Thanks! I'm just hoping I don't devolve into goo-ish dorkdom during this workshop from my sheer fangirl powers. :)

*cheers* I just bit the bullet and bought myself Kimono and Little Songs of the Geisha. I'd read these at a combination of libraries and bookstores many long years ago, and I said I'd buy them when I could afford them, so now I'm sticking to my word. It'd be good to read before going to the workshop, at any rate. And I might even get her to sign something. :)

You'd dig this. There are two page spreads of different kinds of obi tying patterns and their time periods. *Dire* patterns and descriptions of the symbolism behind them. Seasons! Colours! Omigosh!

She is kind of the starting point for reading on Geisha in the West, and lots of books that came after have been trying to imitate the lady -- she researched the geisha back in the 70s, before Memoirs of a Geisha came along and became the worst narrative fiction I have ever read. That's the just the narrative of MoaG there. The romanticized history part would require me to set the book on fire.

*coughs*

My interest is more towards the the culture/art around geisha, like the symbolism behind the patterns/styles of their hairdos and kimono (it's all "OOOO! Pretty costumes!" from there, however nicely I put it), or the stories in the music/dance/poetry. I like looking at new structures, and figuring out ways to work out of them. Helps keep my descriptive writing trained. :)

An endless study like the unfathomable natural selection that raised the dragon fruit? Or why anyone would even want to breed them in even more dangerous colorations? ;)

S'like me and museums. Gotta read ever teeny label in sight, even if it takes me 2 hours to clear each floor. Fascinating!

I wondered from the first page of Memoirs how an adult came up with the sentence structures, mostly. So many run-ons. *fears*