fun

The American Who Couldn’t Say Noh

Just when you think you heard all the possible idiotic puns on Noh, that is when a new onecomes up (usually from an American publication). I have already explored the topic in a previous post, but this time I give you.. The American Who Couldn’t Say Noh, by Charles Danziger.

I haven’t read the book – I kind of feel I have enough from the title – but will welcome reviews by anyone who already endeavoured to… I know a lot of people find these puns very amusing and trust me, I would like to find them amusing too, so that I would be more natural in my reactions when talking to such people. But I can’t help thinking they are simply very lame…

Pizza Nohgaku

I have already posted something on unconventional/ironic ways of using Noh theatre, but I think this goes beyond what I have encountered so far. I am unsure I understand the process that led to the creation of the video below; I don’t even know whether the Noh utai amateur pizza-ossan was a  victim of this or if the pizza delivery-utai that you hear is actually his own creation. If so, well… hats off.

Hey wait a second… now that I think of it.. I should be the one doing this!!

Puns on Noh

I am collecting ways the word Noh has been used to create more or less funny or catchy puns on Noh (usually titles for newspaper articles).

  • ‘Noh Woman Noh Cry’ (reported by Melissa Poll) – this could actually be my current favourite
  • ‘Nō to ieru kyōgen’ (‘The Kyogen that can say Noh’), probably after the essay No to ieru nihon (‘Japan that can say No’) – suggested by Helen Parker.
  • ‘Japanese theatre bulletin: Noh news to report’. Random Tweet
  • ‘Be in the Noh’ workshop at SOAS (Londond, 2001) ran by Matsui Akira (reported by Helen Parker)
  • ‘Noh business and sho business’. Episode in a series of three programmes on Japanese music for BBC Radio 3, The Japanese Ear, in the early 1990s. (reported by Helen Parker)
  • ‘Nohledge of Zeami’s treatises’ (suggested by Matthew W. Shores)
  • ‘Noh news is good news’.　(random tweet)
  • ‘Are You in the Nō?’ (Vogue, 1/7/1916) suggested by David Ewick
  • ‘When Noh means yes’ (American Theatre, 7/1/04)
  • ‘Noh business is like Noh business’ (Various articles)
  • ‘To be or Noh to be’ (American Theatre, 11/1/03)
  • ‘Troupe says yes to Noh’ (News Tribune Tacoma, 27/3/07)
  • ‘Noh theatre for you!’ (missing reference)
  • ‘The American Who Couldn’t Say Noh’ (by Charles Danziger)
  • ‘Japanese No-Noh: The Crosstalk of Public Culture in a Rural Festivity’ . an article by Bill Kelly in Public Culture suggested by Prof. Matthew Cohen
  • ‘Japan’s magical landscapes: there’s noh place like it’. (Tom Yarwood, The Guardian 7/10/11)

Do you have more to suggest?