The Second Skin

A 59-year-old American acquires a new family on a tropical island, while looking back on his "naked history" with his old family and its talent for death.

"What does a black burlesque star have to do with some of the most enduring and passionate ideas in modern aesthetic theory? Josephine Baker emerges in this untold story as a principal figure in the drama behind the making of Euro-American Modernism. Instead of seeing her nude performances as a Primitivist given, Cheng argues that Baker's skin was central to debates about and desire for "pure surface" that crystalized at the convergence of modern art, architecture, machinery, and philosophy. Taking the reader across the Atlantic - through real stages and imagined houses; banana plantations and ocean lines; metallic bodies and radiant cities-this study tracks the ardent and protean conversa-tion between the making of a Modernist style and the staging of a new black visuality. In this account, Baker and the Modernists known to have adored and objectified her in fact share a common dream: the fantasy of remaking and wearing the skin of the other"--

Jess Morgan's life has always been chaotic. When a startling new reality cannot be denied, it's clear that everything she believed about herself is a lie. She is linked to a world where humans-'hot-bloods'-are disposable entertainment. Life on a rundown estate-her single mum's alcoholism and violent boyfriend-become the least of Jess's worries.

Almost from the moment of our birth, clothing acts as our second skin, yet we rarely consider where our clothes come from, or the effects they might have on the environment. This beautifully photographed is about easily achievable ways to care for the planet by living a little simpler regarding cloth and clothing. Get a handle on how cloth consumption affects nature on a larger scale. Look at what textiles are really made from, and examine their properties with an emphasis on those derived from natural sources. In no time you'll have the tools to make informed choices regarding clothing--including deciding how much clothing a person really needs. Second Skin also covers how to mend and maintain clothing, re-purpose fashion, dye clothing, and when all else fails, what it takes to patch, piece, and felt.

An action novel featuring Nicholas Linnear, an Anglo-Japanese hero. He heads an international company which has developed a new cellular phone that can transmit the speaker's picture and which the Japanese underworld tries to steal. By the author of The Ninja.

Do we need bodies for sex? Is gender in the head or in the body? In Second Skins Jay Prosser reveals the powerful drive that leads men and women literally to shed their skins and--in flesh and head--to cross the boundary of sex. Telling their story is not merely an act that comes after the fact, it's a force of its own that makes it impossible to forget that stories of identity inhabit autobiographical bodies. In this stunning first extensive study of transsexual autobiography, Jay Prosser examines the exchanges between body and narrative that constitute the phenomenon of transsexuality. Showing how transsexuality's somatic transitions are spurred and enabled by the formal transitions of narrative, Prosser uncovers a narrative tradition for transsexual bodies. Sex change is a plot--and thus appropriately transsexuals make for adept and absorbing authors. In reading the transssexual plot through transsexuals' own recounting, Prosser not only gives us a new and more accurate rendition of transsexuality. His book suggests transsexuality, with its extraordinary conjunctions of body and narrative, as an identity story that transitions across the body/language divide that currently stalls poststucturalist thought. The form and approach of Second Skins works to cross other important and parallel divides. In addition to analyzing transsexual textual accounts, the book includes some 30 photographic portraits of transsexuals-- poignant attempts by transsexuals to present themselves unmediated to the world except by the camera. And the author does not shy from exposure himself. Interjecting the personal into his theoretical discussion and close textual work throughout the book, Prosser reads and writes his own body, his purpose in that stylistic crossing to stake out transsexuality--and hence this very book--as his own body's narrative.

With about 10–20% of the adult population in Europe being tattooed, there is a strong demand for publications discussing the various issues related to tattooed skin and health. Until now, only a few scientific studies on tattooing have been published. This book discusses different aspects of the various medical risks associated with tattoos, such as allergic reactions from red tattoos, papulo-nodular reactions from black tattoos as well as technical and psycho-social complications, in addition to bacterial and viral infections. Further sections are dedicated to the composition of tattoo inks, and a case is made for the urgent introduction of national and international regulations. Distinguished authors, all specialists in their particular fields, have contributed to this publication which provides a comprehensive view of the health implications associated with tattooing. The book covers a broad range of topics that will be of interest to clinicians and nursing staff, toxicologists and regulators as well as laser surgeons who often face the challenge of having to remove tattoos, professional tattooists and producers of tattoo ink.

Sexier than nudeness is a body suggestively wrapped in satin and lace - women have known it for centuries and men will be eager to confirm. Once kept demurely concealed, lingerie now pervades every fashion category, inspiring designs for day looks, loungewear, evening clothes, and accessories. This book lusciously invites the reader to enter the world of contemporary lingerie design, seductively unveiling all that the heart desires with countless photographs of corsets, garter belts, brassieres, negligees and many more stunning accessories beyond the purely practical.