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

168: Du Fu’s lament — Loc. cit. (Du Fu,”Lament by the River”).

168: Citations from Pu Songling — Op. cit., pp. 51 and 508 n; 281 and 542 n.

168: Stateliness of “Rainbow Skirts” — Ibid., p. 443.

169: Footnote on the Whirl — Ibid., p. 458 (Bo Ju-yi, “The Girl Who Danced the Whirl”).

169: There was already a renowned melody “Coats of Feathers, Rainbow Skirts” — Ibid., p. 448 (Chen Hong).

169: “A young girl’s fluttering sleeves well express her heart.” — Keene, Twenty Plays , p. 217 (“Yokihi,” “retranslated” by WTV).

169: “The sky-robe flutters…” — Waley, The No Plays of Japan , p. 223 (“Hagoromo”).

169: Remarks of Yamamura Yoko — Same interview of April 2002.

169: Aware and its darkening, + “The court lady who in the past…” — De Bary et al., pp. 197–99, 365.

170: References to Lady Yang in The Tale of Genji — Op. cit., pp. 7, 13, 14. She is also mentioned much later on in the novel, when Genji is longing for his dead Murasaki.

170: The tenth-century tanka about the Emperor and Lady Yang — Brower and Miner, p. 198 (poem from the Daini Takato Shu ). Meanwhile, Sei Shonagon likens Lady Yang’s face to a pear-blossom (op. cit., p. 63).

170: “My own nostalgic memories” — Lady Nijo, p. 229.

170: “While the emperor listened to the song of ‘Rainbow Skirts’…” — The Taiheiki , p. 286.

170: Allusion to Lady Yang in The Tale of the Heike — Vol. 2, p. 624.

170: Tanizaki’s allusion to Lady Yang — Op. cit., pp. 279–80.

170: “I seek a way to a world unknown.” — Keene, op. cit., p. 211 (same play; “retranslated” by WTV).

171: Footnote: “Those of the Heike who cherished honor…” The Taiheiki , p. 312.

171: “The fundamental aspect of ‘Tsuki’…” — Hori, Masuda and Miyano, trans. for WTV by Yasuda Nobuko and slightly rev. by WTV, p. 39. My visual description is based on the accompanying plate. Regarding the use of the zo-onna to play Yokihi, the same source remarks in regard to one specimen by Zoami himself (p. 58): “As with Tatsuemon’s ko-omote , it is incredible how such a perfect piece can be created… Even a master of the Edo period could not carve the bone structure in the way Zoami did. The zo-onna is that difficult. The high rank must show in the mask.. the way the upper and lower parts of the nose is carved is superb with extreme sex appeal. This mask can be used in various scenes including ‘Hagoromo,’ ‘Yokihi,’ and ‘Eguchi.’ The red on the cheeks complements the white skin. It is not only beautiful, but also shows a strong core, clear bone structure, and is large-scaled, making it the original zo-onna ” (words of Kanze Kiyokazu).

172: “Your visit only multiplies the pain.” — Keene, op. cit., p. 213 (same play).

172: Footnote: Mr. Umewaka plays Yokihi — Osaka Festival Noh brochure, 2002, unnumbered p. (Mariko Hikawa, “Two Flowers Reflecting One Another”).

172: Chen Hong on the golden hairpin — Owen, p. 448 (Chen Hong).

173: Yokihi’s golden kimono and phoenix headdress — Takeda and Bethe, p. 119 (Kawakami Shigeki, “The Development of the Karaori as a Noh Costume”).

173: “Human feelings are rooted in the genitals…” — Makuzu, p. 25.

173: Possible echo of the “Song of Lasting Pain” in the Noh play “Miidera” — Bethe and Emmert, Noh Performance Guide 3 , pp. 63 (text) and 79 (note 35).

173: “Oh, this futile parting!..” — Keene, p. 217 (same play, “retranslated” by WTV).

173: “Heaven endures, and the Earth…” — Owen, p. 447 (same poem; “retranslated” by WTV).

13: JEWELS IN THE DARKNESS

174: Kawabata’s mention of the Shoren-in’s camphor trees — The Old Capital , pp. 113–15.

174: Footnote: Information on Shoren-in — Sho-Ren-In .

174: “While this garden is not considered one of the major examples of landscape art…” — Treib and Herman, p. 164.

176: Zeami’s definition of fascination — Op. cit., p. 133 (“Shugyoku tokka”).

177: “A young girl’s fluttering sleeves well express what is in her heart.” — Keene, Twenty Plays , pp. 216–17 (“Yohiki”).

177: Gion Shrine in The Tale of the Heike — I have been repeatedly told that the Gion referred to is in Kyoto. However, the English translation in my possession claims (vol. 1, p. 6, n. 1) that the Tale ’s Gion was the Jetavana monastery in Sravasti, Indonesia.

177: Descriptions of works by Utamaro, Chobunsai Eishi — As seen at the Ota Ukiyo-e Museum in Tokyo, 2004, 2006.

177: Geishas performing alongside prostitutes in the Yoshiwara — Utamaro (Sato Takanobu), trans. Yasuda Nobuko. Picture 1: Seirouniwaka Onnageishabu; Oomando Ogie Oiyo Takeji; Tenmei 3 (1783). Large Nishikie. Tokyo National Museum.

177: “Even highly reputed maiko…” — Saikaku, p. 128 (“The Life of an Amorous Woman”).

177: Scene from the “Sleeve Scroll” — Uhlenbeck and Winkel, p. 119.

177: Scene from Keisai Eisen’s woodblock album — Ibid., p. 165 (Fig. 58b).

177: Scene by Utagawa Kunisada — Ibid., pp. 186–87 (Fig. 70, “Games Inside a Bathhouse, Year of the Boar”).

178: “A world where love is bought and sold like merchandise.” — Goossen, p. 85 (Okamoto Kanoko, “Portrait of an Old Geisha”). Struggling to interpret the old geisha’s kindness for him, the hero of this story wonders if she might be seeking to expiate her heartlessness to bygone lovers.

178: Peabody Museum’s generalized description of geishas — Op. cit., p. 44 (Andrew L. Maske, “Identifying Geisha in Art and Life: Is She Really a Geisha?”).

178: The mid-twentieth-century photograph of a geisha in a straw hat — Bristol, p. 115 (“Geisha with straw hat,” 1947).

178: Miyako Odori program, April 2005 — Trans. for WTV by Sumino Junko.

178: Excerpt from Snow Country : Geishas as call girls — op. cit., pp. 20, 26, 28.

178: Footnote: The strident person on Kawabata — Feldman and Gordon, p. 249 (Miho Matsugu, “In the Service of the Nation: Geisha and Kawabata’s Snow Country ”).

179: Saikaku on speech of Kyoto ladies — Saikaku, p. 312 (“The Life of an Amorous Woman”).

179: Geisha-related citations from Kawabata’s final novel — Beauty and Sadness , pp. 104–6.

179: “… the dress of the geisha now far exceeds that of noble ladies…” — Monumenta Nipponica (Pastereich), p. 215.

180: The “superficial purity” of geishas — Kuwano Toka, quoted in Kano, p. 26.

180: Geishas as “interchangeable, rather commonplace companions whose association with carnality is the rule” — See, for instance, Goossen, pp. 50 (Nagai Kafu, “The Peony Garden”), 74–75 (Satomi Ton, “Blowfish”), or Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters , pp. 268–69.

180: Positioning of geishas between artists, prostitutes and mistresses — Kuwano (but Kano herself this time), p. 44.

180: Footnote: Geishas require new kimonos all the time — Iwasaki and Brown, p. 264.

180: Same footnote: Cost of kimono at two million yen ($20,000) — Cobb, p. 17 (Mayumi, Tokyo geisha).

180: Same footnote: Cost of obis and wigs — Gallagher, p. 8.

180: Interviews with Kofumi-san, Konomi-san, Danyu-san, Mr. Mikata — All in Kyoto, October 2006. All except the one with Mr. Mikata, which occurred in the temple where he had performed “Michimori” on the previous night, took place at Imamura-san’s teahouse in Gion.

180: Print of Shakkyo dance — Utamaro (Sato Takanobu), trans. Yasuda Nobuko. Picture 9: Touseiodorikozoroi. Shakkyo. Around Kansei 5–6 (1793–94). Large Nishikie. Henri Vever Collection.