When you work for a T.O.D. (short for Tyrannical Office Despot...also known as Amy Jenkins, Director of the Human Resources Division at the New York Journal, New York City's leading photo-newspaper), and your musician boyfriend of ten years has just announced that he can't commit to a long term relationship because he has to take it "one day at a t...more

Ichimaru (1906-1997) combined her experience as a geisha with an extraordinary talent as a vocalist and musician to become a unique figure in the social history of twentieth-century Japan. Determined to distinguish herself, she studied music with the best teachers to be found in Tokyo's "floating world," or pleasure district. Ichimaru secur...more

This is the most comprehensive assembly of historic geisha images ever compiled in a book. Over 500 exquisite views - drawn from postcards produced primarily between 1900 and 1940 - illustrate the rarified world of Japan's now-extinct licensed pleasure districts. Soon after the West pried open Japan's doors in 1853, stories about Japan began to cir...more