Ecco

Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Full disclosure: I am an avid fan of William T. Vollmann's work and was excited to read this book. Vollmann often has strange and interesting things to say about women and gender relations, and his notorious interest in prostitutes (who feature prominently in both his fiction and non-fiction) may almost be labeled as an obsession. In his latest book, Kissing The Mask, Vollmann concentrates on the nature of femininity by viewing it primarily through the lens of the ancient, gorgeous masks of Japanese Noh theater. It is also a meditation on the idea of femininity as a staged performance.

Noh theater is far too complex to encapsulate in just a few sentences, and Vollmann himself often professes trouble in defining it thoroughly. At first glance, Noh seems a bizarre choice of medium through which to focus on femininity, as most Noh actors are male and men traditionally play the roles of women with the aid of costuming and masks. However, Vollmann directs his attention, and the readers', to the beautifully rendered Noh masks representing female characters. These become a metaphor for the “mask” of femininity that many women wear: makeup, jewelry, clothing, and other adornments that are more or less socially mandated.

Similarly, the elaborate and carefully orchestrated movements on the Noh stage are analogous to the “staged” femininity also involving complex, time-consuming, and money-burning ornamentation that often results in constricted and painful mobility. Vollmann is concerned with what “manifests” a woman as opposed to what a woman “is,” and in this endeavor he visits Japanese geishas and transvestites, both of whom could be said to wear the feminine mask. He digresses into history of what other cultures have traditionally considered “beautiful,” and manages to weave in thoughts about porn stars and artists' muses.

Vollmann readily admits that he perceives women as “the other,” and is fully aware of the fact that he is viewing women through the privilege of a male gaze. He waxes rhapsodic about female beauty throughout the text, basically elevating women on a very high and poetic pedestal, which made me slightly uncomfortable; when a person (or entire gender) is put up on a pedestal, it's a long way to fall. Vollmann appears to genuinely like and respect women, however, and my discomfort was minor and temporary. He also, as in his other nonfiction books, makes no pretense about being an objective observer; he is fully immersed as a character in his own true story.

Kissing The Mask is highly valuable as a look into the secretive, baroque, and intricate Japanese subcultures of Noh theater and geisha teahouses, with the author's personal study of staged femininity mostly as a bonus. Furthermore, it's enriched with William Vollmann's gorgeous and almost lyrical prose, plenty of photographs and drawings, several appendices with notes and chronologies, and a glossary for the many Japanese words and phrases liberally sprinkled through the material.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, April 6th 2010

Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Stacy Parker Aab

Ecco

In the 1940s, thousands of adventurous young women flocked to Washington, DC to take wartime jobs in federal agencies. The media dubbed them “government girls.” More than fifty years later, when Stacy Aab née Parker entered the White House as an 18-year-old student intern, she was similarly primed—eager both to serve the nation and to improve her social standing by elbowing in on the country’s movers and shakers.

As a devoted champion of then-President Bill Clinton, this biracial, working class, daughter of the Detroit suburbs was smitten by her proximity to power, and her prattle-filled, if shockingly apolitical, memoir of those years is a fun read. At the same time, it sheds little light on the Clinton years, focusing almost-exclusively on the day-to-day machinations of those within the president’s orbit. Oddly, neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor first daughter Chelsea are central figures in the text; instead they appear as blips in an otherwise male-centric tale. Indeed, Government Girl is, first and foremost, an insider’s peek at the President’s Men: Paul Begala, Rahm Emanuel, George Stephanopoulis, Vernon Jordan, and numerous Secret Service and FBI agents. Nonetheless, Parker’s writing is extremely descriptive and it is disturbing to glimpse the sexually-charged White House in which women—usually in subordinate positions—were, and perhaps still are, caught in the collision between their own ambitions and the abuse of authority by those who employed them.

Of course, Monica Lewinsky is part of the fray, since Parker and Lewinisky were interns at the same time. While the two were not well acquainted, Parker describes the victim blaming that ensued once Lewinsky’s affair with President Clinton became public: “Monica developed a reputation beyond the office. After the story broke I heard the ‘c’ word used—the kiss of death for an aspiring staffer. She was a clutch, they said. To be a clutch was to be so blinded by desire to be near the principal that you didn’t care who saw you and you didn’t let gossip slow you down…Monica managed to be wherever the president was, whenever she could. She always vied for attention, for time. Clutch.”

Parker further describes the protocol that interns and staff were expected to follow, complete with the wearing of panty hose and suits on even the hottest days of DC summer. Challenging rules was anathema to interns and staff alike. The overriding ethos? Be grateful that you are in the inner circle, no matter if the expectations are absurd, and no matter if there is rampant workplace harassment.

And Parker was thankful. In fact, she makes race, class, gender, and sexual preference seem beside the point when she moves from intern to low-level staffer. As she makes the transition, she offers cringe-worthy revelations. For example, her wide-eyed crushes on the many men with whom she toiled reveal her to be little more than a lovesick teenager. What’s more, as she expounds on her incessant crushes I found her racial politics simultaneously repugnant and shocking. To wit: “Black boys scared me,” she writes. “They got into my space... Maybe because my father was black and no one was going to hurt me as he did, leaving me for good at such a young age.“

In addition, Parker Aab’s political naivete, demonstrated by her blind acceptance of Clinton-era shifts that have decimated communities of color—from the North American Free Trade Agreement to the abolition of Aid to Families with Dependent Children—make Government Girl little more than a guilty pleasure, a juicy morsel that, in the end, is utterly disappointing.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, February 9th 2010

The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, from Field to Farm to Table

admin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:18:00 +0000

By Liz Thorpe

Ecco

Upon receiving Liz Thorpe’s The Cheese Chronicles, I had to ask myself: Do you really love cheese enough to get through 366 pages of it? The answer, apparently, is yes.

Now, I detest the term foodie. My boyfriend teasingly calls me a foodie in his WASP-iest voice. It seems so pretentious, so elitist, so... stupid. I can’t deny, though, my great love and interest in all things food. I love to cook. I read recipe books like novels while curled up in bed. I could watch the Food Network all day. I can happily spend two hours in a grocery store. I look at food porn. I love to eat. I love to feed people. You get the picture.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that cheese is my favorite type of food. It is featured in every dish I love to eat and cook, and Thorpe’s loving opus to all things cheese only whet my appetite for this surprisingly scientific food.

Out of the blue, Thorpe decided she wanted a career in cheese and began her journey working behind the counter at the now famous Murray's Cheese Shop in New York City. Since then, the Yale graduate has become the managing director of the shop, where she teaches classes, finds interesting new cheeses, and works with chefs interested in featuring beautiful, American-made dairy on their menu. Thorpe is said to have professionalized the craft of cheese making while also highlighting the incredible love and passion of the people who inhabit it. We’re not talking about commercial operations here, though Thorpe is quick to point out that some of those cheeses are decent as well. The book, however, mostly focuses on small dairy farms located throughout the U.S. that are making some exquisite cheeses.

If you’ve ever seen the offerings at your local chain grocery stores, you’ll understand why cheese making isn’t considered one of America’s strong points in terms of culinary prowess. Simply put, good quality cheese isn’t as important to most Americans as it is to people in other countries. We like American on our burgers and stringy mozzarella on our pizzas, but that’s all changing. As the country becomes more interested in where the food they eat comes from, the want and need for "real" cheese is growing, and so is the average American’s willingness to pay a hefty price for artisanal, locally-made cheese.

The process is tedious, requiring just as much knowledge of science as nature. People of all kinds are making cheese all over the country, and much of it is being sold at local farmer’s markets, never to be experienced by those even one town over. There’s something fantastic about that. Cheese is supposed to be seasonal, but thanks to hormones and a few other tricks, dairy farmers can now milk cows, goats, and sheep year-round, but that’s obviously not what nature intended. Many artisanal cheese makers milk their animals when nature intended, which is just after breeding season when the animal has naturally-made milk to give. The cheese offered by these purveyors is in high demand.

I’ve learned an extraordinary amount about the art—yes, art—of cheese making from The Cheese Chronicles. Unfortunately I cannot afford high end cheese on a regular basis, but after reading Thorpe’s book, I fear I can’t ever go back to the cryovaced cheddar of my youth. When eating cheap, poorly made cheddar cheese, you can taste bile at the back of your throat, a surefire indication the cheese you are eating is shit. Now that you know what that stinging, sour sensation is in your mouth, you can never go back.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, August 19th 2009