De Franse dichter Nicolas Gilbert werd geboren in Fontenoy-le-Château (Vosges) op 15 december 1750. Zie ook alle tags voor Nicolas Gilbert op dit blog.
Le poète dans les révolutions
«Que n’es-tu né sur les rivages
Des Abbas et des Cosroës,
Aux rayons d’un ciel sans nuages,
Parmi le myrte et l’aloès!
Là, sourd aux maux que tu déplores,
Le poète voit ses aurores
Se lever sans trouble et sans pleurs;
Et la colombe, chère aux sages.
Porte aux vierges ses doux messages
Où l’amour parle avec des fleurs!»
Nicolas Gilbert (15 december 1750 – 16 november 1780)
Fontenoy-Le-Château, Vosges
De Amerikaanse schrijver en songwriter Maxwell Anderson werd geboren op 15 december 1888 in Atlantic Pennsylvania. Zie ook alle tags voor Maxwell Anderson op dit blog.
Uit: Winterset
“GARTH. Anything you say.
GAUNT. Why, now I go with much more peace of mind—if I can call you friends.
ESDRAS. We shall be grateful for silence on your part, Your Honor.
GAUNT. Sir—if there were any just end to be served by speaking out, I’d speak! There is none. No—bear that in mind!
ESDRAS. We will, Your Honor.
GAUNT. Then—I’m in some haste. If you can be my guide, we’ll set out now.
ESDRAS. Yes, Surely.
(There is a knock at the door. The four look at each other with some apprehension. MIRIAMNE rises.) I’ll answer it.
MIRIAMNE. Yes.
(She goes into the inner room and closes door. ESDRAS goes to outer door. The knock is repeated. He opens door. MIO is there.)
ESDRAS. Yes, Sir.
MIO. May I come in?
ESDRAS. Will you state your business, sir? It’s late—and I’m not at liberty —
MIO. Why, I might say that I was trying to earn my tuition fees by peddling magazines. I could say that, or collecting old newspapers—paying cash—highest rates—no questions asked —
(he looks round sharply.)
GARTH. We’ve nothing to sell.
(….)
ESDRAS. My son knows nothing.
GARTH. No. The picture-papers lash themselves to a fury over any rumor—make them up when they’re short of bedroom slops.—This is what happened. I had known a few members of a gang one time up there—and after the murder they picked me up because I looked like someone that was seen in what they called the murder car. They held me a little while, but they couldn’t identify me for the most excellent reason I wasn’t there when the thing occurred. A dozen years later now a professor comes across this, and sees red and asks why I wasn’t called on as a witness and yips so loud they syndicate his picture in all the rotor. That’s all I know about it. I wish I could tell you more.”
Maxwell Anderson (15 december 1888 – 28 februari 1959)
Poster voor de gelijknamige film uit 1936
De Estse dichter, beeldend kunstenaar en vertaler Indrek Hirv werd geboren op 15 december 1956 in Kohila. Zie ook alle tags voor Indrek Hirv op dit blog.
ooit drukte jouw slaap zwaar op mijn borst
ooit drukte jouw slaap zwaar op mijn borst
en viskeuze droefheid kronkelde door mijn aderen
mijn afdruk in jou – vogelafdruk in de lucht –
zou er iets terug moeten keren, dan is het louter verdriet van binnen
alleen de polsbeweging van een golf blijft –
ook ik ben op deze herinneringsfoto mistig
maar ik weet zeker, terwijl ik de herfstregens drink
dat de sterrenwolken onze erfenis zijn.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Indrek Hirv (Kohila, 15 december 1956)
De Franse schrijver François de La Rochefoucauld werd geboren op 15 december 1613 in Parijs. Zie ook alle tags voor François de La Rochefoucauld op dit blog
Uit: Maximen. Bespiegelingen over menselijke gedrag (Vertaald door Maarten van Buuren)
We zijn nooit zo gelukkig of ongelukkig als we denken.
*
Kleingeestigheid leidt tot halsstarrigheid. We accepteren niet gemakkelijk wat buiten ons blikveld ligt.
*
Het gemak waarmee we iemands schuld aannemen, zonder de toedracht voldoende te hebben onderzocht, is een gevolg van hoogmoed en luiheid. We willen een dader aanwijzen, maar willen niet de moeite nemen het misdrijf te onderzoeken.
François de La Rochefoucauld (15 december 1613 – 17 maart 1680)
Cover
De Amerikaanse dichteres, schrijfster en politiek activiste Muriel Rukeyser werd geboren op 15 december 1913 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Muriel Rukeyser op dit blog.
Waiting For Icarus
He said he would be back and we’d drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don’t cry
I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying: Inventors are like poets, a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added: Women who love such are the worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.
Muriel Rukeyser (15 december 1913 – 12 februari 1980)
Cover
Onafhankelijk van geboortedata
De Amerikaanse schrijver Garth Risk Hallberg werd geboren in Louisiana in december 1978. Zie ook alle tags voor Garth Risk Hallberg op dit blog.
Uit: City on Fire
“It was connected with the doctor’s studious skirting of the word “father” and its equivalents, which of course kept the person they referred to at the very front of Charlie’s mind. But suppose they were right: the school guidance counselor, his mom. Suppose the dead father lodged in his skull was making him sick, and suppose Dr. Altschul could pry Dad out, like a bad tooth. What, then, would be left of Charlie? So he talked instead about school and pee-wee league, about the Sullivans and Ziggy Stardust. When given a “homework” assignment—think about a moment he’d been scared—he talked about the terrifying dentist his mom used to make him go see on the thirty-eighth floor of the Hamilton-Sweeney Building; how old Dr. DeMoto once scraped his plaque onto a saltine and made him eat it; and how the window, inches away from his chair, gave onto a sheer drop of six hundred feet. Mom had this idea that for the finest care, you had to go to Manhattan. In fact, maybe ponying up for a fancy headshrinker now was contrition for Dad; maybe she thought if he’d been rushed after the second heart attack to a hospital in the City, he’d still be alive. “Heights—that’s what scares me,” Charlie said. “And fires. And snakes.” One of these wasn’t even true. He’d put it in to test Dr. Altschul, or throw him off the trail.
Then one Friday, a month before school ended, he found himself holding forth with unexpected vehemence about Rabbi Lidner. This had been another of his “homework” assignments, to “recover” his feelings about his adoption. “Abe and Izz will do fine with the Torah study, it’s in their blood, but honestly, sometimes I feel sorry for them. They don’t know what they’re in for.”
There was a twitch, a resettling of fingers on the cardigan, like a cellist’s on his instrument, a movement at the corner of the therapeutic mouth too quick for the beard to camouflage. “What is it you feel they’re in for, Charlie?”
“All this stuff about being shepherded, watched over…You and I both know it’s bullshit, Doc. If I was any kind of brother, I’d take them aside and tell them.”
Garth Risk Hallberg (Louisiana, december 1978)