Louis Bromfield, Wilfrid Sheed, Charles Olson, Serafín Estébanez Calderón, Klaus Hoffer

De Amerikaanse schrijver Louis Bromfield werd geboren op 27. Dezember 1896 in Mansfield, Ohio. Zie ook alle tags voor Louis Bromfield op dit blog.

Uit: Early Autumn

“There was a ball in the old Pentland house because for the first time in nearly forty years there was a young girl in the family to be introduced to the polite world of Boston and to the elect who had been asked to come on from New York and Philadelphia. So the old house was all bedizened with lanterns and bunches of late spring flowers, and in the bare, white-painted, dignified hallway a negro band, hidden discreetly by flowers, sat making noisy, obscene music.
Sybil Pentland was eighteen and lately returned from school in Paris, whither she had been sent against the advice of the conservative members of her own family, which, it might have been said, included in its connections most of Boston.
Already her great-aunt, Mrs. Cassandra Struthers, a formidable woman, had gone through the list of eligible young men – the cousins and connections who were presentable and possessed of fortunes worthy of consideration by a family so solidly rich as the Pentlands. It was toward this end that the ball had been launched and the whole countryside invited, young and old, Spry and infirm, middle-aged and dowdy-toward this end and. with the idea of showing the world that the family had lost none of its prestige for all the lack of young people in its ranks. For this prestige had once been of national proportions, though now it had shrunk until the Pentland name was little known outside New England.
Rather, it might have been said that the nation had run away from New England and the Pentland family, leaving it stranded and almost forgotten by the side of the path which marked an unruly, almost barbaric progress away from all that the Pentland family and the old house represented.
Sybil’s grandfather had seen to it that there was plenty of champagne; and there were tables piled with salads and cold lobster and sandwiches and hot chicken in chafing-dishes. It was as if a family whose whole history had been marked by thrift and caution had suddenly cast to the winds all semblance of restraint in a heroic gesture toward splendor.”

 
Louis Bromfield (27 december 1896 – 18 maart 1956)

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Louis Bromfield, Wilfrid Sheed, Charles Olson, Serafín Estébanez Calderón, Klaus Hoffer

De Amerikaanse schrijver Louis Bromfield werd geboren op 27. Dezember 1896 in Mansfield, Ohio. Zie ook alle tags voor Louis Bromfield op dit blog.

Uit: The Rains Came

“It was the hour of the day that Ransome loved best and he sat on the verandah now, drinking brandy and watching the golden light flood all the banyan trees and the yellow-gray house and the scarlet creeper for one brilliant moment before the sun, with a sudden plunge, dropped below the horizon and left the whole countryside in darkness. It was a magical business which for his northern blood, accustomed to long still blue twilights of Northern England, never lost its strangeness as if suddenly the whole world stood still for a second and then slipped swiftly into an abyss of darkness. For Ransome there was always a shadow of primitive terror in the Indian sunset.
And here in Ranchipur there were other things besides the beauty of the golden light. It was the hour when the air grew still and laden with a heavy scent compounded of the smoke of burning wood and cow dung and of jasmine and marigold and the yellow dust raised by the cattle being driven home from the burnt pasture of the race course on the opposite side of the road, the hour too when distantly one heard the faint thumping of the drums from the burning ghats down by the river beyond the Maharajah’s zoological gardens, when the screaming of the jackals began as they crept to the edge of the jungle waiting for the sudden darkness to bring to their cowardly yellow bodies the courage to start out and seek on the plains what had died during the day. At dawn the greedy vultures would succeed them, coming out of caverns and dung-covered thorn trees, for the beasts which had died during the night. And always at this hour too came the fine thread of sound from John the Baptist’s flute, as he squatted at the gate welcoming the cool of the evening.
John the Baptist sat there now, under the vast greedy banyan which each year sent down branches that bit into the earth, struck root and claimed another square yard or two of garden. Up north, near Peshawar, there was an enormous banyan tree which covered acres, a whole forest which was at the same time a single living tree. “If the world went on long enough,” thought Ransome, “that tree might take possession of all of it, like the evil and stupidity of man slowly, relentlessly, thrusting down branch after branch with all the greediness and tough vigor of life in India.”

 
Louis Bromfield (27 december 1896 – 18 maart 1956)

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Mirza Ghalib, Carl Zuckmayer, Charles Olson, Serafín Estébanez Calderón, Klaus Hoffer

De Indische dichter Mirza Ghalib (eigenlijk Asadullah Baig Khan) werd geboren op 27 december 1796 in Agra. Zie ook alle tags voor Mirza Ghalib op dit blog.

 

Heart it is, not a brick or stone

Heart it is, not a brick or stone
Why shouldn’t it feel the pain?
Let none tyrannize this heart
Or I shall cry again and again
Neither the temple, nor the mosque
Nor on someone’s door or porch
I await on the path where He will tread
Why others should compel me to go?
The illumined grace that lights up the heart
And glows like the midday sun
That Self that annihilates all sights
When then it hides in the mysterious net?
The amorous glance is the deadly dagger
And the arrows of emotions are fatal
Your image may be equally powerful
Why should it appear before you?
The rules of life and bonds of sorrow
In reality are the one manifestation
Before realizing the ultimate truth
How can then one attain liberation?
Love is laden with noble thoughts
Yet what remains is the carnal shame
Trust conscience the still little voice
Why do you want test the rival?
There the pride of modesty resides
Here dwells the social morality
How shall we meet, on which road
Why should he invite me to the abode?
True he is an atheist
Unfaithful and unchaste
Dear to who is faith and heart
Why should he then venture there?
Without the wretched “Ghalib”
Has any activity come to a halt?
What then is the need to cry?
What then is the need to brood?

 


Mirza Ghalib (27 december 1796 – 15 februari 1869)

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Mirza Ghalib, Carl Zuckmayer, Charles Olson, Serafín Estébanez Calderón

De Indische dichter Mirza Ghalib (eigenlijk Asadullah Baig Khan) werd geboren op 27 december 1796 in Agra. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2009.

Uit: The Joy Of The Drop

Ghazal 2

It’s a little hard for things to be easy
when even a man can’t act like a man

What stupidity makes me so dependent on her that an hour early
I run off to see her and get annoyed when she’s not there

My lover is so striking she demands to be seen
the mirror reflects what it can then widens its eye

I have taken to grave the deep scar of happiness
while she stands above in her hundred colors

She promised not to torment me only after killing me
repenting now this woman so quick to repent.

 

Ghazal 3

In the baseness of desire remember
her who has entranced our every sight

Life could have passed on but no
we remember always where the beloved has walked

Those streets are in my thoughts again
where I first lost my heart too young to recall

What sudden madness a lover’s madness is
in the air of the desert I remember my home

As a boy I almost threw stones at that crazed lover
trapped always in desire but at last I remembered

 

Vertaald door Jim Yagmin


Mirza Ghalib (27 december 1796 – 15 februari 1869)

 

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Bob Flanagan, Klaus Hoffer, Mirza Ghalib, Carl Zuckmayer, Charles Olson, Serafín Estébanez Calderón, Malin Schwerdtfeger

De Amerikaanse schrijver en optredend artiest Bob Flanagan werd geboren op 26 december 1952 in New York. Hij leefde in Los Angeles, waar hij werd behandeld in het Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Hij overleed in 1996  43-jarige leeftijd stierf aan mucoviscidose. Bob Flanagan was SM-kunstenaar, bekend en geliefd binnen de SM-wereld en zelfs een beetje daarbuiten. Hij gaf performances en shows als stand-up comedian, maakte beeldende kunst en schreef. Een bevriende filmmaker legde Flanagans laatste jaren vast. Dit resulteerde uiteindelijk in een documentaire: ‘Sick- the life and death of Bob Flanagan – De film is geen freakshow. Het is het naakte verhaal van een mens met een geheel eigen manier van omgaan met CF.

 

Uit: Pain Journal

 

„Back in New York, the Gramercy Park Hotel. Back in bed. Forget what time it is-I mean who cares? It’s been an awful Christmas and an even worse birthday. Me, my whiny, wheezy, grumbling self, scaring the shit out of everyone, acting like I’m going to die at any moment. Still depressed. All I want to do is die-mean cry-I meant to write cry and I wrote die. How Freudian can you get?

*

Birthday party over-thank God. Success from the looks of it. People. Presents. Cake. But me? Where the hell was I? Laid out naked on the Gurney of Nails, big marzipan penis on my stomach, candles blazing. Everybody impressed at the sight of me, I guess-but I wasn’t really on the nails-not all of me-too chicken shit to let go. Couldn’t breathe. My idiot’s lament. Terrified at the sight of Sheree with her big knife, slicing into the marzipan penis-afraid she’d go too far-afraid of accidents, always afraid, so I can’t get into it, like I can’t get into anything these days. Always on the peripheral. Always terrified, exhausted, annoyed, pissed, anxious, out of it-out of the loop, out of my mind, out of time.

*

Horrible stomach aches and nausea. Heavy little shits. Is it the new antidepressant, the Wellbutrin? Don’t know if I’m sick or crazy. Short of breath everywhere I go. Making like I’m dying. Am I exaggerating? Why would I? Who am I trying to impress? All the time thinking I’m going to die, talking myself into a frenzy of phlegm and fatigue. Maybe I’m getting better. Maybe I’m not. Now they say I should exercise. First they say use the wheelchair and conserve your energy. Now they say “exercise.” Exercise/ wheelchair. Exercise/ wheelchair. Hard to know what to do or who I am in it all. And while I’m dwelling on death-Preston, 23 year old from cystic fibrosis summer camp, died a couple of days ago. Funeral tomorrow but I’m not going. Should have called him last week, but what would I have done, wished him luck?“

 

Flanagan

Bob Flanagan (27 december 1952 – 4 januari 1996)

 

De Oostenrijkse schrijver en essayist Klaus Hoffer werd geboren op 27 december 1942 in Graz. Hij studeerde germanistiek, klassieke talen en kunstgeschiedenis in Graz en promoveerde na een verblijf in de VS met een studie over het werk van Franz Kafka. Hij werkte als journalist en leraar. Hij ontving o.a. de Rauriser Literaturpreis en de Alfred-Döblin-Preis.

 

Uit: Die Nähe des Fremden

 

„Ich glaube, da
ss einer der Gründe, die einen dazu bringen, dass man versucht, Schriftsteller zu werden, in der mehrmals nach- und eindrücklich gemachten Erfahrung der Sprachlosigkeit liegt, weil man begreift, dass die Sprache als Vermittlungssystem nicht funktioniert, dass, um es anders, mit Urs Widmer, auszudrücken, der Schriftsteller entdeckt, dass er mit der Sprache nicht zurechtkommt, dass er sie nicht beherrscht.

Ich war immer ein Parteigänger der Ansicht, dass in einer vom Täter unbe­wusst unterstellten Affinität mit dem Opfer der Grund für dessen Verfolgung und Ausrottung zu suchen ist und dass, im Sinne der klassischen Rangdynamik in Gruppen, sozialen Minderheiten Charakterzüge unterstellt werden, die – nach Erik Erikson – zum Bestand der negativen Identität der Mehrheit gehören, zu den in ihre positive Identität unintegrierbaren Charaktereigenschaften, welche die Mehrheit auf die Min­derheit projiziert und ihr anlastet. Jahrhunderte lang raffte man die Besitztümer der Juden mit der Rechtfertigung, diese seien so raffgierig, an sich. Ruth Klüger hat das Phänomen in ihrer autobiographischen Schrift weiter leben auf den Punkt gebracht. Sie stellt fest, dass es gerade jenen, die unermüdlich das Klischee vom goldgierigen jüdischen Shylock propagierten, also gerade den Nazis, vorbehalten blieb, ihren jüdischen Opfern in den Vernichtungslagern in beispielloser Gier noch die Goldzähne auszubrechen.

Umgekehrt, denke ich, führen soziale Minderheiten den „Auftrag“ der Mehrheit aus, das, was diese – in Eriksons Diktion – unterdrücken und verdrängen muss, weil sie es ablehnt oder für unzumutbar hält, zu leben. So arbeiten Minderheiten auch im kulturellen Sinn für die Mehrheit und ergänzen, was diese auslassen muss oder sich erspart. – Man erinnere sich der notorischen – wahrscheinlich ungeheuchelten – Tränen in den Augen von SS-Offizieren beim Klang der aufspielenden Juden- und Zigeuner-Orchester in den KZs, deren Mitglieder Minuten später ins Gas geschickt werden mochten.“

 

Klaus_Hoffer

Klaus Hoffer (Graz, 27 december 1942)

 

 

De Indische dichter Mirza Ghalib (eigenlijk Asadullah Baig Khan) werd geboren op 27 december 1796 in Agra.Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2008.

Let the ascetics sing of the garden of Paradise —

Let the ascetics sing of the garden of Paradise —
We who dwell in the true ecstasy can forget their vase-tamed bouquet.

In our hall of mirrors, the map of the one Face appears
As the sun’s splendor would spangle a world made of dew.

Hidden in this image is also its end,
As peasants’ lives harbor revolt and unthreshed corn sparks with fire.

Hidden in my silence are a thousand abandoned longings:
My words the darkened oil lamp on a stranger’s unspeaking grave.

Ghalib, the road of change is before you always:
The only line stitching this world’s scattered parts.

 

Vertaald door Jane Hirschfeld

 

The drop dies in the river

The drop dies in the river
of its joy
pain goes so far it cures itself

in the spring after the heavy rain the cloud
disappears
that was nothing but tears

in the spring the mirror turns green
holding a miracle
Change the shining wind

the rose led us to our eyes

let whatever is be open

 

Vertaald door W. S. Merwin and Aijaz Ahmad

MirzaGhalib

Mirza Ghalib (27 december 1796 – 15 februari 1869)

 

 

De Duitse schrijver Carl Zuckmayer werd op 27 december 1896 geboren in Nackenheim am Rhein. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2006 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2008.

 

Uit: Geheimreport

 

“Nach der Tragödie Furtwängler – das Satyrspiel und die Rüpelkomödie: Emil. Ich muss vorausschicken, dass ich in diesem Fall Partei bin. Ich liebe die alte Sau. – Es geht mir hier, wie dem zu früh verstorbenen Conrad Veidt, dem der Emil seine erste Frau, die grande diseuse Gussy Holl, weggeheiratet hat, und der einmal sagte: »Das Dumme ist – ohne die Holl kann man ja auskommen, – aber ohne den Emil kann man auf die Dauer nicht leben.« – Daran ist etwas Wahres, – obwohl »die Holl« eine bezaubernde und hinreissende Frau war, – ausser der Massary hatte keine andere mehr diese ganz grosse – fast noch offenbachsche – Tradition und artistische Vollkommenheit des »leichten Stils«, – dabei ist sie ein sehr natürlicher, lebensvoller, starker und leidenschaftlicher Mensch, gescheit wie der Teufel, resolut und weiblich, Dame und »Kerl« zugleich, geistvoll, reizvoll, weltläufig und mit allen Humoren gesegnet, – selbst aus ihrer »Kälte« konnte in der Beziehung zu den paar Menschen, die sie gern hatte, ein merkwürdiges, knisterfunkendes Feuer schlagen. Aber obwohl meine persönliche Freundschaft mit ihr, die ich seit 1920 kannte, im Grund tiefer und enger war als die mit dem Emil, – wenn ich mich frage wen ich von Beiden am liebsten wiedersehen möchte, würde ich unbedenklich sagen: die alte Sau – nämlich ihn. (Er trägt auch äusserlich eine Art von schmalzbäckigem Saukopf auf den mächtigen Schultern, der aber auch etwas von der kleinäugigen Verschlagenheit, der leisen Tücke und dem plumpen Charme eines Berner Bären hat.) Emil ist vielgehasst, gegen Wenige richtet sich die Unduldsamkeit der Gerechten so fanatisch und mit so humorloser Strenge. Es ist auch verständlich dass viele Emigranten – frühere Freunde die ihn als Verräter empfinden – und besonders die jüdischen – sehr böse auf ihn sind. Aber wenn er verfolgt würde, würde ich ihn wenn irgend möglich verstecken. Dies gehört durchaus zu seinem Charakterbild.

Er ist – obwohl Schauspieler – eine einzigartige Figur, von Rabelais entworfen, von Balzac ausgeführt, von Daumier gezeichnet und von Bruighel gemalt, von Moliere verspottet, von George Grosz karikiert. Dies bezieht sich nicht so sehr auf seine Meriten als Akteur, – die sehr bedeutend sind, – sondern mehr auf seine menschliche, besser gesagt: kreatürliche Erscheinung. Ob er ein Mensch
ist könnte ich nicht genau sagen, – sicher aber eine der amüsantesten Creationen in Herrgotts Bestiarium und Tiergarten.”

 

zuckmeier

Carl Zuckmayer (27 december 1896 – 18 januari 1977)

 

De Amerikaanse dichter Charles Olson werd geboren op 27 december 1910 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Zie ook mijn blog van 27 december 2006  en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2007 en ook mijn blog van 27 december 2008.

 

The Songs of Maximus: Song 1

 

                     colored pictures

of all things to eat: dirty

postcards

               And words, words, words

all over everything

                                              No eyes or ears left

to do their own doings (all

 

invaded, appropriated, outraged, all senses

 

including the mind, that worker on what is

       &nb
sp;                                                          And that other sense

made to give even the most wretched, or any of us, wretched,

that consolation (greased

                                        lulled

even the street-cars

 

song

 

Song 2

 

          all

wrong

            And I am asked—ask myself (I, too, covered

with the gurry of it) where

shall we go from here, what can we do

when even the public conveyances

sing?

          how can we go anywhere,

even cross-town

                         how get out of anywhere (the bodies

all buried

in shallow graves?

 

olson

Charles Olson (27 december 1910 – 10 januari 1970)

 

De Spaanse schrijver Serafín Estébanez Calderón werd geboren op 27 december 1799 in Málaga. In zijn eerste literaire werk, een gedicht, vierde hij de revolutie van 1820. In 1831 verscheen er een dichtbundel onder de naam “El Solitario.”  Zijn belangrijkste werk is Escenas andaluzas (1847). Ook schreef hij een onvoltooide geschiedenis: De la conquista y pirdida de Portugal (1883),

 

Uit: First Love (Vertaald door Emilia Pardo-Bazan)

 

„How old was I then? Eleven or twelve years? More probably thirteen, for before then is too early to be seriously in love; but I won’t venture to be certain, considering that in Southern countries the

heart matures early, if that organ is to blame for such perturbations.

If I do not remember well _when_, I can at least say exactly _how_ my first love revealed itself. I was very fond–as soon as my aunt had gone to church to perform her evening devotions–of slipping into her bedroom and rummaging her chest of drawers, which she kept in admirable order. Those drawers were to me a museum; in them I always came across something rare or antique, which exhaled an archaic and mysterious scent, the aroma of the sandalwood fans which perfumed her white linen. Pin-cushions of satin now faded; knitted mittens, carefully wrapped in tissue paper; prints of saints; sewing materials; a reticule of blue velvet embroidered with bugles, an amber and silver rosary would appear from the corners: I used to ponder over them, and return them to their place. But one day–I remember as well as if it were today–in the corner of the top drawer, and lying on some collars of old lace, I saw something gold glittering–I put in my hand, unwittingly crumpled the lace, and drew out a portrait, an ivory miniature, about three inches long, in a frame of gold.

I was struck at first sight. A sunbeam streamed through the window and fell upon the alluring form, which seemed to wish to step out of its dark background and come towards me. It was the most lovely creature, such as I had never seen except in the dreams of my adolescence. The lady of the portrait must have been some twenty odd years; she was no simple maiden, no half-opened rosebud, but a woman in the full resplendency of her beauty. Her face was oval, but not too long, her lips full, half-open and smiling, her eyes cast a languishing side-glance, and she had a dimple on her chin as if formed by the tip of Cupid’s playful finger.“

 

estebane_calderon

Serafín Estébanez Calderón (27 december 1799 – 5 februari 1867)

 

Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 27 december 2008.

De Duitse schrijfster Malin Schwerdtfeger werd geboren op 27 december 1972 in Bremen.