Saint Mazie: A Novel by Jami Attenberg.

Lush, but sparse prose...economical elegance...it draws me right in, along with the early 20th Century venacular.  A story of one woman who helps those in need during the Great Depression on the Lower East Side of New York via the Venice Movie Theatre.  Historical Fiction based on a real person.

The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She Works in Hollywood by Paula Byrne

and now I'm going to watch "He Named Me Malala"

In the Chapter entitled "Box Seat" Komayo, our heroine, is putting on a performance of Yasune.  Her quest is for the performance to be an absolute success so that she is seen as "iki" (something along the lines of being incredibly chic) and thus securing herself as an elite geisha at the top of her craft.  She has spared no expense and her secret ( Read more... )

I'm reading Nagai Kafu's classic novel, translated by Kurt Meissner with the collaboration of Ralph Friedrich, and it is killing me that I am missing a lot of the atmosphere of the text. I see the translated words, I've studies Geisha and the willow World for 14 years and I know, I KNOW, that just beyond the English words is the feeling I'm ( Read more... )