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tuesday.
I should be writing on my project, but I've reached that state of tiredness where anything that takes too much effort makes me cry, basically, so I'll just do gentle, soothing things instead.
Like watching Zuka! Tonight, Silver Wolf. Yukigumi National Tour 2005, golden age. When all the otokoyaku top stars of the future where still fresh-faced and young. Asami Hikaru, then top, playing Silver. Mizu Natsuki, next top in line, playing Ray. Otozuki Kei, top next-next in line, playing Jean Louis. And that is to say nothing of Sou Kazuho, top next-next-next in line, who was doing another show at this time or Takashiro Kei, future top of Soragumi, who had just transferred out to that troupe.
And it's even more to say nothing of Maikaze Rira, my forever girl, who played the top musuemeyaku role of Mireille, without a doubt the role of her Zuka career. I love her as Rosalie (Rose of Versaille, 2006) and Lilith (Lucifer's Tears, 2006), but Mireille showed her range as an actress and it was a role with a lot of meat on it, which was a rare treat for her later years as a top musumeyaku.
Silver Wolf is the best show, besides Lucifer's Tears which is pretty much in a category of its own, from this era of Yukigumi, in my opinion. It's suspenseful, well-executed, amazing well-acted and the music is nice. It's a mystery and crime story set in Paris, late 19th century. What's not to like? Besides it being convoluted as fuck and even with a translation, next to impossible to crack, plot-wise.
I still love it, though.
To give you a feel for the show, I'm sharing some clips here. You can thank me later when you realize you must own this almost twenty year old show that is out of print and can only be purchased used over difficult to navigate Japanese eBay-like sites.
I'm also looking for something new to read, that meaning I'm looking for something old to read, not just in terms of publication year, but something I've read before. I'm that weird reader who really hates picking up new things, because I don't know whether I'll like it and vastly prefers finding old stuff I haven't touched in years, but that I know I must've liked, because I kept it, and read that instead.
Right now I'm eyeing George MacDonald's 1890's Lilith which I read maybe ten years ago and remember enjoying a lot, but looking through it now it seems kinda... spacey? It's a fantasy story and has a lot of religious and mythological themes, but it also reads as somewhat symbolist to me and I imagine I enjoyed that ten years ago because I was absolutely manic all the time. That would explain it.
I'll leave it on my desk for a few days and then see if maybe I have the courage to revisit it.
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This brought such a smile to my face, I recognise this line of thinking.
Of course, any mention of anything involving our great aunt Lilith gets my attention instantly too. :p
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The funny story is that I'm pretty sure I only purchased MacDonald's book because I had a craze about Maikaze Rira's role as Lilith in Lucifer's Tears and basically obsessed over anything called that. I've kept MacDonald's Lilith all these years for a reason, because I liked it, but right now I'm not sure why, except for it being called by that title, lol.
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I've always meant to read MacDonald's book. I have been fascinated by stories of Lilith since I was a kid, and every time she turns up in something, my eyes grow wide. I really like the path that led you to it from Lucifer's Tears, I'm adding that one to my list of performances I need to watch, ahhah.
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Also, I really like your icon. It's beautiful!
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I have five I seem to keep returning to. One is the Danish poetry collection by Naja Marie Aidt and Mette Moestrup called Omina which I have translated myself over here, shh, don't tell anyone. It's not a fantastic translation, I'm not a translator by any means, but I think it gets the style and content across okay. Just a little something to look into, should you want to.
Sylvia Plath has followed me since the beginning of my process with mental illness and I see myself a lot in both her style of writing, but also just the things she writes about. I used to have the most beautiful edition of Ariel, but parted with it for a birthday present some years ago. Instead I have a nice little tome of her collected poetry that I refer to. My favourite poem of hers is The Moon and the Yew Tree which can seriously make me tear up from its sheer beauty.
Having worked a lot in the genre of tanka poetry myself in periods, Machi Tawara's Salad Anniversary is like a bible to me. Very short, five-line (three-line in the English translation) poems about day-to-day things in Japan of the 1980's, but it's all so relatable and hits that feeling of being human so well. I highly recommend that you look into her, if you don't know her already. Those poems are a breeze to the soul. I give you an example here:
Cosmos flowers sway
in front of model homes
no one will ever live in.
Another poetry collection that has followed me for a long time and which I return to a lot when I'm writing myself is the Luxembourgian poet, Anise Koltz' At the Edge of Night, a selection of her poetry in English. She has a contrite, brief, harsh style and writes a lot about the post-WWII world, about writing and about failed relationships between lovers, parents and children, etc. There is something unforgiving and also unapologetic about how she writes. Example:
In this world
stripped of meaning
language is our last refuge
It is what bids our present
exist
I entice the page
so that it may lie
beneath my writing
Finally, a more recent addition to my collection of poetry is the British poet, Fani Papageorgiou's The Purloined Letter, but which I have already read many times. She has an unusual, almost prose-like style in a brief, sentence-like structure that mirrors something like an encyclopedia. I really love it. It goes like this:
Happiness is harder on the lungs
light fades
and you must not touch any hallowed things.
This grew really long, sorry! But I thought I'd share a bit as well, so you could get a feel from what kind of stuff I like. Do you have anything in particular you enjoy?
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I know Hölderlin, Eliot, Dickinson and Whitman already, but the others are all new to me and I'll have to look into them!
I loved the Smith poem! I just saw an exhibit of Turner paintings a couple of months ago and it was so reminiscent of that! I'll save the Kinloch for later, but thank you so much for sharing these with me!