Remco Campert, Malcolm Lowry, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Stephan Sanders, Drew Karpyshyn, John Ashbery, Colin Higgins, Józef Kraszewski

Remco Campert (Den Haag, 28 juli 1929)

De Engelse dichter, verhalen- en romanschrijver Malcolm Lowry werd geboren 28 juli 1909 in Birkenhead Merseyside. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2007.

Uit: Under the Volcano

“M. Laruelle finished his drink. He rose and went to the parapet; resting his hands one on each tennis racquet, he gazed down and around him: the abandoned jai-alai courts, their bastions covered with grass, the dead tennis courts, the fountain, quite near in the centre of the hotel avenue, where a cactus farmer had reined up his horse to drink. Two young Americans, a boy and a girl, had started a belated game of ping-pong on the verandah of the annex below. What had happened just a year ago to-day seemed already to belong in a different age. One would have thought the horrors of the present would have swallowed it up like a drop of water. It was not so. Though tragedy was in the process of becoming unreal and meaningless it seemed one was still permitted to remember the days when an individual life held some value and was not a mere misprint in a communique. He lit a cigarette. Far to his left, in the northeast, beyond the valley and the terraced foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the two volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Itaccihuatl, rose clear and magnificent into the sunset. Nearer, perhaps ten miles distant, and on a lower level than the main valley, he made out the village of Tomalin, nestling behind the jungle, from which rose a thin blue scarf of illegal smoke, someone burning wood for carbon. Before him, on the other side of the American highway, spread fields and groves, through which meandered a river, and the Alcpancingo road. The watchtower of a prison rose over a wood between the river and the road which lost itself further on where the purple hills of a Dore Paradise sloped away into the distance. Over in the town the fights of Quauhnahuac’s one cinema, built on an incline and standing out sharply, suddenly came on, flickered off, came on again. “No se puede vivir sin amar,” Mr. Laruelle said . “As that estupido inscribed on my house.”

“Come, amigo, throw away your mind,” Dr. Vigil said behind him.

“–But hombre, Yvonne came back! That’s whatI shall never understand. She came back to the man!” M. Laruelle returned to the table where he poured himself and drank a glass of Tehuacan mineral water. He said:

“Salud y pesetas.”

“Y tiempo Para gastarlas,” his friend returned thoughtfully.”

Malcolm Lowry (28 juli 1909  – 26 juni 1957)

De Engelse dichter en Jezuïet Gerard Manley Hopkins werd geboren op 28 juli 1844 in Stratford, Essex. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2007.

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;

Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—

Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

The Handsome Heart:
at a Gracious Answer

‘BUT tell me, child, your choice; what shall I buy
You?’ — ‘Father, what you buy me I like best.’
With the sweetest air that said, still plied and pressed,
He swung to his first poised purport of reply.

What the heart is! which, like carriers let fly —                        
Doff darkness, homing nature knows the rest —
To its own fine function, wild and self-instressed,
Falls light as ten years long taught how to and why.

Mannerly-hearted! more than handsome face —
Beauty’s bearing or muse of mounting vein,
All, in this case, bathed in high hallowing grace…

Of heaven what boon to buy you, boy, or gain
Not granted? — Only … O on that path you pace
Run all your race, O brace sterner that strain!

TO seem the stranger lies my lot, my life

TO seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangers. Father and mother dear,
Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near
And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.
  

England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife
To my creating thought, would neither hear
Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I wear-
y of idle a being but by where wars are rife.

  I am in Ireland now; now I am at a thírd
Remove. Not but in all removes I can
Kind love both give and get. Only what word

Wisest my heart breeds dark heaven’s baffling ban
Bars or hell’s spell thwarts. This to hoard unheard,
Heard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 juli 1844 – 8 juni 1889)

De Nederlandse schrijver, columnist, presentator en essayist Stephan Sanders werd geboren in Haarlem op 28 juli 1961. Sanders studeerde sinds 1979 filosofie en politieke wetenschappen aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Sinds 1986 publiceert hij in onder meer in De Groene Amsterdammer, de Volkskrant en heeft hij zijn eigen vaste column in Vrij Nederland en in onzeWereld. Bij de VARA presenteerde hij onder andere het radioprogramma Ophef en Vertier. Met Anil Ramdas presenteerde Sanders Het Blauwe licht bij de VPRO. Hij is regelmatig gastcolumnist bij Theodor Holmans Desmet live, sinds 2008 OBA Live. Eén keer per week presenteert hij bij de NOS het populaire laatavond-nieuwsprogramma op Radio 1 Met het oog op morgen.

Werk o.a.: Ai Jamaica! (1991), Liefde is voor vrouwen (2002), Zon, Zee, Oorlog (2007)

Uit: Heilige homo’s (column)

“Er is iets raars gebeurd met homoseksualiteit. Als je mij dertig jaar geleden had verteld dat de christen-democraten een minister voor Landbouw zouden leveren die openlijk lesbisch is, zou ik gewezen hebben op drie onwaarschijnlijkheden. Landbouw, pot, CDA, dat is te veel van het goede.
Enfin, die droom is dus heel gewoontjes uitgekomen, en er is eigenlijk niemand die er nu nog om moet giechelen. De homo is officieel het uithangbord geworden van het goede Nederland, het Nederland waarmee iedereen zich wil vereenzelvigen. Dat heeft de homo voor een belangrijk deel te danken aan de K-Marokkaan, die ervoor heeft gezorgd dat Nederlanders moesten kiezen. Wordt het a. of b. en uitweg c. is afgesloten. Massaal werd er op de homo gestemd, al was het maar om van die K-Marokkanen af te zijn, en zo werd de homo zo’n beetje het geweten van de natie. Gaat het goed met die lui, dan gaat het goed met Nederland. De kanaries in de mijnschacht.
Vandaar ook de ontreddering als er ineens sprake is van slechte homo’s, homo’s die anderen willens en wetens met hiv besmetten: iedereen begint volautomatisch een omslachtig verhaal, dat we moeten oppassen homo’s niet te stigmatiseren. Het is zoals we dertig jaar geleden niet mochten zeggen: die zakkenroller, dat is een Marokkaan. Nee, dat was een jongen die tussen twee culturen viel en daarom wel gedwongen was de portefeuille van die vrouw tot zich te nemen.”

Stephan Sanders (Haarlem, 28 juli 1961)

De Canadese schrijver Drew Karpyshyn werd geboren op 28 juli 1971 in Edmonton. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2007.

Uit: Mass Effect: Revelation

„Eight Years Later

Staff Lieutenant David Anderson, executive officer on the SSV Hastings, rolled out of his bunk at the first sound of the alarm. His body moved instinctively, conditioned by years of active service aboard Alliance Systems Space Vessels. By the time his feet hit the floor he was already awake and alert, his mind evaluating the situation.

The alarm rang again, echoing off the hull to rebound throughout the ship. Two short blasts, repeating over and over. A general call to stations. At least they weren’t under immediate attack.

As he pulled his uniform on, Anderson ran through the possible scenarios. The Hastings was a patrol vessel in the Skyllian Verge, an isolated region on the farthest fringes of Alliance space. Their primary purpose was to protect the dozens of human colonies and research outposts scattered across the sector. A general call to stations probably meant they’d spotted an unauthorized vessel in Alliance territory. Either that or they were responding to a distress call. Anderson hoped it was the former.

It wasn’t easy getting dressed in the tight confines of the sleeping quarters he shared with two other crewmen, but he’d had lots of practice. In less than a minute he had his uniform on, his boots secured, and was moving quickly through the narrow corridors toward the bridge, where Captain Belliard would be waiting for him. As the executive officer it fell to Anderson to relay the captain’s orders to the enlisted crew . . . and to make sure those orders were properly carried out.”

Drew Karpyshyn (Edmonton, 28 juli 1971)

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver John Ashbery werd geboren op 28 juli 1927 in Rochester. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2007.

My Philosophy of Life

Just when I thought there wasn’t room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea–
call it a philosophy of life, if you will.Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?

That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like.
Everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom
or just standing on a subway platform, lost in thought
for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests,
would be affected, or more precisely, inflected
by my new attitude.I wouldn’t be preachy,
or worry about children and old people, except
in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe.
Instead I’d sort of let things be what they are
while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate
I thought I’d stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.
At once a fragrance overwhelms him–not saffron, not lavender,
but something in between.He thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle’s Boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him
quizzically, pointed ear-tips folded over. And then the great rush
is on.Not a single idea emerges from it.It’s enough
to disgust you with thought.But then you remember something
William James
wrote in some book of his you never read–it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.

It’s fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler.Nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well,
messages to the world, as they sat
and thought about what they’d do after using the toilet
and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out
into the open again.Had they been coaxed in by principles,
and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?
I confess I can move no farther along this train of thought–
something’s blocking it.Something I’m
not big enough to see over.Or maybe I’m frankly scared.
What was the matter with how I acted before?
But maybe I can come up with a compromise–I’ll let
things be what they are, sort of.In the autumn I’ll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.
I won’t be embarrassed by my friends’ dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that’s the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn’t even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he’s
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him–
this thing works both ways, you know. You can’t always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time.That would be abusive, and about as much fun
as attending the wedding of two people you don’t know.
Still, there’s a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas.
That’s what they’re made for!Now I want you to go out there
and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too.
They don’t come along every day. Look out!There’s a big one…

John Ashbery (Rochester,  28 juli 1927)

Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 28 juli 2007.

De Australische schrijver, regisseur en draaiboekauteur Colin Higgins werd geboren op 28 juli 1941 in Nouméa, Nieuw Caledonië.

De Poolse schrijver Józef Ignacy Kraszewski werd geboren op 28 juli 1812 in Warschau.