If all you want to say is "Yes, yes, continue conducting yourself in this bad manner and you will see what I will do to you," then you're going to need "head raised and bent forward several times, with the eyes narrowed and menacing." If, however, the situation is more grave, if what you mean is "Wait, or give me time, so that a favorable occasion might turn up and then I will make you see if I know how to avenge myself for the wrong you do to me," then "palm held facing downwards and oscillated slowly up and down" is the ticket.
From Joan Acocella "The Neapolitan Finger", being a NYRB review of Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity by Father Andrea de Jorio.
A commonplace book: an old-fashioned literary diary for recording interesting items from reading you've done. I use mine to record snippets from reading, conversation and life in general. (The early 2003 entries are from a period some years ago -- before the blog age -- when I tried an online commonplace book as a straight web page.)
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Blog Archive
-
▼
2003
(85)
-
▼
February
(32)
- I think there is some reason for questioning wheth...
- North Korea Nuts
- A man who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or w...
- Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this ...
- It sounds to me like it's all your fault. Patrick...
- Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our...
- Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great...
- We could do that but it would be wrong. Ric...
- No matter where you go, there you are. Buck...
- Get over it. Marion Barry
- If all you want to say is "Yes, yes, continue cond...
- How sour sweet music is, When time is broke ...
- The Man who knew no bounds Title of a lost ...
- It might feel good, It might sound a little ...
- "Mom, I wish there was no bath." From a you...
- "The first thing wrong was that it was a bad inves...
- Presented with two ruthless, pandering men who bel...
- Captain William Clark was one of the most defiant,...
- "When a man with a gun knocks on your door at 11 a...
- And I imagined (because it did not occur to me to ...
- Deep and abiding cynicism is the portal to true id...
- "When they mistake you for dead, its time to move ...
- The contingency of the world is fourfold. First, ...
- Political parties who accuse the one in power of g...
- When we consider that all quanta have interacted a...
- Hence this life of your which you are living is no...
- What is Oedipus' hamartia then? Obviously it is n...
- To be perpetually talking sense runs out the mind,...
- I wish I could remember what is said at this table...
- There's nothing you can do when you're the next in...
- The Man, sing to me Muse of the wily man Who wande...
- Have you ever started a path? No one seems willin...
-
▼
February
(32)