Tag: Nick McDonell

Nick McDonell, Björn Kuhligk

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: The Council of Animals

“The animals decided to vote. They chose a location more convenient to some than others. It was a vast superyacht, grounded upon a cliff, high above the sea. A bulldog arrived first. He was grizzled, mostly grey, and arthritic. His undershot jaw, however, retained much of its fierce, stubborn strength. He was a determined-looking sort of dog. Limping into the shade of a smashed helicopter—fallen from its place on the yacht’s deck—he sniffed the wind for creatures. He smelled none and so lay down, snout upon paws, to wait. Anticipating the difficulty of the journey, he had left his pack before dawn and was, in fact, early.
Next came a horse, trotting—idiotically, thought the dog—in zigzags, toward the yacht. His almond coat was glossy and his mane was streaked blond from sunshine. A brilliant white stripe ran down his muzzle. He slowed to a panting rest. Catching his breath, he nosed for some-thing to eat in the weeds beside the dog.
“Good afternoon,” said the dog.
“Where are the sugar cubes?”
“Sugar cubes?”
“Sometimes they have sugar cubes.”
“None of them are here.”
The horse appeared to think about this.
“That’s the point,” added the dog.
“Carrots?”
Dog and horse regarded each other for a long moment.
“No carrots either.”
. . . You bloody fool, added the dog, internally.
The horse continued nosing in the weeds. “The cat told me to tell you she’ll be late,” he said, through a mouthful of dandelions.
Before the dog had time to complain about this, the horse snapped his head up in alarm and looked down the promontory. Though it had been agreed no animal should harm another for the duration of the meeting, he could not banish instinct. He smelled the bear before he saw her.
The dog, too. Together they watched her pad along, ropey muscles rolling beneath her fur.
“I thought it would be a snow bear,” whispered the horse.
“Polar bear,” corrected the dog.
This bear was a grizzly, and though certainly fear-some from afar she was not, really, a very strong or well-fed bear. She looked rather scruffy, in fact. Harried.
“Good afternoon,” said the dog, as the bear joined them in the shade.
“Have the others arrived?” asked the bear.
“Not yet,” said the dog.
“The cat told me to tell you she’ll be late,” repeated the horse.
“No surprises there, eh?” said the dog, hoping to befriend the bear.”

 

Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Björn Kuhligk werd geboren op 19 februari 1975 in Berlijn. Zie ook alle tags voor Björn Kuhligk op dit blog.

 

In de landschappen

(voor Peter Wawerzinek)

Men staat aan de kust, onderkoeld
op kliffen, in valleien
overtroefd door pieken

Men heeft twee kamerplanten
ze krijgen water en
deze cactus, die standhoudt

men hoeft niet te wapperen, de was
droogt vanzelf, de twee levens
die men had, daar past een derde op

men staat onder bomen, onder wat
ook anders, daar zit maretak in
dat ziet er verontrustend uit

men wordt getolereerd, een levende gast
met schoenen aan zijn enkel, men is
een domme kluwen, die iets groters wil

 

Vertaald door Frans Roumen

 

Björn Kuhligk (Berlijn, 19 februari 1975)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 18e februari ook mijn blog van 18 februari 2019 en eveneens mijn blog van 18 februari 2018 deel 2.

Nick McDonell, Björn Kuhligk

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: A Friendly Fighting Force (Diary in The London Review of Books, 2020)

“Most wars today are proxy wars. Russia, Iran, the US and others rely on local forces to achieve military goals like annexing Crimea, or defeating Islamic State. Proxies, in turn, exploit foreign interests for their own purposes, and sometimes deal with competing, even warring, interests at the same time. What they never do, it seems, is call themselves proxies. They see themselves instead as allies, even friends, of their patrons. ‘Since 2004, we have been friendly with the American forces,’ Wahida Mohamed al-Jumailyh, a militia leader in Tikrit told me. ‘They even came to our house, and I have pictures of them with me.’ We were having lunch in Baghdad’s Babylon Rotana Hotel, a luxury tower on the banks of the Tigris. Several of her bodyguards sat at the next table, smoking, surfing the web and drinking lemon soda. None wore a uniform: they were paramilitaries. Wahida showed me a US military app on her phone, and selfies in which she’s standing beside American soldiers. Then she showed me photos of herself with a different patron: the Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was assassinated in January by American drones while travelling in a convoy with his patron, Qasim Soleimani. Swiping further, and with a certain amount of pride, she showed me pictures of herself torturing people and desecrating the bodies of her enemies. In one, she raised a fist in triumph over a naked man lashed to the bonnet of a truck. In another, she held aloft a severed head.
Wahida is the daughter of a lorry driver. In 1998, at the age of 16, she married an officer in Saddam Hussein’s Ministry of Defence; after the invasion, he joined the US-backed government. When her husband died in an IED blast in 2007, Wahida began fighting his killers – members of a precursor of Islamic State – in the interests of survival, vengeance and American cash. And so she became a proxy for US forces. Or, as she put it to me, ‘my brothers and I formed a faction, a friendly fighting force.’ When the Americans began to withdraw from Iraq in 2011, Muhandis became a new patron of Wahida’s. Like the Americans, he saw IS and its allies as a threat to Iraq. But he saw the Americans as a threat too: his militia, Kata’ib Hezbollah, often attacked US troops with support from Soleimani and Iran. This didn’t stop Wahida gathering air-strike intelligence for the US military when it returned in force to Iraq in 2014. In the years since, she has been a proxy for both Washington and Tehran.
I haven’t been in touch with Wahida since her American patrons killed her Iranian patrons. I suspect her sympathies lie with Muhandis’s militia, since it’s made up of fellow Iraqis. It’s now being integrated into the Iraqi state as part of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, or al-Hash’d al-Shaabi. When Western commentators talk about proxies in Iraq, they’re usually referring to the Hash’d, which they often describe as ‘Iranian-backed militias’. Certainly some of them are.”

 

Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Björn Kuhligk werd geboren op 19 februari 1975 in Berlijn. Zie ook alle tags voor Björn Kuhligk op dit blog.

 

Horizonbeschouwer

Hier is een bos
daar zijn de bomen
daarin zijn de ringen
daarin slaapt de angst

je geeft een klap met de bijl
en drinkt de harssteen mee

en het lievelingsdier
dat is de aap in de dierentuin
die kun je bezoeken
en hij jou niet

 

Vertaald door Frans Roumen

 

Björn Kuhligk (Berlijn, 19 februari 1975)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 18e februari ook mijn blog van 18 februari 2019 en eveneens mijn blog van 18 februari 2018 deel 2.

Nick McDonell, Björn Kuhligk

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: An Expensive Education

“We do not leave our allies tied to trees! Hatashil had calmed down quickly, though, and delivered a lecture. Misunderstandings happen, he had concluded, but always restrain yourself Moalana had been grateful for Hatashil’s understanding in the face of so great a blunder. Moalana offered Teak a bit of khat. Teak accepted and began to chew. He did not enjoy the bitter taste, like cabbage. “Can I keep one?” he asked. “One bag,” Moalana laughed for the benefit of his men, “how will you keep one?” Before Teak could answer, Moalana cut him off. “Not one,” he said, and his men began loading the cases into the trucks. The boy sitting cross-legged, Teak noticed, had become distracted from robbery and was drawing in the dry dirt with his cleaver. An older boy called to him as the rest of the shifta put the gate back on top of the van and lashed it in place. Moalana waved his hand once from the window of his truck as it passed. Teak spat the khat out and watched them disappear down the track. The whole encounter had taken less than five minutes. The khat cases had worked. He was still in no hurry.
Miles down, hours later, off a track off the track, the scrub dissipated into rocky plain, but first, a blessed stream. On the bank a crooked date palm, a dozen huts, goats, and children like miniature guardian angels. Teak liked the look of it. He parked a hundred yards from the village so as not to further disturb the corraled livestock. A few tattered goats bleated at the Land Cruiser.
From his pocket, a key, and Teak unlocked the glove box, took out a sealed FedEx envelope. He stepped out of the car and stretched his legs, reflecting on the temperature as he put on the wrinkled jacket of his khaki suit. He wore the same thing everywhere, and it was cooler now. Not that he minded the heat. His pale skin had a permanent burn but that was fine with him. A short lifetime of New England winters had been enough. He checked the SIG P220 in his waistband, tucked the FedEx envelope under his arm, and walked to meet the children approaching him through the dry crackle of the burnt grass. Behind them, leaning mothers, knowing disdain. Then the most curious of the children was at his knee, looking up at him. Teak greeted the child in the local dialect, and the child was not old enough to find this strange. “Riddle!” said Teak, grinning whiter teeth than the child had ever seen in a grown-up. “Riddle me!” said the child. “My house has no doors,” said Teak. It was an easy and famous riddle about an egg, but the child was so young that Teak guessed it could be new to him, and he was right. The child ran back to commiserate with his fellows.”

 

Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Björn Kuhligk werd geboren op 19 februari 1975 in Berlijn. Zie ook alle tags voor Björn Kuhligk op dit blog.

 

Tijdens het vrijdaggebed

(voor Katja Krauss)

TIJDENS HET VRIJDAG GEBED
de hoofddoek-gebogen vrouwen
in de velden, vanaf de minaretten
vallen de woorden als kringen om de huizen, ‘s avonds
schakelen sproeiers zichzelf in, de verrotte
kassen, een verzameling
tenten waarvoor twee kinderen bij het vuur
’s avonds het zwembad, integraal verlicht
tot in het lichtblauw, het getjirp van de krekels
in de dorpen staan huizen leeg, op de daken
roestende regentonnen LADIES
AND GENTLEMEN: MR. GERMANY, dan
de clubdans, handen omhoog en rechts en links
en benen wijd, JOUW NAAM OP EEN RIJSTKORREL
de zon seilt, dat weten we hier, zoals elke avond
achter de bergen ab, ZIJ ZULLEN HET NIET VERGETEN
de fotoserie waarin een stel aan zee
en vriendelijk naar het water kijkt
boven de naakte torso’s in de ochtend
drie straaljagers op weg naar het oosten
dan de clubdans, handen omhoog en rechts
en links zo maar iemand neemt de foto

 

Vertaald door Frans Roumen

 

Björn Kuhligk (Berlijn, 19 februari 1975)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 18e februari ook mijn blog van 18 februari 2019 en eveneens mijn blog van 18 februari 2018 deel 2.

Nick McDonell, Björn Kuhligk

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: An Expensive Education

“The shifta, twenty-two of them by Teak’s count, waited for him. They were younger than he expected and rich, with the van and that gate, which they had set up across the track. Might be a particularly shrewd crew, Teak thought. Two men stood directly in front of the gate. One wore camouflage pants and a T-shirt with the D.A.R.E. antidrug logo. The other wore mesh shorts and a khaki safari shirt. Both carried Kalashnikovs. The man in shorts also wore a leather shoulder holster. “Hello,” said Teak, sticking his head out the window as he slowed. Best to use English, lingua idiota. “Checkpoint,” said the man in the antidrug shirt. Teak stopped and let the Land Cruiser idle. He looked off to the sides of the track. He could drive around them but then they might chase him, shoot at his tires, probably miss, but maybe break his windows. Maybe worse. Better to talk. A boy holding a cleaver sat cross-legged on the side of the track, staring at Teak. Strange. Usually no children with the shifta. Teak winked at the child but the child just stared. “Checkpoint?” said Teak, in his best baffled colonial, “on whose authority?” The two men in front looked at each other. Mesh Shorts theatrically drew an old .38 from his shoulder holster. “Authority of General Hatashil,” he said, tapping the rear door of the car with his pistol. “What’s here?” “Shit,” Teak said for their benefit, putting his head in his hands. They opened the doors, pulled the suitcases out onto the dirt, and ripped one open. “You know, there’s a zipper on that you could use,” said Teak. A cheer went up when they saw that grey-green khat filled the case. Teak shook his head. “You have a problem?” asked the shoulder-holster boss. “No,” said Teak, suddenly brightening and extending a hand out the window. “I’m Teak.” “I am Commander Moalana,” said the man in mesh shorts, surprised, briefly taking Teak’s hand in a kind of half shake. Teak smiled at him and Moalana began to stroke his chin. He was almost gleeful, toying with Teak for his men, extremely grateful that this lone man with his bags full of drugs had crossed his path. Moalana’s men had been frustrated that morning. But then, Moalana reflected, they’re frustrated all the time. He could take the car, too, but orders were orders. Restraint, Hatashil had said. After they had killed that last man as a spy, Hatashil had been angry.”

 

Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Björn Kuhligk werd geboren op 19 februari 1975 in Berlijn. Zie ook alle tags voor Björn Kuhligk op dit blog.

 

Liefde in de tijden van de EU

Zoals een grenswachter weer
een lijn trekt, dat moet, er
mag geschoten worden, dat
moet, er mag worden gefilmd

hoe wereldvreemd dit continent is
met sterretjes op de revers, hoe het
de verdediging opbouwt, mama doet
nog snel de afwas

toen in het zuiden de eerste gymschoenen
werden aangespoeld, later twee drie
tweevoeters werden opgevist, dat moet
er mag worden teruggeschoten

 

Vertaald door Frans Roumen

 

Björn Kuhligk (Berlijn, 19 februari 1975)

 

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 18e februari ook mijn blog van 18 februari 2019 en eveneens mijn blog van 18 februari 2018 deel 2.

Nick McDonell, Robbert Welagen, Bart FM Droog, Maarten Mourik, Huub Beurskens, Toni Morrison, Elke Erb, Gaston Burssens, Rudolf Kögel

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: The Bodies in Person

“I didn’t always think this way. I’m an American born in 1984, and halfway through my life my country went to war abroad. For a combination of reasons not unusual among young men. I went too. After the initial bloom of romance around working in places where America was at war, hoping to get shot at without getting shot. I believed the best path was to channel local populations in writing and scrub my voice as much as possible from the pages. I’ve attempted that a few times, tried also to launch projects that move resources faster than words on a screen. But life splinters plans, and ten years into visiting these places and thinking about my own country it’s clear to me that some other kind of reckoning is due. Since autumn of 2001, after nineteen men hijacked and crashed pas-senger jets into skyscrapers in New York, a military headquarters in Washington, D.C., and an open field bordered by conifers in Pennsylva-nia, America has been killing civilians in Afghanistan. For nearly as long, and in earlier wars, it has been killing them in Iraq. No one dis-putes this. The dispute is only over how many, why, and whether the why justifies the killing. Some say America is benevolent, a force for good. Others say it’s a brutal empire. Many observe complexity, and many more are not interested in thinking about these questions at all.
Like prayer, I’ll state here at the beginning that America, Iraq, Afghanistan. and all the others represent incomprehensible multitudes and that the first step away from a person’s name is the first step toward killing him without thinking too much about it. So I want to avoid the general. but I also know it to be pan of our minds, and a nec-essary element of progress. In terms of the specific: Endnotes provide sources and additional context, along with some ideas better separated from the rest of the book—but still important to it, and to me. Through-out, italicized quotations are taken from my notes and memory; direct quotations are taken from scenes and interviews I recorded in person. Some were beautiful, some awful. When I was daunted, I often looked to the natural world for comfort. Especially on beginning trips of uncer-tain outcome.’
T began several trips like that in the tidy city of Erbil. Kurdistan. north-ern Iraq. Erbil’s not at all like the frantic Hollywood movies about the Middle East. The airport is better than John F. Kennedy International. New York’s main airport. The streets are dusty but otherwise clean, people hang out in malls. For a while, most foreign reporters covering the war in Iraq were based in Erbil. I stayed in the Classy Hotel. The name was funny in a way you never had to explain. There was a short pool in the basement in which I swam laps while a vastly obese Iraqi gentleman watched his son bob on inflat-able water wings. The lobby was a popular meeting place for contrac-tors, aid workers, and war profiteers. only a few hours’ drive from the fighting by a good road across the Nineveh Plains. The best-known American newspapers kept correspondents in residence. I stayed on a discount rate, courtesy of a friend, a bureau chief at the time. I was grateful for the discount. Reporting was expensive and the eco-nomics of media were, and remain, uncertain. In fact, as I have been writing this book, the company that paid for it—Penguin Random House.”

 


Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

 

De Nederlandse schrijver Robbert Welagen werd geboren in Dordrecht op 18 februari 1981. Zie ook alle tags voor Robbert Welagen op dit blog.

Uit: Nachtwandeling

“Inspecteur Mudde staat op wanneer het licht wordt. Aan het aanrecht drinkt hij een glas water terwijl hij door het keukenraam uitkijkt over de velden achter zijn huis. De polder, het riet, in de verte koeien. De lente is laat gekomen dit jaar en de koeien staan pas sinds een paar dagen in de wei. Hij loopt naar buiten en snuift in de tuin de ochtendlucht op. Na een kop koffie en het ontbijt stapt Mudde in de auto. Met Jochie – een bruine, acht jaar oude retriever – op de passagiersstoel rijdt hij naar het bos. Alle parkeervakken zijn leeg. Hij stapt uit en maakt het andere portier open, waarna Jochie naar buiten springt en wegrent. Mudde loopt achter hem aan. De zon schijnt door de lichtgroene blaadjes, het roffelen van een specht klinkt van ergens hoog tegen een boomstam en hij heeft zin om een heel eind te gaan wandelen. Hij is nog maar tien minuten op pad als zijn telefoon gaat. Bureau staat er op het schermpje. Hij zucht en neemt op.
‘Ja?’
‘Ook goedemorgen, Mudde,’ zegt de wachtcommandant.
‘Ja ja. Zeg het maar.’
‘We hebben een verdacht overlijden.’
‘Godverde…’
Om hem heen alleen maar bomen en wind, uit de telefoon komen geluiden van het bureau: stemmen, overgaande telefoons, een dichtvallende deur.
‘Die schrijver die gisteravond nog op het nieuws was.’ ‘Welke schrijver?’ zegt Mudde.
‘Je hebt het nieuws niet gevolgd, dat hoor ik al.’
Gisteravond is Mudde naar bed gegaan toen het donker werd. Hij gaat met het lenteritme mee. Als het rustig is op zijn werk kan hij de dagelijkse dingen overlaten aan brigadier Kramer.
‘Kun je Peterse er niet op zetten?’
‘Die is al bezig met die verkrachting.’

 


Robbert Welagen (Dordrecht, 18 februari 1981)

 

De Nederlandse dichter Bart FM Droog werd geboren in Emmen op 18 februari 1966. Zie ook alle tags voor Bart FM Droog op dit blog.

 

ZOMERTOUR 2000

Rijden tanken rijden
eten rijden tanken
rijden eten slapen

lullen zwemmen slapen
lullen eten zuipen
slapen eten lullen

zwemmen lullen eten
knallen zuipen slapen
eten lullen zwemmen

rijden tanken rijden
tanken eten rijden
tanken rijden zuipen

slapen rijden knallen
rijden eten knallen
zuipen slapen rijden.

 

INTERCONTINENTAL

Omhoog naar het blauwe
zonovergoten hoge
angels-thirty vrije
hemelse peil

met naast je je engel
en voor je je drank
beneden is Aarde
en weerlicht het wit

met naast je je engel
en voor je de dagen
die waren en zullen
het razen van wielen

op lucht- en snelwegen
ons wachten de dagen
van kicken en knallen
van ontdekken en feesten

wereld, we zijn onderweg.

 


Bart FM Droog (Emmen, 18 februari 1966)

 

De Nederlandse dichter, publicist en diplomaat Maarten Mourik werd geboren in Streefkerk op 18 februari 1923. Zie ook alle tags voor Maarten Mourik op dit blog.

 

Jericho

De stage ommegangen van Uw stille kracht
hebben de torens van mijn trots ten val gebracht.
en Uw trompetten voor het heilssignaal gestoken.
hebben de muren van mijn ongeloof doorbroken.
Nu lig ik weerloos voor U open en verwacht
genadige bezetting door Uw liefdemacht.

 

De vogels

Vanochtend vroeg. het was maar nauwlijks licht –
jij droomde nog. hoe lief was je gezicht
hebben zingende vogels mij gewekt:
je scheemrendd blanke lijf lag ongedekt.
Er floten merels en er koerden duiven.
ik zag de toppen van de bomen wuiven …
Zachtjes heb ik je op je mond gekust
en toen je ontwaakte weer in slaap gesust.

Toen ik veel later opstond was het koor
van vogelstemmen weer verstomd, maar ‘k hoor
vandaag voortdurend nog hun blije zingen:
het legt een glanslicht over alle dingen.

 


Maarten Mourik (18 februari 1923 – 30 september 2002)

 

De Nederlandse dichter,vertaler en schilder Huub Beurskens is geboren in Tegelen op 18 februari 1950. Zie ook alle tags voor Huub Beurskens op dit blog.

 

Kier

De brug heet daar en toen de tweede brug.
Ik ben er gekomen langs het kolenspoor
en klim de helling op. Ik moet terug.
Beneden loopt het beekje vrolijk door.

De brug lijkt niet voor het verkeer gemaakt,
al zie ik er een bord met wit en rood.
Hier is een weg zichzelf ooit kwijtgeraakt:
naar beide zijden loopt het brugdek dood.

Ik stap door borsthoog gras naar het plankier.
Tussen mijn voeten door zie ik de rails.
Een brug verbindt, maar dit hier is een kier.

Een stoomtrein komt voorbij en gilt luidkeels.
Ik sta in wolken rook en stoom gehuld,
bangblij van mijn afwezigheid vervuld.

 

Twijg

Mijn vader liet mij toen zijn wandelstok.
Hij wist dat niet, mijn moeder gaf hem mij
de avond van zijn dood. Hij liep weer vrij:
de grote houten wijzer van een klok.

Begin april. Ik zie zijn stok daar staan,
al twintig jaren, schuin tegen de muur,
de schoorsteen: eerst nest, nu graf van vuur.
Vlam van bloei en hout van gloed ontdaan.

Het voorjaar wacht in elke knop, geboeid.
Voor woorden heeft de winter zich behoed,
maar zich als sneeuw bewaren kon hij niet.

Begin van brand die uit de botten schiet;
betekenis uit wit, die ik op slag vermoed;
een stok wordt twijg in wat hier gloeit en groeit.

 


Huub Beurskens (Tegelen, 18 februari 1950)
Château Holtmühle, Tegelen

 

De Afro-Amerikaansschrijfster Toni Morrison werd geboren op 18 februari 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Zie ook alle tags voor Toni Morrison op dit blog.

Uit: Jazz

“Sth, I know that woman. She used to live with a flock of birds on Lenox Avenue. Know her husband, too. He fell for an eighteen-year-old girl with one of those deepdown, spooky loves that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, “I love you.”
The snow she ran through was so windswept she left no footprints in it, so for a time nobody knew exactly where on Lenox Avenue she lived. But, like me, they knew who she was, who she had to be, because they knew that her husband, Joe Trace, was the one who shot the girl. There was never anyone to prosecute him because nobody actually saw him do it, and the dead girl’s aunt didn’t want to throw money to helpless lawyers or laughing cops when she knew the expense wouldn’t improve anything. Besides, she found out that the man who killed her niece cried all day and for him and for Violet that is as bad as jail.
Regardless of the grief Violet caused, her name was brought up at the January meeting of the Salem Women’s Club as someone needing assistance, but it was voted down because only prayer–not money–could help her now, because she had a more or less able husband (who needed to stop feeling sorry for himself), and because a man and his family on 134th Street had lost everything in a fire. The Club mobilized itself to come to the burnt-out family’s aid and left Violet to figure out on her own what the matter was and how to fix it.
She is awfully skinny, Violet; fifty, but still good looking when she broke up the funeral. You’d think that being thrown out the church would be the end of it–the shame and all–but it wasn’t. Violet is mean enough and good looking enough to think that even without hips or youth she could punish Joe by getting herself a boyfriend and letting him visit in her own house. She thought it would dry his tears up and give her some satisfaction as well. It could have worked, I suppose, but the children of suicides are hard to please and quick to believe no one loves them because they are not really here.”

 


Toni Morrison (Lorain, 18 februari 1931)
Cover

 

De Duitse dichteres en schrijfster Elke Erb werd geboren op 18 februari 1938 in Scherbach in de Eifel. Zie ook alle tags voor Elke Erb op dit blog.

 

EIN ZAHMER KONJUNKTIV

Die Straßenbahn kommt nicht Hält nicht Schließt die Tür
bevor du das Trittbrett erreichst.

Etwas ist kompliziert, nicht unkompliziert.
Wäre es unkompliziert, könntest du … Das Herz eine Katze

auf dem Sprung Ereignislos
steht der Erlenstamm von oben bis unten.

Eine Straßenbahn kommt nicht
Das sollte nicht sein

Allerhand Logiken
Mit dem Rücken zu dir Mit Messer und Gabel vor sich

Gelegentlich miaut etwas Klappert
Ohr du und Gegend.

 

Urspüngliche Akkumulation

Ameisenstaat: Unterbringung. People-Verkehr.
Unds stiefelt. Verfrachtet. Nachtdunkle, nachtleere
Arbeiterviertel. Abträglichkeit, schartig, in allem.

Augen: Mary vom Lande
weiß durch Jahrhunderte nicht,
daß sie vom Land ist.

Kein Auf-Bau, kein Über-.
Das Heimchen die Geige.

Wolke, wohin du gewolkt bist.
Ein herrlicher Maitag – mir im Gemüte.

Augen: Robin von der Plantage
ist nicht mehr Unter-, doch auch kein Einbau:
Wies so geht macht sichs.
Worte Architekturinfektion sieche Strukturelemente.
Zivilisation blank – das „Wesen des Gartens“.

Die Absicht, den Moloch zu modeln
(Problemannahme und -knete)
verloren. Disteln geköpft. 

 

 
Elke Erb (Scherbach, 18 februari 1938)

 

De Vlaamse dichter en schrijver Gaston Burssens werd geboren in Dendermonde op 18 februari 1896. Zie ook alle tags voor Gaston Burssens op dit blog.

 

Merellied

Reeds is de zon in purperbrons gezonken
en sleept na zich een laan van gloed,
die ’t landschap verwt in kleurenpracht en ’t haantje
van de toren fonklen doet….
Daarna, in ’t nakend, fluistrend avondslomen,
gewiegd door ’t ruisen van het riet,
weerklinkt uit malse, volle merelborste,
het malse, volle merellied:
het gallemt in de plecht’ge avondstand;
met lieflijk stijgend geborrel,
en ’t schalt en ’t schalt en ’t zijpelt door de lucht,
met rollend, orgelend gescharrel;
en ’t wijfje galmt hem tegen, guitig-lief,
als helder tokkelende bronne.
En samen gorgelen z’een lied, een lied
van kalme, stille levenszonne….

 

Ontsnapping

De spijker van mijn lichaam is verroest.
De suiker opgelost in vet en water.
De spijker heb ik in mijn kist geslagen.
Mijn kist met zeep en water opgepoetst.

Dies is van mij niet méér gebleven
dan niets [maar met een majuscuul].
Of niets. Wat zit ik hier dan te beweren?
Zoiets is radicaal òf ridicuul.

Welnee. Welnee. Gezelle zei het reeds:
‘Niets is een kouse voeteloos
en zonder been d’r an’.

Wat dan?
Zo’n Niets is zo maar niets. Het is het iets
dat ons altijd nog juist ontsnappen kan.

 


Gaston Burssens (18 februari 1896 – 29 januari 1965)
Portret door Jan Brussens, z.j.

 

De Duitse dichter, theoloog en predikant Johannes Theodor Rudolf Kögel werd geboren op 18 februari 1829 in Birnbaum. Zie ook alle tags voor Rudolf Kögel op dit blog.

 

Im Kleinsten das Größte

Der Sterne Glanz erhebt mich von der Erde,
Doch schöner träumt sich’s noch am Flackerherde.

Das weite Meer — wie hold ist seine Bläue,
Doch holder eines Menschenauges Treue.

In alle Fernen will der Mensch zerfließen,
Doch süßer ist’s, den Freund ans Herz zu schließen.

Dem Frieden, den die Himmel nicht umrahmen,
Die Treu” im Kleinen wird ihm Wiege. Amen.

 

Einem kranken Freunde

Der Wein erfreut des Menschen Herz.
Er ringt sich durch die arme Rebe
Aus finsterer Erde überwärts,
Daß er den Trank der Labung gebe.

Der Wein erfreut des Menschen Herz,
Wie golden glänzt die sonnige Traube!
Doch wird sie unter Not und Schmerz
Gepreßt durch harte Kelterschraube.

Der Wein erfreut des Menschen Herz.
Im dunklen Keller muß er liegen.
Die Glut in des pokales Erz
Ist aus der Gruft emporgestiegen.

Der Wein erfreut des Menschen Herz.
Du, Herr, wirst mich aus Dunkelheiten,
Nach mancher Prüfung himmelwärts,
Zum ewigen Hochzeitsmahl geleiten.

 

 
Rudolf Kögel (18 februari 1829 – 2 juli 1896)

 

 Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 18e februari ook mijn blog van 18 februari 2018 deel 2.

Nick McDonell, Robbert Welagen, Bart FM Droog, Maarten Mourik, Huub Beurskens, Gaston Burssens, Toni Morrison, Elke Erb, Charlotte Van den Broeck

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: The Third Brother

“When dinner started, the children would go to the playroom and eat with the nannies. They lounged on heavy couches, watching movies until they fell asleep and the nannies went outside for cigarettes. Lyle especially loved these dinners and made a point of talking to everybody, lingering in the dining room rather than watching movies with the other children. He loved listening to adults talk. So did Mike, but he knew he didn’t understand the way his older brother did. The adults sat and drank wine and laughed and smiled at one another in the fall candlelight. Many of them had started families late or had been married once before and had only recently started new ones. Jobs were interesting; there was much travel. There was a lot to talk about, and the subtext was that they were lucky to have the lives they had. Mike remembered everyone being very happy.
Before one of these dinners, Lyle decided that he and Mike would be spies. Lyle had gotten a small tape recorder, only a toy really, for his birthday earlier that fall. Their plan was to hide it in the dining room to record the dinner conversation. While the servants were setting up, and Mike’s mother was upstairs dressing, and Mike’s father was out walking along the ocean, Lyle and Mike secured the tape recorder under the table with duct tape. As the guests arrived and had drinks, the boys slid between them and crawled under the table and switched on the recorder. They were very excited all through dinner, but they didn’t tell any of the other children what they were up to. By dessert, Mike couldn’t wait any longer. He wanted to go get the recorder. No, said Lyle, they’ll be there for a long time. Let’s just look. When they peeked around the dining room door, Elliot Analect saw them and held up the tape recorder, which he must have found much earlier, maybe when he first sat down. Analect wasn’t a regular guest at these dinners. He was usually abroad somewhere. At this point he was a correspondent in East Asia, and Mike’s father was especially glad to have him for Thanksgiving. Mike’s mother didn’t like Analect. Mike didn’t know this the way Lyle did, but he had a sense of it too. When Analect held up the recorder Mike knew instantly they would be in trouble. He saw the way the adults laughed but didn’t think it was funny. One of them, drunker than the rest and not a very good friend of Mike’s parents, was even a little angry. Mike remembered that he worked for one of the networks. Their mother was embarrassed and that always made her cross as well. Mike’s father called the boys over and tried to set things right by giving them a talk in front of the table that was both funny and serious. Analect removed the tape from the recorder and put it in his pocket.“

 

 
Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

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Nick McDonell, Robbert Welagen, Bart FM Droog, Maarten Mourik, Huub Beurskens, Gaston Burssens, Toni Morrison, Elke Erb, Charlotte Van den Broeck

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: The Third Brother

“Mike tries to decode this and can’t. Analect tells him again to stay out of trouble and that Bishop will take care of him. It seems to Mike that Bishop is pleased to have the help, but that there is more to it. When they are leaving the office, Analect tells Mike to wait for a moment, and when they are alone, he tells Mike that Dorr had been a friend of Mike’s father, years ago. That they had all been good friends, actually, the three of them practically brothers, and that Mike’s father would be glad for news of Dorr.
Mike looks out the window. He notices for the first time how really extraordinary the view from Analect’s office is. Mike can see the whole city, enormous and smogged and throbbing. For a moment he can’t believe the sound of it doesn’t blow in the windows. But Analect’s office sits quietly above it all, humming coolly. Mike is suddenly uneasy, with only the inch of glass between the two of them and the loud, empty space above the city. He looks back at Analect, who is frowning.
“Dorr and your father were sparring partners, when they boxed back in college,” says Analect.
Mike looks back out over the city. He knew about the boxing, but his father had never mentioned Dorr. It all surprises him, but maybe it’s just seeing his own features reflected in the glass, and the long drop to Hong Kong from fifty stories up.
When Mike was a small boy, his parents often entertained. In New York City in their world, they were famous for the dinners they gave in their big beach house at the end of Long Island, especially Thanksgiving. Mike remembered the candlelight and gluey cranberry sauce, which he would wipe off his hands into his hair. His older brother, Lyle, remembered the same things. There were servants, who disciplined Mike when his parents did not. One Filipino lady in particular boxed his ears. When he was older he remembered how it hurt but not her name. Their parents gave these dinners several years in a row. There were mostly the same guests, adults who would tousle Mike’s fine but cranberried hair, and their children, a crew of beautiful, spoiled playmates whom Mike assumed he would know forever. He still saw some of them, at parties and dinners of their own on school breaks. At hearing that one or two of them had slid into addiction, Mike would remember chasing them through his mother’s busy kitchen. His mother was never in the kitchen, of course, but it was definitely hers. Small paintings of vegetables and an antique mirror hung on its walls.”

 

 
Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

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Nick McDonell, Robbert Welagen, Bart FM Droog, Maarten Mourik, Huub Beurskens, Gaston Burssens, Charlotte Van den Broeck

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: The End of Major Combat Operations

“Ricky was an interpreter who chain-smoked and always carried several packs of cigarettes. He was generous with his smokes, would shake one out for you each time you reached for your pack. His hands shook when he offered you one, though; Ricky seemed sometimes like he wanted something back. The guys he rode with liked him. He was a source of fun because of his nerves, but he played along with the jokes.
The strangest thing about Ricky was the way he perspired. The guys in the truck agreed that they had never seen anything like it. Ricky dripped. His hair was always damp. When he turned his head quickly, the saltwater sprayed off him. The canvas of his seat in the MRAP was always stained.
Ricky, like most terps, rotated between his company’s platoons, but recently everyone in the 1-12’s Bull company had been seeing more of him than usual. He had moved onto the FOB full time. In fact, he was living on a cot outside one of the lieutenant’s rooms. This particular LT, Drew Masone, was a broad twenty-three-year-old from Levittown, Long Island, distinguished most clearly by his tolerant nature. He only shook his head about Ricky, didn’t say that he was stinking up the hallway even though he was, lying on his cot in his undershirt whenever he wasn’t standing outside, smoking, saying hello too many times.
Most terps went home every couple of weeks. There was, sometimes, joking between them and the soldiers about how the terps could go home and get laid and have a beer up in Kurdistan. The platoons rotated the fortnightly “terp drop,” a boring and simple mission. The terps left their camo behind and piled into the back of the MRAP, often with a small refrigerator or television set or bag of clothes that they had procured in the previous two weeks of patrols. Then the patrol mounted up and drove north to a deserted stretch of road in Kurdistan where a couple of beat-up sedans idled. The terps would quickly dismount and load their stuff into the sedans and speed off down the road. Terp drop was easy and tedious for the GIs, but for the terps it was more important than almost anything else. It was transit between worlds. What if the wrong person saw them? What if they were followed? What if they brought the mayhem and killing back home?”

 
Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

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Nick McDonell, Toni Morrison, Robbert Welagen, Bart FM Droog, Maarten Mourik, Huub Beurskens, Gaston Burssens

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: The Third Brother

“So Mike is glad when the assignment comes, even though he is very surprised. He had been watching again, and Analect had been standing in conversation with Bishop for nearly ten minutes. Mike had been looking closely through the glass-he sensed the men were angry with one another-when Bishop suddenly turned and opened the door. Mike feared he was caught, but then Bishop waved him into the office and Analect asked if he wanted to go to Bangkok. “Help Tommy with some reporting,” as he put it.
Bishop nods slightly at Mike. Bishop is a small man, with fat features and prematurely graying black hair.
“The story, is backpacker kids going to Bangkok to do ecstasy,” Analect says. “Just don’t get arrested.”
“He doesn’t want to have to retrieve you,” Bishop says.
“It’s really just a travel story, is another way to look at it,” Analect goes on.
“Just a travel story,” Bishop repeats, chuckling.
“You’re their age,” Analect continues, “the backpackers’. You’ll be good at talking to them. Ask questions. It can be your story too. And one other thing I’ve already explained to Tommy …”
Mike catches Bishop rolling his eyes.
“… I want you to find Christopher Dorr.”
Mike can’t place the name.
“He used to do a lot of the investigative pieces Tommy does now,” Analect says, looking straight at him, seeming almost to ignore Bishop. “He’s been in Bangkok for a while, I think. It’d be good for someone from the magazine to look him up.”

 
Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)

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Nick McDonell, Toni Morrison, Robbert Welagen, Bart FM Droog, Huub Beurskens, Gaston Burssens

De Amerikaanse schrijver Nick McDonell werd geboren op 18 februari 1984 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nick McDonell op dit blog.

Uit: Twelve

“And White Mike ran after them, barking and howling, and Hunter ran after him, and White Mike let them get away after a couple blocks. Hunter put White Mike in a cab, but he had to convince the cabbie to take White Mike, and pay him in advance. The cabbie was jumpy and looked in the mirror at White Mike the whole ride. White Mike had his head out the window, staring at the pedestrians. When White Mike got home and collapsed in his bed with his shoes and clothes still on, his last thought before sleep was Why not? He had been awake for three days.
White Mike gets out of a cab on Seventy-sixth Street and Park Avenue. He looks at the number of the cab: 1F17. He memorizes the number every time he gets out of a cab, in case he leaves anything behind. This has never happened.
Down Park Avenue there are Christmas lights wrapped around all the trees and bushes, and the wires give the snow better purchase, so the frost hangs low from the branches. When the lights turn on at night the trees almost disappear between the bulbs, and the disembodied points of light outline jagged constellations in the dark air. It is getting past dusk, and White Mike remembers one night, years ago, when his mother was still alive and she sat on the edge of his bed, tucking him in for the night, and told him about Chaos Theory. White Mike remembers exactly what she said. The story she told him was about how if a butterfly died over a field in Brazil and fell to the ground and made a mouse move or a tiny shoot of grass bend, then everything might be different here, thousands and thousands of miles away.
“How come?”,he asked.
“Well, if one thing happens and changes something else, then that thing changes something else, right? And that change could come all the way around the world, right here to you in your bed.” She tweaked his nose.”Did a butterfly do that?”
“Did the butterfly die?”,he asked her back.
The lights on Park Avenue suddenly turn on. White Mike can feel his beeper vibrating again.”

 
Nick McDonell (New York, 18 februari 1984)
Chace Crawford als Mike in de film “Twelve” uit 2010

Lees verder “Nick McDonell, Toni Morrison, Robbert Welagen, Bart FM Droog, Huub Beurskens, Gaston Burssens” →