Robert Pinsky, Belle van Zuylen, Lewis Grizzard

De Amerikaanse dichter, vertaler en essayist Robert Pinsky werd geboren op 20 oktober 1940 in Long Branch, New Jersey. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 oktober 2009 en ook mijn blog van 20 oktober 2010

 

Shirt

The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,

The nearly invisible stitches along the collar

Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians

Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break

Or talking money or politics while one fitted

This armpiece with its overseam to the band

Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,

The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,

The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze

At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.

One hundred and forty-six died in the flames

On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes–

The witness in a building across the street

Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step

Up to the windowsill, then held her out

Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.

And then another. As if he were helping them up

To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.

A third before he dropped her put her arms

Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held

Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once

He stepped up to the sill himself, his jacket flared

And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,

Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers–

Like Hart Crane’s Bedlamite, “shrill shirt ballooning.”

Wonderful how the patern matches perfectly

Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked

Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme

Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,

Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans

Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of Ossian,

To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed

By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,

Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers

to wear among the dusty clattering looms.

Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,

The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the sorter

Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton

As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:

George Herbert, your descendant is a Black

Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma

And she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit

And feel and its clean smell have satisfied

both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality

Down to the buttons of simulated bone,

The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters

Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,

The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.

 


Robert Pinsky (Long Branch, 20 oktober 1940)

 

De Nederlandse schrijfster Belle van Zuylen werd op 20 oktober 1740 geboren in slot Zuylen, gemeente Maarssen bij Utrecht. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 oktober 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Belle van Zuylen op dit blog.

 

Uit: De geschiedenis van Caliste

„Brief II

Mijnheer,

U leek gisteren zoo bedroefd, dat ik niet kan nalaten u te vragen welke reden tot verdriet u heeft. U zult misschien niet geneigd zijn het te zeggen, maar u zult me niet kwalijk kunnen nemen het gevraagd te hebben; sinds gisteren heb ik slechts uw beeld voor den geest. Mylord komt ons bijna elken dag bezoeken. Weliswaar blijft hij gewoonlijk slechts een oogenblik. Komt het u voor dat men er in Lausanne op begint te letten en dat men mij kan gispen omdat ik hem ontvang? Gij kent hem voorzoover het mogelijk is een jongmensch te kennen; gij kent zijn ouders en hun zienswijze. Ongetwijfeld hebt gij in het hart van Cécile gelezen; zeg mij welke gedragslijn ik moet volgen. Ik ben, mijnheer, uw zeer onderdanige en gehoorzame dienaresse.“

 


Belle van Zuylen (20 oktober 1740 – 27 december 1805)

Pasteltekening uit 1771 door Maurice-Quentin de la Tour

 

De Amerikaanse (humoristische) schrijver en columnist Lewis McDonald Grizzard Jr. werd geboren op 20 oktober 1946 in Columbus, Georgia. Zie ook mijn blog van 20 oktober 2008 en ook mijn blog van 20 oktober 2010

 

Uit: All Booked Up (Column)

„Somewhere in the USA – This begins my third straight week on the road in search of publicity for a book. Some observations:

It really doesn’t matter how long it takes to fly from one place to another anymore. Once an airplane is in the air, it goes about as fast as I want it to go.

What is of consequence today, however, is how long it will take to get the plane into the air in the first place.

I’ve been in an airplane every day for two weeks, and not a single one has taken off on time. There are traffic delays, weather delays, mechanical delays and delays where there are no explanations at all.

From the time I left my hotel, it took me eight hours to get from Chicago to Detroit. The flight itself took less than an hour.

What we need in this country are corridor trains that go 150 mph, downtown to downtown. No traffic. Shorter cab rides. Less hassle.

We won’t ever have that, however, because it makes too much sense. No cable TV in Chicago

Do you realize there is no such thing as cable TV in the city of Chicago? Something political, I presume, but where do these people get their wrestling shows without Ted Turner’s Superstation?

Until Friday, I’d never been to Minneapolis before. Now, I know why.

I asked a bellman outside a Miami hotel to call me a cab, it was late in the evening. Just then, I noticed a cab parked across the street.

“Never mind,” I said to the bellman. “There’s a cab across the street.”

“No, no,” said the bellman. “That is a fake cab. You get inside, and the driver takes off somewhere and beats you up and takes your money.”

“Oh.”

At the Marquette Inn in Minneapolis the soap is blue and comes in the shape of a seashell. At the Marriott Marquis in New York the lobby is on the eighth floor.“

 

Lewis Grizzard (20 oktober 1946 – 20 maart 1994)