“They Just Want to Look in the Mirror” — William T. Vollmann

Vice Magazine has published an excerpt from William T. Vollmann’s new book Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement, and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater. Read the excerpt here. The picture above is Mr. Vollmann in drag, one of the themes of his new book. Here is an excerpt from Vice‘s excerpt:

The best mask of my self (never mind my soul) may well be a chujo; my forehead will soon begin to wrinkle in a pattern like roots, and I often bear the sparse mustache, gaping mouth, and blackened teeth of the loyal bewildered lieutenant; perhaps I belong to the Komparu school. What the artist inscribed on the back of my face I will never know, being unable to see myself objectively the way a professional Noh actor would. Most of the time I am a sturdy man who wears the same clothes often, preferring garments of lifelong reliability; I shave carelessly and shrug off my latest wrinkles, because anyhow I never possessed even a waki’s hope of being beautiful, nor felt the loss.