter (Zürich 29 februari 1948)
De Griekse dichter Yórgos Seféris werd geboren in Smyrna (nu Izmir, in Turkije) op 29 februari 1900. . Zie ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2007 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2010.
Interval of Joy
We were happy all that morning
Ο God how happy.
First the stones the leaves and the flowers shone
and then the sun
a huge sun all thorns but so very high in the heavens.
Α Nymph was gathering our cares and hanging them on the trees
a forest of Judas trees.
Cupids and satyrs were singing and playing
and rosy limbs could be glimpsed amid black laurel
the flesh of young children.
We were happy all that morning;
the abyss was a closed well
ο n which the tender foot of a young faun stamped
do γ ο υ remember its laughter: how happy we were!
And then clouds rain and the damp earth;
you stopped laughing when you reclined in the hut,
and opened your large eyes and gazed
on the archangel wielding a fiery sword
‘Ι cannot explain it, ‘ you said, ‘Ι cannot explain it, ‘
Ι find people impossible to understand
however much they may play with colors
they are all black.
Vertaald door Kimon Friar
Just a little more
Just a little more
And we shall see the almond trees in blossom
The marbles shining in the sun
The sea, the curling waves.
Just a little more
Let us rise just a little higher.
Yórgos Seféris (29 februari 1900 – 20 september 1971)
De Roemeense dichter Marin Sorescu werd geboren op 29 februari 1936 in Bulzeşti. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2010.
The house
Marin Sorescu
I want to build myself a house
As far away as possible
From all the things
I know.
As far away as possible from the mountains
Out of which squirrels leap in the morning
Like apostles in a clock
Naive beyond belief.
And I don’t want it on the shore
Of that white tiredness
Where I could see through every window
An enamelled scale.
And I know all the tricks
Of the plain.
What else can you expect from her
If at night she frees the grass and wheat
To grow through your ribs and temples?
In any place at all
I’d get so fearfully bored
I couldn’t even
Hang
On my wall
Pictures
The doorway would look too familiar
I’d be feeling I had to move on.
If only I could build myself a house
As far away as possible from
Myself.
Vertaald door Ted Hughes en Ioanna Russell-Gebbett
Marin Sorescu (29 februari 1936 – 8 december 1996)
De Amerikaanse dichter en literatuurdocent Howard Nemerov werd geboren op 29 februari 1920 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2009 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2010.
A Primer of the Daily Round
A peels an apple, while B kneels to God,
C telephones to D, who has a hand
On E’s knee, F coughs, G turns up the sod
For H’s grave, I do not understand
But J is bringing one clay pigeon down
While K brings down a nightstick on L’s head,
And M takes mustard, N drives to town,
O goes to bed with P, and Q drops dead,
R lies to S, but happens to be heard
By T, who tells U not to fire V
For having to give W the word
That X is now deceiving Y with Z,
Who happens, just now to remember A
Peeling an apple somewhere far away.
Found Poem
after information received in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4 v 86
The population center of the USA
Has shifted to Potosi, in Missouri.
The calculation employed by authorities
In arriving at this dislocation assumes
That the country is a geometric plane,
Perfectly flat, and that every citizen,
Including those in Alaska and Hawaii
And the District of Columbia, weighs the same;
So that, given these simple presuppositions,
The entire bulk and spread of all the people
Should theoretically balance on the point
Of a needle under Potosi in Missouri
Where no one is residing nowadays
But the watchman over an abandoned mine
Whence the company got the lead out and left.
“It gets pretty lonely here,” he says, “at night.”
Howard Nemerov (29 februari 1920 – 5 juli 1991)
De Mexicaanse schrijver, filosoof en politicus José Vasconcelos Calderón werd geboren in Oaxaca op 28 februari 1882. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2009.
Uit: The Cosmic Race (Vertaald door J. Manuel Urrutia)
„Authoritative geologists opine that the American continent has some of the oldest parts of the world. The Andean mass is, without doubt, as old as any other in the planet. And if the land is ancient, then the traces of human life and culture go back to where calculations cannot reach. The architectural ruins of the legendary Maya, Quechua, and Toltec are proof of civilized life that precedes the oldest foundation of the Orient and Europe. As the investigations progress, the hypothesis of Atlantis is affirmed, as the craddle of a civilization that thousands of years ago flourished in the vanished continent and in part of what is now America. To think of Atlantis evoques the memory of its mysterious entecedents. The disappeared hyperboreous continent, that left few clues other than the traces of life and culture that sometimes are found under the snows of Greenland; the lemurian or black race of the South; the Atlantis civilization of the red men; next the appearance of the yellow, and at last, the civilization of the whites. This profound legendary hypothesis is a better explanation for the development of the races than the beliefs of geologists like Ameghino, who place the origin of Man in Patagonia, a land that is well known to be of recent geologic formation. On the other hand, this idea of the Ethnic Empires of prehistory is in extraordinary agreement with Wegener theory of the translation of continents.“
José Vasconcelos (28 februari 1882 – 30 juni 1959)