Word: geishas
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...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...
...enlightened male or an entire bookclub. Instead of filling the hour by readingexcerpts from his book ("We're all literatebecause our parents read to us every night," hequipped, "read us to sleep!"), Golden chose totell about the ten-year odyssey that lead to thepublication of Memoirs of a Geisha...
After graduating from Harvard in 1978,concentrating in Japanese art history, Goldenearned a Master's in Japanese history at Columbiaand then worked in Tokyo. It was after his returnfrom Tokyo that Golden began writing a novel abouta Japanese friend. While researching the characterof his friend's mother, a retired geisha, Goldenfound he was writing about the wrong subject andswitched his focus completely. 750 pages went intothe trashcan, and he wrote 800 pages about 35years in the life of a geisha that were declared"dry." Golden then threw out another 750 pages, anact which he called "exhilarating," and then aftera week...