sunfright | 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.

Watch on YouTube

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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Re: the translation, I will admit I do some very extreme things for the sake of roleplay. This was because I wanted to play the narrator of the poetry collection, so I needed to have something in English to refer to for voice writing. Now I just kind of like comparing it with the original Danish. I'm totally ESL, too and I feel exactly what you mean in regards to rhythm when reading poetry, it's so important. Sometimes more important than anything else.

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!

tuesday.

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