Contemporary Japanese Houses Volume 2

Terry, Charles S.

KODANSHA AMERICA +

Utamaro : Standard

Sadao Kikuchi

Muneshige Narazaki

Chinese Home Cooking

Julia Chin Cheng

Living Treasures of Japan

Adachi, and Peccinotti

Textile Designs 2

Nihon Sen'I Isho Senta, Osaka

This is the first book in English to describe the techniques of saikei, the most recent innovation in the timeless Japanese art of miniaturized plant culture. Saikei embraces the esthetic traditions of bonsai but allows a greater freedom in composition. Its use of ordinary stones and seedlings makes it a perfect beginning point for the aspiring bonsai enthusiast, while the bonsai connoisseur can derive pleasure in organizing the young plants into saikei patterns while he is waiting for them to mature. Saikei compositions are best suited to simple cement or earthenware trays that can be kept indoors or out, offering the city apartment dweller with space limitations or the person with his own garden equal opportunity to engage in this fascinating hobby. Saikei applies the same techniques used in bonsai for training trees to conform to desired shapes, but gives emphasis to the naturalness of the shape; a saikei tree appears as if its form had been determined by the terrain and weather conditions of its natural location, rather than by the hand of its grower. As you work with saikei, you will come to feel that these miniature landscapes differ only in size from the magnificence of nature's own compositions. Written by the bonsai expert who established the saikei school, this book provides the reader with his personal criteria of the esthetic elements necessary in a good saikei, as well as detailed instruction in planting skills. Compositions and techniques are thoroughly illustrated in more than 100 diagrams, over 200 black and white and 21 full-color photographs, including 16 color plates of saikei masterpieces, accompanied by numbered diagrams, lists of materials, and step-by-step instructions that enable you to create the same beautiful miniature landscapes in your own home.

Saikei: Living Landscapes in Miniature

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Toshio Kawamoto

Crafts & Hobbies

Shoji Hamada: A Potter's Way and Work is an ebullient, fascinating portrait of a great potter, tracing his place in the ceramic tradition and revealing a keen perception of his energetic life style, his dazzling work cycle, and intriguing specifics about the firing of his kilns. Along with Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada was one of the key figures in the development of studio pottery in the 20th century, resurrecting the craft after its near demise during the Industrial Revolution. His influence both in England and the U.S., as well as in his native Japan, cannot be underestimated. The Japanese government designated him a Living National Treasure in 1955 and awarded him the Order of Culture in 1968. Shoji Hamada is inspirational to anyone seeking to set off on a career as a studio potter, and is a must for anyone interested in the evolution of hand pottery and the dynamics of ceramics in general.

Shoji Hamada

PETERSON

The Silent Cry

Literature & Fiction

Ōe, Kenzaburō

History & Criticism

Almost Transparent Blue

A youth of college age, his older mistress, friends--random friends, they might be called--living near an American military base and experimenting with drugs both hard and soft. 
In rapidly sketched scenes gliding from the everyday real to the hallucinatory, the author has used what he himself calls his "narrative zoom lens." The novel is all but plotless, but the imagery is tellingly vivid, "the literary equivalent of genre painting," according to one critic. 
The participants seem caught in their hard-rock scene, sadly unfree, having neither the will nor the energy to break away. And over all there seems to hang the heavy shadow of self-destructiveness, not only in terms of their present situation but with regard to what the future holds for them--and the question is inescapable, for human society as well? In this mirror reflecting the present, personal relations deteriorate, violence of the moment erupts, and communication inches slowly towards nullity. One asks, eventually, if the hallucinations, whatever their source, are so very far from the vague misgivings and hopeful imaginings of the man in the street. 
The author coolly and unsentimentally distills from this morass a feeling of something pure and unsullied. His technique, with its lack of taboos, of moral condemnation, and of the superfluous, comes very close to the insouciance of cinema verite, in which there is also a touch of surrealism. 
Representing a sharp and conscious turning away from the introspective trend of postwar Japanese literature, this work polarized critics and public alike and soon attracted international attention, a sign of winds of change, if not specifically of things to come.

Ryū Murakami

Contemporary

Step-by-step instructions and over 300 photographs allow the trainee to follow and learn the techniques with ease. The ideal weapon for self-defense is a stick. To find a comprehensive system of techniques using the stick, we must turn to the East, for systems known to the West have fallen into disuse. In this book, the techniques of Kukishin Ryu-an ancient Japanese method-have been updated and adapted for use today. A thorough grounding in the fundamentals dealt with here will enable you to disarm and control any assailant. CONTENTS Section 1: Basic Movements Section 2: Techniques against First Attack Section 3: Techniques against Foot Attacks Section 4: Techniques against Wrist Holding Section 5: Techniques against Sleeve and Lapel Holding Section 6: Techniques against Seizure from Behind Section 7: Techniques against Stick Holding Section 8: Immobilizations

Stick Fighting: Techniques of Self-Defense

Sports & Outdoors

Quintin Chambers

Masaaki, Hatsumi

Individual Sports

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