De Indische dichter Mirza Ghalib (eigenlijk Asadullah Baig Khan) werd geboren op 27 december 1796 in Agra. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2009.
Uit: The Joy Of The Drop
Ghazal 2
It’s a little hard for things to be easy
when even a man can’t act like a man
What stupidity makes me so dependent on her that an hour early
I run off to see her and get annoyed when she’s not there
My lover is so striking she demands to be seen
the mirror reflects what it can then widens its eye
I have taken to grave the deep scar of happiness
while she stands above in her hundred colors
She promised not to torment me only after killing me
repenting now this woman so quick to repent.
Ghazal 3
In the baseness of desire remember
her who has entranced our every sight
Life could have passed on but no
we remember always where the beloved has walked
Those streets are in my thoughts again
where I first lost my heart too young to recall
What sudden madness a lover’s madness is
in the air of the desert I remember my home
As a boy I almost threw stones at that crazed lover
trapped always in desire but at last I remembered
Vertaald door Jim Yagmin
Mirza Ghalib (27 december 1796 – 15 februari 1869)
De Duitse schrijver Carl Zuckmayer werd op 27 december 1896 geboren in Nackenheim am Rhein. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2009.
Uit: Carl Zuckmayer – Gottfried Bermann Fischer. Briefwechsel
“In Zürich ist auch Rowohlt, er geht jetzt nach Südamerika als Häutezähler, das ist ein prachtvoller Beruf, die grossen Fell- und Lederverwertungsfirmen bekommen ihr Material von den Gauchos und Eingeborenen, die mit ungemein scharfen Schnäpsen, welche man nicht abschlagen darf, die Vertreter der Firma knille zu machen versuchen um sie bei der Ablieferung zu betrügen. Da braucht man eben Leute die hochprozentig geaicht sind und ein langjähriges Training nachweisen können. Was wäre das ein Posten für mich!! Ich hoffe dass man mich auch hinkommen lässt und habe Rowohlt um Empfehlung und Garantie gebeten. Und gleich mal wieder ordentlich trainiert. Vom Verleger oder Dramatiker zum Häutezähler ist ja gewiss kein Abstieg.«
Carl Zuckmayer an Gottfried Bermann Fischer, Januar 1939
»Was das Verlegen von Büchern anbelangt, so freue ich mich jeden Tag, dass ich nichts mehr damit zu tun habe. Wenn Herr Droemer Sfr. 560.000. für »I am the greatest« bezahlt und das doch gewiss mit mindestens 50 % von Seiten Holtzbrincks wird mir speiübel. Natürlich kann jeder sein Geld herausschmeissen, wohin er will. Aber dass sich durch solche unvernünftige Spekulationen die Struktur des gesamten deutschen Verlagswesens ändern muss, liegt auf der Hand. Selbst gemessen an den grossen Umsätzen der Buchgemeinschaften werden die grossen Verluste, die aus derartigen Roulettespielen auf die Dauer resultieren müssen, katastrophale Folgen haben. Also lass Dir nur so viel zahlen wie es irgend geht. Was Du hast, hast Du!«
Gottfried Bermann Fischer an Carl Zuckmayer, Oktober 1975”
Carl Zuckmayer (27 december 1896 – 18 januari 1977)
De Amerikaanse dichter Charles Olson werd geboren op 27 december 1910 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2007 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2009.
Maximus, to himself
Charles OlsonI have had to learn the simplest things
last. Which made for difficulties.
Even at sea I was slow, to get the hand out, or to cross
a wet deck.
The sea was not, finally, my trade.
But even my trade, at it, I stood estranged
from that which was most familiar. Was delayed,
and not content with the man’s argument
that such postponement
is now the nature of
obedience,
that we are all late
in a slow time,
that we grow up many
And the single
is not easily
known
It could be, though the sharpness (the achiote)
I note in others,
makes more sense
than my own distances. The agilities
they show daily
who do the world’s
businesses
And who do nature’s
as I have no sense
I have done either
I have made dialogues,
have discussed ancient texts,
have thrown what light I could, offered
what pleasures
doceat allows
But the known?
This, I have had to be given,
a life, love, and from one man
the world.
Tokens.
But sitting here
I look out as a wind
and water man, testing
And missing
some proof
I know the quarters
of the weather, where it comes from,
where it goes. But the stem of me,
this I took from their welcome,
or their rejection, of me
And my arrogance
was neither diminished
nor increased,
by the communication
2
It is undone business
I speak of, this morning,
with the sea
stretching out
from my feet
Charles Olson (27 december 1910 – 10 januari 1970)
De Spaanse schrijver Serafín Estébanez Calderón werd geboren op 27 december 1799 in Málaga. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2009.
Uit: An Andalusian Duel (Vertaald door Emilia Pardo-Bazan)
„Through the little square of St. Anna, towards a certain tavern, where the best wine is to be quaffed in Seville, there walked in measured steps two men whose demeanor clearly manifested the soil which gave them birth. He who walked in the middle of the street, taller than the other by about a finger’s length, sported with affected carelessness the wide, slouched hat of Ecija, with tassels of glass beads and a ribbon as black as his sins. He wore his cloak gathered under his left arm; the right, emerging from a turquoise lining, exposed the merino lambskin with silver clasps. The herdsman’s boots–white, with Turkish buttons,–the breeches gleaming red from below the cloak and covering the knee, and, above all, his strong and robust appearance, dark curly hair, and eye like a red-hot coal, proclaimed at a distance that all this combination belonged to one of those men who put an end to horses between their knees and tire out the bull with their lance.
He walked on, arguing with his companion, who was rather spare than prodigal in his person, but marvelously lithe and supple. The latter was shod with low shoes, garters united the stockings to the
light-blue breeches, the waistcoat was cane-colored, his sash light green, and jaunty shoulder-knots, lappets, and rows of buttons ornamented the carmelite jacket. The open cloak, the hat drawn over
his ear, his short, clean steps, and the manifestations in all his limbs and movements of agility and elasticity beyond trial plainly showed that in the arena, carmine cloth in hand, he would mock at the
most frenzied of Jarama bulls, or the best horned beasts from Utrera.
I–who adore and die for such people, though the compliment be not returned–went slowly in the wake of their worships, and, unable to restrain myself, entered with them the same tavern, or rather eating-house, since there they serve certain provocatives as well as wine, and I, as my readers perceive, love to call things by their right name.“
Serafín Estébanez Calderón (27 december 1799 – 5 februari 1867)