Books about Gestures from Amazon.com

As featured in the New York Times and Reader's Digest "An eye-opener into the pitfalls awaiting the unaware traveler." -Washington Post "Can save the innocent abroad from great gobs of serious trouble." -Chicago Tribune Before you raise your hand to signal the waiter, extend your thumb to hitchhike, or flash the "O.K." sign with thumb and forefinger, Stop! Think of where you are and exactly what you are trying to say-otherwise you could create an international incident. Remember when President Bush thought he was flashing the "V" for Victory sign to cheering Australians? (See inside.) Exploring the ins and outs of body language from head to toe, this newly revised and expanded edition of Roger Axtell's indispensable guide takes you all around the world of gestures-what they mean, how to use them, and when to avoid them. This latest edition includes:
* Updates about the 200 most popular gestures and signals-and dozens of new examples
* New sections covering special gestures-from American Sign Language and tai chi to flirting and kissing
* Information to guide you through gestures country by country-from Switzerland to Japan, Nigeria to the Netherlands
* Amusing anecdotes and helpful hypothetical scenarios.
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Never judge a book by its cover--or, for that matter, by its name. Otherwise you might overlook A Gesture Life, Chang-rae Lee's fine if awkwardly entitled follow-up to Native Speaker. As he did in his debut, the author explores the dilemma of being an outsider--and the corrupt, heartbreaking bargains an outsider will make to adapt to his surroundings. The protagonist, Franklin Hata, has actually spent his whole life donning one variety or another of existential camouflage. First, as a native-born Korean, he bends over backwards to fit into Japanese culture, circa 1944. Then he attempts a similar bit of environmental adaptation in postwar America--more specifically, in the slumbering New York suburb of Bedley Run. But in neither case does he quite succeed, which gives the novel its peculiar, faltering sense of tragedy.

"There is something exemplary to the sensation of near perfect lightness," confesses this resident alien, "of being in a place and not being there, which seems of course a chronic condition of my life but then, too, its everyday unction, the trouble finding a remedy but not quite a cure, so that the problem naturally proliferates until it has become you through and through. Such is the cast of my belonging, molding to whatever is at hand."

A Gesture Life presents this chronic condition in two different time frames. In one, delivered via flashback, Hata is a medical officer in Japan's Imperial Army. Posted to a tiny installation in rural Burma, he's ordered to oversee a fresh detachment of Korean "comfort women"--i.e., victims of institutionalized gang rape. At first he maintains his professional distance, not to mention his erotic appetite: "It was the notion of what lay beneath the crumpled cotton of their poor clothes that shook me like an air-raid siren." But soon enough he's drawn into a relationship with one of the women, whose bloody and horrific denouement leaves a permanent mark on the "unblissed detachment" of his existence.

The present-tense, American half of the story revolves around Hata's life in Bedley Run, where he adopts, alienates, and finally forms a shaky rapport with his daughter, Sunny. We might expect this sort of material to pale in comparison with his wartime trauma. But oddly enough, Hata's suburban melancholia is much more compelling--and the gradual disclosure of his past, which is supposed to ratchet up the tension, seems too crude a mechanism for a writer of Lee's superlative talents. (His truest tutelary spirit, in fact, might be John Cheever, who gets an explicit nod at one point.) None of this is to dismiss A Gesture Life, whose dual narratives are written with a rare, unhurried elegance. And if Lee's splice job lacks the absolute adhesion we expect from a great work of art, he nonetheless pulls off a remarkable, moving feat: he puts us inside the skin of a man who, "if he could choose, might always go silent and unseen." --James Marcus.
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At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and his teammate John Carlos came in first and third, respectively, in the 200-meter dash. As they received their medals, each man raised a black-gloved fist, creating an image that will always stand as an iconic representation of the complicated conflations of race, politics, and sports. In this, his autobiography, Smith fills out the story around that moment--how it came to be and where it led him.

Smith engagingly describes his life-long commitment to athletics, education, and human rights. He also dispels some of the myths surrounding his famous gesture of protest: contrary to legend, Smith was not a member of the Black Panthers, nor were his medals taken back by the Olympic Committee. Retelling the fear he felt in planning and carrying out his protest, the death threats against him, his difficulty in finding work, and his determination to live his values, he conveys the long, painful backlash that came with his fame, and his fate, all of which was wrapped up in his "silent gesture.".
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This text contains practical instruction in choral and instrumental conducting for both beginning and intermediate students, along with a large selection of scores for classroom practice..
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Who needs to speak Japanese? There's a lot you can say with traditional hand gestures and body motions that are universal as well as uniquely Japanese. This whimsical look at "the language of no language" will teach you to hurl insults, flirt, agree, excuse yourself, cross the street, and even make promises-wordlessly! (And who is that stoic guy wearing a suit in all the photos?) Finally, a way to tell someone at a loud party, "Your underwear is showing," in four easy hand motions. This is a book for the serious student, the class clown, and the crazy guy at Akihabara Station hoping to communicate with Godzilla.

Hamiru-aqui is a Japanese artist based in Tokyo.

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Attenzione!

They say that a gesture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to speaking with your hands, the Italians speak volumes This quirky handbook of Italian gestures, first published in 1958 by renowned Milanese artist and graphic designer Bruno Munari, will help the phalange-phobic decipher the unspoken language of gestures a language not found in any dictionary. Charming black-and-white photos and wry captions evoke an Italy of days gone by. Speak Italian gives a little hand to anyone who has ever been at a loss for words..
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An excellent introduction to the Buddhist view, with practices to awaken the body, mind and senses..
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The Theatre of Movement and Gesture is the first English-language translation of the classic work, Le Théâtre du Geste, by Jacques Lecoq--one of the most influential theorists and teachers of what is now known as physical theatre. Departing from the Stanislavski school of acting, Lecoq emphasized physical movement, mime and non-text-based acting. His teaching was enormously influential on a number of well-known actors, directors and theatre practitioners, including Ariane Mnouchkine, Robert Wilson, Julie Taymor, and Peter Stein. This well-illustrated volume collects a number of his writings--along with contributions from some of his disciples--and presents a precious testimony to Lecoq's special vision of the art of acting and of its close relationship with the history of mime and of masked performance.

Despite his death in 1999, Lecoq's school in Paris is still a thriving institution, with students from all over the world who make the pilgrimage there to learn about clowning, mime, maskwork, and other forms of non-text-based theatre. Lecoq left only a handful of published texts, one of which David Bradby translated as The Moving Body, published by Methuen and Routledge Inc in paperback in 2002..
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