Diary Bound in Red Leather Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ewan McGregor

In the film, a Japanese model who lives in Hong Kong seeks a lover who would share her search for carnal satisfaction through art, namely poetry and calligraphy in the form of body painting. Vivian Wu, Ewan McGregor and Ken Ogata are the protagonists.

The writer of 'The Pillow Book', Sei Shônagon, was a Japanese court lady who lived in the 11th century. In her book she recorded court incidents, poems, thoughts, opinions and observations. Because she was very educated and skilled in writing, 'The Pillow Book' became an important historical document of life in the Japanese court of the Heian period.
The term pillow book is used for a collection of notes or notebooks which are personal notes of somebody's life over a period of time.

Answer: Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead's observations in Samoa, on the coming of age of adolescent girls, were shared with fellow cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict on an almost daily basis. She also kept detailed field bulletins which she shared with family and fellow scientists.

She is considered one of the most influential cultural anthropologists with a significant role in the sexual revolution of the 60s. Dr Benjamin Spock was her pediatrician and his views toward breastfeeding and child rearing were greatly influenced by Mead's Samoan experience which she shared with him.

Answer: Tennessee Williams

"A black day to begin a blue journal" were the opening lines in this diary, in February of 1955. Tennessee Williams was full of anxiety, restlessness and insecurity at the time, with the rehearsals for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and a new production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". Even though he was at the peak of his success, his feelings of isolation and his increasing dependency on drugs and alcohol were evident in his diary which he carried with him to Rome, Athens, Istanbul and Barcelona. "Nothing to say except hanging on", was one of his entries.

The Morgan Library exhibition included the diaries of sir Walter Scott, John Steinbeck, Henry David Thoreau and Charlotte Brontë, among others.

Answer: Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado engaged on a 'symbolic' coming-of-age trip through the South American continent, a trip that included drunken brawls, stealing, working in a leper colony, witnessing the injustices against the poor, the sick, and the descendants of the once-mighty Incas.

According to his writings, this awareness trip transformed him from an upper-middle-class, well-educated intellectual to an idealist, ready to stand by the underprivileged.
The diaries were published by his family in 1993.

Answer: Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka started keeping diaries as a means to stimulate his creativity and document thoughts, ideas, feelings, details of his daily life, even dreams. He kept them during all his life until a year before his death. These diaries were published in 1988, under the title "Diaries 1910-1923".

The fact that Kafka thought they were private and not for publication made his feelings of depression, isolation and failure more prevalent in them than in his other work.

Answer: Diaries of Hope

Zbigniew Preisner and his friend and colleague Polish director Krzysztof Kieúlowski were in Israel for a performance when they decided to do a project on the diaries and poems of Polish children, victims of the Holocaust. Kieúlowski passed away shortly after and Zbigniew Preisner composed his music for orchestra, choir and vocals in memory of the children and his friend.

He used "Dead Can Dance" singer Lisa Gerrard and boy-soprano Archie Buchanan for the vocals in his five-part composition.

Answer: William Dalrymple

Ioannis Moschos (John Moschos) wrote what we call a 'religious' diary or a 'hagiological' diary. In it, he documented the stories he heard and the spiritual wisdom he learned from his visits to the Eastern Orthodox monasteries of Egypt, Palestine and Asia Minor. He met with Desert Fathers and stylites who lived in the desert isolated, constantly fasting and praying. His account of this state of early Christianity became a valuable historical document.

William Dalrymple's book "From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium" is a contemporary look into the fate of these early Christian congregations and the way they fared through the years, in coexistence with Islam and Judaism. He started his journey from Mount Athos and travelled to Istanbul, Eastern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt.

Answer: Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci used visual journals throughout his life, at first as exercises for improving his drawing and painting skills and later, as his curiosity for nature, anatomy and mechanics became stronger and stronger, to document his ideas and catalogue his experiments and findings.

After his death, his journals were kept safe by his apprentice Francesco Melzi. After Melzi's death, his heirs begun selling individual pages to collectors or giving them away. A large portion of the journals was bought by sculptor Pompeo Leoni who tried to organize them but since da Vinci's original thought and order was lost, they ended up in separate volumes, each of them named a Codex.

There are many Codices in various museums and collections around the world, on subjects such as The Flight of Birds, Hydraulics, Military Art, etc.
The largest codex, consisting of 12 volumes of da Vinci's drawings and writings is Codex Atlanticus, currently in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

Answer: Street fashion

Scott Schuman is an American photographer who has worked for Vogue Italia, Vogue Paris, GQ, DKNY and other major fashion products and campaigns. His personal blog, The Sartorialist, is a gallery of everyday people and the way they dress going to work or in their leisure. His photographic street work has already produced two published books.

Of course, the fact that most of his entries are people from the streets of Paris, Milan and New York can most definitely explain the immense popularity his blog has gained over the years.

Some bonus trivia, 'sartorialist' is from the Latin 'sartor' which means tailor.

Answer: Moleskine

English writer Bruce Chatwin was the godfather of the brand name. Bruce Chatwin, like many other writers before him, used a certain kind of nameless handmade French notebook bought at the stationery shops in Paris. The name Moleskine first appears as a nickname for the notebook in Chatwin's book "The Songlines".

In 1997, a small Milan-based family company, registered the Moleskine trademark and begun producing notebooks, much like the French ones Chatwin described, at first just black, with a sewn spine, cream colored paper, a pocket in the rear cover and an elastic band which kept it closed.
They became a big success and the company has expanded its line with all kinds of diaries, planners, travel logs, even glasses, pens, pencils and cases, in a variety of styles and colors.