William Vollmann - Kissing the Mask - Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with Some Thoughts on Muses (Especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, ... Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines

23: Information on the meaning of “Tosaka” — Tochigi Reiko to WTV, 2009.

26: Footnote: “Until the Edo period, Noh was a popular art form…” — Clark corrections, unnumbered p. 5.

27: Footnote: “As for the portrayal of high ranking officers and noblemen, or of natural things…” — Loc. cit.

30: Noh performances by women in Muromachi period — Rath, p. 9.

30: The three greatest masks of Tatsuemon — Re: “Snow” the following may be of interest: “I have been requested to repair and copy the Honmen of ‘Yuki’ from its owner, and I have also seen the Hako-iri-musume ko-omote … which is a detailed copy of the Honmen ‘Yuki’ kept by Kanzesoke [and evidently itself a copy of Tatsuemon’s ‘Yuki,’ mentioned on p. 36; plate 4]. With these in mind, I focused on creating an accurate copy. The bone structure, such as the nose tilted to the right and the chin towards the left, which are characteristics of ‘Yuki,’ could be done perfectly from my long years of experience. However, the colors from Muromachi-period… were difficult. ‘Yuki’ is a prime example of the subtleness and profoundness of Noh, and has a slight blue color. In modern stages, the ‘Tsuki’ whose nose is tilted left delivers more emotion to the viewers, but with ‘Yuki,’ the nose is tilted to the right. It is a difficult mask requiring a higher level of performance” (Hori, Masuda and Miyano, trans. for WTV by Yasuda Nobuko, p. 35); English slightly rev. by WTV.

30: Zeami: It is “really easy” for the Noh actor to “play the part of an ordinary woman…” — Loc. cit.

33: Remarks of Otsuka Ryoji — From an interview in his studio in Shimada City, Shizuoka Prefecture, 2004.

34: Atsumori — In the source version in The Tale of the Heike (vol. 2, p. 562), he was 17, not 15.

34: Footnote: Zoology of high female eyebrows — Morris, p. 32.

36: “Izutsu”: “A frail dream breaks awake; the dream breaks to dawn.” — Brazell, p. 157 (“Izutsu,” trans. by Karen Brazell; for clarity I have slightly altered the wording).

37: Footnote: “ ‘How tall you have grown since last I saw you!’…” — Lady Murasaki, The Tale of Genji , pp. 178–79. Kawabata once said: “It is almost inconceivable that I should ever feel deep love for a woman who is completely adult” (quoted in Keene, Dawn to the West , p. 805). The Japanese interest in extreme youth, which sometimes makes Occidentals uncomfortable, may be seen in the following movies from the twenty-four-hour Rainbow Channel (2 Hour Adult Channel schedule, inner sheet): “The Memorial Love of School Girl 2,” “Conquest Amateur School Girs [ sic ] 1”, “The Nude of Anonymouse [ sic ] School Girl.” — “On the Sister’s Body” and “An Exhibitionist Sister Special Version” may deal with incestuous couples who are still young enough to live together. My favorite title, alas, has nothing to do with the themes of this book: “Honey Wife in an Apron on the Naked Body.”

38: Footnote: “Their hos and yas indicate where they are in the score…” — Jeff Clark corrections, ms. p. 28.

39: Footnote: Mr. Umewaka’s acquaintance with Mishima — Jeff Clark corrections, unnumbered p. 6.

41: “It’s like praying to the god, wishing for good harvest.” — Mr. Kanze Hideo, same interview.

41: Sexual continence of the Okina actor — “When I was a child, you had to purify yourself,” said Mr. Kanze Hideo (interviewed in the lobby of his hotel in Kyoto, May 2005). “You couldn’t eat together with others. You had to eat specially prepared rice for a week. You have to use different water from others just to make tea. We were so strict when I was a child! Nowadays it’s not that strict. But still when we perform “Okina” we make a kind of thing in the waiting room and display Okina’s mask and dedicate it to the god. Before the shite starts, all the performers have sake. Even if you can’t drink, you just pretend that you drink.”

41: Sexual continence of the Okina actor (cont’d). — In this connection it is amusing to see a woodblock from Isoda Koryusai, circa 1770, depicting a courtesan being penetrated by an Okina actor whose mask she has partially pushed aside. The editor’s caption (Uhlenbeck and Winkel, p. 101) mistakenly calls “Okina” a New Year’s kyogen play.

41: Footnote: Experience of the Kongo School’s head when performing “Okina” — Ibid., p. 18.

2: SCHEMATICS

43: “In making a Noh, he must use elegant… phrases” — Zeami, p. 69 (“Shikado”).

43: “ Sarugaku is the occupation of beggars…” — Diary of Go-oshikoji Kintada; quoted in Hare, p. 16. It must have been wildly popular in those days. The Taiheiki , written not long after Zeami’s career, relates (p. 131) that “around that time in the capital, men made much of the dance called field music,” namely dengaku , “and high and low there was none that did not seek after it eagerly.” The fancy garments that the lords heaped upon the actors they patronized resembled mountains; they gave them gold and silver and jewels.

44: Increasing lengths of Noh performances — Tyler, p. 13.

44: Evolving spoken parts into songs — See Hare, pp. 56–57.

44: Footnote: “Originally it was considerably more natural…” — Bowers, p. 23.

Same footnote: Rath’s claims about Noh’s ritualization — Op. cit., pp. 222–27

44: Noh’s combination of verisimilitude and elegant movements — Zeami, p. 51 (“Fushikaden”).

45: A “feeling one has the words right…” — Brower and Miner, p. 213.

45: “When one gazes upon the autumn hills…” — Brower and Miner, p. 269.

45: Auerbach on the Scriptures — Op. cit., p. 110.

46: “To call her to the curved bow’s tip…” — Tyler, p. 167 (“Kinuta”).

47: “A waki fulfills his function…” — Zeami (Rimer and Yamazaki), p. 165 (“Shudosho”).

47: The waki ’s determined immutability — After Pinguet, p. 113.

47: A scholar’s discussion of Basho’s Narrow Road — Ueda, Basho , p. 42. It has been remarked by Donald Keene (Twenty Plays of the No Theatre , p. 792) that Kawabata’s narrator in “The Izu Dancer” resembles the waki of a Noh play. Keene pushes this insight farther, claiming (Dawn to the West , p. 805) that “this is true of the men in other works by Kawabata, who serve mainly to set off the women… they are… hardly more than the waki who induces the shite to appear before us.”

47: “These generally have little to say.” — Tyler, p. 8.

47: Ghost story from The Taiheiki — Op. cit., pp. 332–33.

48: Brief explanations of the masks mentioned for “Kinuta” — Takaoka et al., unnumbered p. in ch. “A way into another world…”

49: “From the fact that earthly life has ceased…” — Auerbach, p. 192.

49: “The only wine a valley stream…” + “Wait a while…” — Brazell, pp. 186, 192 (“Shunkan,” trans. Eileen Kato).

49: Footnote: Alternate end of Shunkan — The Tale of the Heike , vol. 1, pp. 190–91.

49: Same footnote: Hokusai’s Shunkan — Men and Women , p. 231. p. 7 (Shunkan, Buddhist priest… exiled to Kikaiga-shima).

49: “The dull thud of the fulling block, in the chill of night.” — Keene, Twenty No Plays, p. 309 (“Torioi-bune”). This sound exerted a similar effect upon Lady Nijo, who (p. 29) found herself weeping at “the bleak sound of wooden mallets beating silk” not long after her father’s cremation.

49: The shite of “Izutsu,” and her alteration into her lover — Hare, pp. 150–52.