De Amerikaanse schrijver Robert Ludlum werd geboren in New York op 25 mei 1927. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Ludlum op dit blog.
Uit: The Bourne Sanction
“A rare compliment from you, Jason.”
“Are my compliments so rare?”
“Like Martin, you’re a master at keeping secrets,” she said. “But I have doubts about how healthy that is.”
“I’m sure it’s not healthy at all,” Bourne said. “But it’s the life we chose.”
“Speaking of which.” She sat down on a chair opposite him. “I came early for our dinner date to talk to you about a work situation, but now, seeing how content you are here, I don’t know whether to continue.”
Bourne recalled the first time he had seen her, a slim, shapely figure in the mist, dark hair swirling about her face. She was standing at the parapet in the Cloisters, overlooking the Hudson River. The two of them had come there to say good-bye to their mutual friend Martin Lindros, whom Bourne had valiantly tried to save, only to fail.
Today Moira was dressed in a wool suit, a silk blouse open at the throat. Her face was strong, with a prominent nose, deep brown eyes wide apart, intelligent, curved slightly at their outer corners. Her hair fell to her shoulders in luxuriant waves. There was an uncommon serenity about her, a woman who knew what she was about, who wouldn’t be intimidated or bullied by anyone, woman or man.”
Robert Ludlum (25 mei 1927 – 12 maart 2001)
Matt Damon als Jason Bourne
De Amerikaanse dichter Theodore Huebner Roethke werd geboren in Saginaw, Michigan op 25 mei 1908. Zie ook alle tags voor Theodore Roethke op dit blog.
Dolor
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
I Knew A Woman
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in a chorus, cheek to cheek).
How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin;
I nibbled meekly from her proferred hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing we did make).
Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant notes to sieze;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved).
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways).
Theodore Roethke (25 mei 1908 – 1 augustus 1963)
Poster
De Franse schrijver en historicus Georges Bordonove werd geboren in Enghien-les-Bains op 25 mei 1920. Zie ook alle tags voor Georges Bordonove op dit blog.
Uit:Le bûcher
“Ce soir, une force irrémissible me pousse à coucher sur papier ces choses d’autrefois.
Et c’est à vous que je pense, messire Gaucelin, à vous qui dormez, besogne faite, dans les sables de Mansourah. Vous étiez plus que mon protecteur, car, parmi les écueils de l’existence, vous saviez piloter mon âme vers le sûr asile.
Aussi, de la demeure céleste où vous êtes parvenu à grand arroi de peines, je vous requiers et prie humblement de ne me pas abandonner.
Du doigt tremblant d’un vieux soldat je trace ces lignes, en cette tour de l’Ouest de la Commanderie de la motte Saint-Sulpice que vous connaissez si bien.
Ma chambre fut la votre, comme la table, le fauteuil, le coffre où je range mon haubert et mes vêtements de paix, furent les vôtres.
Votre Commanderie se dresse toujours, massive et noire, au milieu des terres brunes et des prés verts… »
Georges Bordonove (25 mei 1920 – 16 maart 2007)
Enghien-les-Bains
De Canadese schrijver William Patrick Kinsella werd geboren op 25 mei 1935 in Edmonton, Alberta. Zie ook alle tags voor W. P. Kinsella op dit blog.
Uit: Bill’s Back (Interview over “Butterfly Winter” in The Winnipeg Review, 2011)
“As we are finding more and more with sports figures concussion can be really debilitating. I did virtually nothing for five years after the accident. In fact I told my agents (book and movie) to consider me retired. Then I started reworking some things I’d started years earlier, Butterfly Winter, which I began way back in the 80s, a third book to the Box Socials Trilogy, The Grand Reunion for Anyone Who Ever Attended Fark Schoolhouse in Seven Towns County Alberta, and something I just finished that was also started in the 70s or 80s, Russian Dolls, which consists of one long story with 25+ small stories inside it.
I tried a new viewpoint when rewriting Butterfly Winter, the interview with the Wizard. The Gringo Journalist of the novel is essentially me, a rather inept interviewer, who likes to report overheard conversations. I was once hired by a Japanese magazine to interview Hideo Nomo the superstar pitcher. They flew me to Los Angeles to meet Nomo. I am a Sumo fan, so the only question I could think to ask him was did he like Sumo? If the answer was No, then there would be a terribly long silence. While I was in the air, Nomo changed agents and cancelled all his appointments, much to my relief.”
W. P. Kinsella (Edmonton, 25 mei 1935)
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De Amerikaanse schrijver en journalist John Gregory Dunne werd geboren op 25 mei 1932 in West Hartford, Connecticut. Zie ook alle tags voor John Gregory Dunne op dit blog.
Uit: Nothing Lost
“I wonder how long the story would have played had it not been a slow news period. It was a nonelection fall, the economy was stumbling along as it had throughout the McCall administration, the rising indicators balancing out the falling, Wall Street was bullish one week, bearish the next, the war clouds of August were blown away by the Berne proposals of September. No scandals had captured the public imagination (a House counsel in a men’s room, an undersecretary’s wife with her minister-sorry stuff), Halloween loomed, Thanksgiving, that most tedious and unnecessary of national holidays, threatened, promising only Christmas, and with it the obligation to think about, and pretend we believe in, the concept of family and giving, the holly and the ivy. The murder of Edgar Parlance was unspeakably barbaric, but blacks have been strung up, roasted, crucified, mutilated, castrated, and decapitated as a form of public entertainment throughout our history. What is a Tennessee Toothpick, after all, but a lethal artifact of the entertainment culture? Dead, Edgar Parlance had a legitimacy that he never had alive. Dead, he had become an icon. Because dead, people did not have to associate with him. He was a victim, a convenient symbol of man’s inhumanity to man, the kind of black man white people can most easily grasp unto themselves. To prove to themselves that the aberrant behavior of the lowest of their kind against the racially less fortunate will not be tolerated. Like limpets, sentiment and innocence attach themselves to a victim. «
John Gregory Dunne (25 mei 1932 – 30 december 2003)
De Duitse schrijver Max von der Grün werd geboren op 25 mei 1926 in Bayreuth. Zie ook alle tags voor Max von der Grün op dit blog.
Uit: Vorstadtkrokodile
»Du traust dich ja doch nicht! Du Angsthase!«, rief Olaf, ihr Anführer. Und die Krokodiler riefen im Chor: »Traust dich nicht! Traust dich nicht!«
Nur Maria, Olafs Schwester, dreizehn Jahre und damit ein Jahr jünger als ihr Bruder, hatte nicht mitgeschrien, sie hatte so viel Angst um Hannes, dass sie wegsah. Die neun Krokodiler standen in einem Halbkreis am Ende der Leiter, die senkrecht zehn Meter hoch zum Dach führte, und sahen gespannt zu, wie Hannes, den sie Milchstraße nannten, weil er so viele Sommersprossen im Gesicht hatte, langsam die Sprossen hochkletterte, um seine Mutprobe abzulegen. Die war Bedingung für die Aufnahme in die Krokodilbande.
Hannes hatte Angst, das konnte man ihm ansehen, er war zudem nicht schwindelfrei, aber er wollte es den größeren Jungen beweisen, dass er als Zehnjähriger so viel Mut besaß wie sie, die alle schon diese Mutprobe abgelegt hatten.
Hannes hing ängstlich an der verrosteten Feuerleiter und wagte nicht nach unten zu sehen.
»Komm runter, du schaffst es ja doch nicht, du Schlappschwanz!«, rief Olaf wieder und die anderen Jungen lachten.
Hannes tastete sich langsam und vorsichtig die wackelige Feuerleiter zum Dach hoch. Je höher er kletterte, destmehr schwankte die Leiter, denn ihre Verankerung war an mehreren Stellen aus der Wand gerissen. Einige Sprossen waren so verrostet, dass Gefahr bestand durchzubrechen, wenn sie belastet wurden. Hannes wagte nicht nach unten zu sehen, er sah nur nach oben, wo er sein Ziel vor Augen hatte.”
Max von der Grün (25 mei 1926 – 7 april 2005)
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Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 25e mei ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.