Word: geishas
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Hardly what one would expect someone to be saying to Arthur Golden '78, the celebrated author of Memoirs of A Geisha, the novel that just out in paperback after spending 60 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List. When Golden incredulously asked his editor what had prompted such an epithet to come from her lips, she responded, "Well, you're walking through a hotel lobby talking on your cell phone about your movie deal...
Golden's debut novel, chronicling the lush andexotic life of a geisha in the Japan of the 30sand 40s, has been wildly successful. InMemoirs, Sayuri, an aging geisha recountsher youth spent in the Okiya, a cloisteredbrothel where women trained for the rigors of theGeisha art. Hatsumomo is the primadonna geisha ofthe Okiya, supporting a household of youngapprentices and aged ex-geishas. From the momentSayuri is sold into the Okiya Hatsumomorecognizes her as a challenge to her supremacy andspends the rest of the novel plotting Sayuri'sdemise...
...America'sfavorite pop icon, Madonna the simplecinderella-like plot of Memoirs promises tobe the year's great multimedia phenomenon. Ms.Ciccone appeared on the February cover ofHarper's Bazaar clad in a black kimono(Jean Paul Gaultier) and with the pale face, darkhair and red lips characteristic of a geisha. Inthe article "Like A Geisha," written by DaisanMcLane, Madonna likens what she does to "being amodern-day geisha...
Traditionally, a geisha was "an entertainer,above all" according to Golden. Wealthy maleexecutives paid for the company and entertainmentof geisha (who were extensively trained in teaceremony, dance and traditional instruments) atteahouses, and those who were wealthy enough kepta geisha as a mistress and became theirmaster. (The mizurai, or virginity,of one geisha was sold for $850,000.) Although thegeisha's livelihood depended on the generosity andwhims of their patrons, the geisha district ofKyoto, Gion, was a woman's world. When geishasentered a teahouse, they bowed to the other geishafirst and then their male patrons. Economicallythe geisha controlled Gion as well...
While few would venture to call the UnitedStates a "woman's world" today, Madonna hasapparently taken the idea of a "geisha asentertainer" to heart and was so inspired that thevideo of her new single "Nothing Really Matters"is based on the au currant geisha-look, asis Gaultier's last collection. The infatuationhardly stops there, as, according to theBazaar article, Madonna and her assistantstalk about Golden's characters as if they're realpeople, with Madonna identifying with the evilHatsumomo. Rumor also has it that Madonna wouldlike a role in Spielberg's up coming movie, and atthe Public Library talk Golden confirmed...