De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Tennessee Williams (eigenlijk Thomas Lanier Williams) werd geboren in Columbus, Mississippi, op 26 maart 1911. Zie ook alle tags voor Tennessee Williams op dit blog.
Uit: Something Cloudy, Something Clear
“KIP. [extending his hand through the window] Oh. Yes, we met last night. Do you have any drinking water in here?
AUGUST. A bottle of tepid soda.
KIP. Fine. Anything wet but not salty.
CLARE. [to Kip] I’m about to deliver a lecture to him on making concessions in art.
KIP. For or against?
CLARE. I think any kind of artist — a painter like Van Gogh, a dancer like Nijinsky –
AUGUST. Both of them went mad.
CLARE. But others didn’t, refused to make concessions to bad taste and yet managed survival without losing their minds. That’s purity. You’ve got to respect it or not.
Kayal Khanna als Kip in een uitvoering in het Theatre Rhinoceros, San Francisco, 2013
AUGUST. I do, I will. But it will be years before I’ve mastered the craft of my work. I’ll try to survive the time till then.
CLARE. You’re young and strong and healthy. I don’t know your talent, but if you do and it’s good — forget concessions.
AUGUST. You have a rather precocious — knowledge of such things.
CLARE. Had to have that, exigency of –
AUGUST. — Survival?
CLARE. Had to have that early.
AUGUST. Why so early?
CLARE. My family in Newport, Rhode Island, were shocked by my lack of the conventions they valued too much.
KIP. Wow! I’ll continue my exercises. [He returns to the platform. Over the following he begins a series of slow, lyrical warmup exercises which will blend gracefully, later, into the pavane]”.
Tennessee Williams (26 maart 1911 – 25 februari 1983)
Portret door Juan Fernando Bastos, 2005
De Amerikaanse dichter Gregory Corso werd geboren in New York op 26 maart 1930. Zie ook alle tags voor Gregory Corso op dit blog.
The American Way
1
I am a great American
I am almost nationalistic about it!
I love America like a madness!
But I am afraid to return to America
I’m even afraid to go into the American Express—
2
They are frankensteining Christ in America
in their Sunday campaigns
They are putting the fear of Christ in America
under their tents in their Sunday campaigns
They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America
They are televising the gift of healing and the fear of hell
in America under their tents in their Sunday
campaigns
They are leaving their tents and are bringing their Christ
to the stadiums of America in their Sunday
campaigns
They are asking for a full house an all get out
for their Christ in the stadiums of America
They are getting them in their Sunday and Saturday
campaigns
They are asking them to come forward and fall on their
knees
because they are all guilty and they are coming
forward
in guilt and are falling on their knees weeping their
guilt
begging to be saved O Lord O Lord in their Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
and Sunday campaigns
Gregory Corso (26 maart 1930 – 17 januari 2001)
In 1961 in Tangier
De Zuid-Koreaanse dichter en schrijver Hwang Sun-won werd geboren op 26 maart 1915 in Taedong, Zuid-Pyongan, in het hedendaagse Noord-Korea. Zie ook alle tags voor Hwang Sun-won op dit blog.
Uit: A Shower (Vertaald door broeder Anthony van Taizé)
“The white pebble came flying over.
The boy found himself standing up.
Shaking her bobbed hair, she goes running off. She took the path between the reed beds. Then there was nothing but pale reed heads shining bright in the clear autumn sunlight.
The girl would soon reappear on the far side of the reeds. Then he began to think she was taking a long time. Still she did not appear. He stood on tiptoe. And he began to think she was taking an extremely long time.
Far away on the other side of the patch of reeds, a bunch of reeds was moving. The girl was hugging the reeds. Now she was walking slowly. The exceptionally bright sunshine shone on the girl’s reed-like hair. It was as if a reed, not the girl, was walking across the fields.
The boy remains standing there until that reed can no longer be seen. Suddenly he looked down at the pebble she had thrown at him. The moisture had dried. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.
Starting the next day, he came down to the stream a little later. There was no trace of her. A good thing, too.
It was strange, though. As the days without a sign of her went by, somewhere in the boy’s breast a feeling of loneliness was growing. He got into the habit of fingering the pebble in his pocket.
One day, the boy sat down in the middle of the stepping stones, just where the girl had sat playing with the water. He dipped his hand in the water. He wiped his face. He stared into the water. His darkly tanned face looked back at him. He hated it.
The boy grabbed at the face in the water with both hands. Several times he grabbed at it. Then he suddenly sprang up in surprise. Why, the girl is coming, walking in this direction!”
Hwang Sun-won (26 maart 1915-14 september 2000)
De Engels-Ierse schrijver en regisseur Martin McDonagh werd geboren op 26 maart 1970 in Camberwell, Londen. Zie ook alle tags voor Martin McDonagh op dit blog.
Uit: The Lieutenant of Inishmore
„Davey And I wasn’t hairing at all, I was going slow. And a black lump ahead in the road I saw, and what the devil’s that, I said to meself. . .
Donny After you’d rode over him, aye, and then probably reversed!
Davey Ahead in the road, I’m saying, and don’t be slinging reversed at me.
Donny I’ll be slinging what I like!
Davey And I was off me bike be that time anyway and just wheeling it along, and when I saw it was Wee Thomas didn’t I scoop him up and run him into you as quick as me legs could carry me?
Donny The first thing the books say is don’t be moving an accident victim till professional fecking help arrives, and a fool knows that!
Davey Well, I don’t be reading books on cats being knocked down, Donny!
Donny Well, maybe you should, now . . .
Davey Because there are no such books!
Donny . . . And maybe Thomas would still be with us then.
Davey A car it must have been clobbered him.
Donny No cars have been down that road all day, and when do cars ever come down that road? You’re the only bastard comes down that lonely road and why? Because you’re a cowshite eejit with nothing better to do than roar down roads on your mam’s bicycle for no reason other than to feel the wind in that girl’s mop o’ hair of yours!.”
Martin McDonagh (Camberwell, 26 maart 1970)
De Amerikaanse dichter Robert Lee Frost werd geboren op 26 maart 1874 in San Francisco. Zie ook alle tags voor Robert Frost op dit blog.
Flower-Gathering
I left you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?
All for me and not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I’ve been long away.
Gathering Leaves
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?
Robert Frost (26 maart 1874 – 29 januari 1963)
Standbeeld bij de Plymouth State University, New Hampshire
De Duitse schrijver Patrick Süskind werd geboren in Ambach op 26 maart 1949. Zie ook alle tags voor Patrick Süskind op dit blog.
Uit: Der Kontrabass
„Zwölf Kontrabässe, wenn die wollen – theoretisch jetzt –, die können Sie mit einem ganzen Orchester nicht in Schach halten. Schon rein physikalisch nicht. Da können die andern einpacken. Aber ohne uns geht erst recht nichts. Können Sie jeden fragen. Jeder Musiker wird Ihnen gern bestätigen, dass ein Orchester jederzeit auf den Dirigenten verzichten kann, aber nicht auf den Kontrabass. Jahrhundertelang sind Orchester ohne Dirigenten ausgekommen. Der Dirigent ist ja auch musikentwicklungsgeschichtlich eine Erfindung allerjüngsten Datums. Neunzehntes Jahrhundert
(…)
Nein, geboren wird man wirklich nicht zum Kontrabass. Der Weg dorthin führt über Umweg, Zufall und Enttäuschung. Ich darf sagen, dass bei uns im Staatsorchester von acht Kontrabassisten nicht einer ist, den das Leben nicht gebeutelt hätte und dem die Schläge, die es ihm ausgeteilt hat, nicht noch heute ins Gesicht geschrieben stünden. Ein typisches Kontrabassistenschicksal ist zum Beispiel meines: Dominanter Vater, Beamter, unmusisch; schwache Mutter, Flöte, musisch versponnen; ich als Kind liebe die Mutter abgöttisch; die Mutter liebt den Vater; der Vater liebt meine kleinere Schwester; mich liebte niemand – subjektiv jetzt. Aus Hass auf den Vater beschließe ich, nicht Beamter, sondern Künstler zu werden; aus Rache an der Mutter aber am größten, unhandlichsten, unsolistischsten Instrument.“
Patrick Süskind (Ambach, 26 maart 1949)
Cover Hoorspel CD
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 26e maart ook mijn twee blogs van 26 maart 2012.