Thought for the week

"Failure is merely proof that the desire was not strong enough."

Now, I don't in general approve of this kind of sentiment. It seems to me rather too aggressively go-getting, and perhaps dangerously delusional. Much of the time, failure is simply proof that something was indeed impossible - and shouldn't have been attempted in the first place. However, I like this particular expression because it occurs in a favourite film of mine, The Hairdresser's Husband, where it is illustrated by a charming fable.

Thought for the week

"Remember - when you are most convinced that you are right, you are highly likely to be wrong; and least likely to persuade anyone else, either way."

Stanley Kubrick's fondness for one-point perspective

I recently shared with my Film class students this montage of scenes from the films of the great director Stanley Kubrick, which highlights his conspicuous penchant for compositions with a one-point perspective.

Lots of directors like shots looking down a highway... or a corridor... or a path through the woods, but... maybe not as much as dear old Kubrick! As we see here, he managed to create that vertiginous, sucking-you-into-the-frame feeling in many other situations too. 

For anyone who's not too familiar with Kubrick's reputation, here's a good rundown on his creative 'insanity'.

Supplemental 'Thought for the week'

"Tact consists in knowing how far we may go too far."

This seems an irresistible corollary to my own jest at the start of the week.

Thought for the week

"When you've already gone too far, you might as well keep on going."

Thought for the week

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labour and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both."

I usually leave attributions of these weekly bons mots to the 'Labels' in the footnotes (where unattributed in this way, they are, ahem, my own), but on this occasion I feel compelled to include a link to more information about the great French historian and aphorist, François-René de Chateaubriand.

Thought for the week

"Planning a lesson is like caging a tiger. Sometimes you have to do it, to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and safe; but whenever you do, you have to feel sorry for the tiger."

CIS Hangzhou 'TV Channel' launched

After much discussion and delay (and a vexing last-minute assault by the massed gremlins of the Blogger platform!), our long-planned video blog for CIS Hangzhou is finally live: CIS Hangzhou TV Channel.   Check it out.

Thought for the week

"None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives."

Travels through China

Last week, as one of our 'Project Week' excursions around China, I led a small group of students (all girls, oddly enough) on an 1,800 km odyssey from Beijing back to Hangzhou.
Since China's celebrated 'Grand Canal' has its origin point in Hangzhou (branching off from the Qiantang River, just to the south of the Yangtze Delta) and is a central element of the city's identity, we thought it would be appropriate to consider the history and the continuing importance of this mighty thoroughfare, and explore some of the major cities along its route. 
Our party flew to its terminus in the northern capital of Beijing, and then returned to Hangzhou tracing the route of the canal (although there's not very much of the original waterway left any more; nothing, really, north of the Yangtze) - with stops along the way in the canalside cities of Dezhou (the 'capital' of China's burgeoning solar power industry), Xuzhou (home to a bigger lake than Hangzhou's, and a collection of terracotta warriors smaller than Xi'an's but equally impressive), Wuxi (famous for its Jichang Garden), and Suzhou. We made a point of trying to use as many different modes of transport as possible: 高铁, local train, bus, taxi, long-distance coach (on all of which my French colleague M. Biret and I managed to sleep!) - and even a waterbus, for the very last leg of the journey in Hangzhou, from Wulin Square Wharf back to our local Walmart on nearby Gudun Lu.
It was a fascinating journey. And I think I'll definitely be going back to Xuzhou at some point - the nicest city I've found in China!

Thought for the week

"The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

Thought for the week

"One shouldn't go to the woods looking for something, but rather to see what is there."

As we head out in to 'the wilds' for our 'Project Week' expeditions, I hope we can maintain this ideal of receptiveness to whatever we may encounter.

A little bit of Zen

As a child, I developed a great fondness for the Czech writer Karel Čapek, a marvellous fabulist and wit (I particularly liked his collection of outlandish re-imaginings of famous moments in history, Apocryphal Tales). Today, alas, his work is falling into obscurity, but he has attained enduring fame as the begetter of the term 'robot' for a humanoid mechanical servant (although he would generously acknowledge that he got the idea to use this word from his elder brother Josef, a painter).

Gardening was one of Čapek's great passions, and he wrote a rather oddball book about it - which includes perhaps my very favourite piece of his, a prose poem called 'How To Grow Clouds'. A few years ago, I discovered online a delightful piece of visual poetry inspired by this piece, a stop-motion animation by a young Polish art student, Alicja Cioch (you can read about the process of making the film on her blog here, and also see some of her charming original storyboards for the project).

How to grow clouds
It takes a lot of work: it is necessary to weed very carefully, to toss out muck and small stones by hand, to kneel on the earth, bend over, dig about in the soil, water profusely, collect caterpillars, exterminate aphids, loosen the ground and serve the earth; when your back hurts from all this and you straighten up and look at the sky, you will have the prettiest clouds. Probatum est.
Karel Čapek (1890-1938), translated by Andrew Malcovsky

Whenever somebody asks me for my 'philosophy of teaching', I direct them to this.

Thought for the week

"Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing."

I'm in two minds about this beard thing

Thought for the week

"If 'compromise' means reining in your selfishness a little, it's a good thing. If it means betraying your principles, it's not."

Thought for the week

"Am I really eccentric or am I just wearing a funny hat?"

Thought for the week

"That which I cannot build, I do not truly understand."

Thought for the week

"Creativity is having the courage to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

Thought for the week

"Ignorance exists in the map, not in the territory."

Shakespeare in a nutshell

Romeo and Juliet is decidedly NOT my favourite Shakespeare play. I find the contrivances of the plot so extreme as to be ludicrous, and the final double-suicide of the teen lovers leaves me utterly unmoved - indeed I find it more comical than tragic. I also consider it a bit patronising how teenagers are so often expected to find this the most engaging and accessible of Shakespeare's works just because, you know, it's about teenagers (and forbidden love, and not getting on with your parents, and all that). In my experience, most teenaged students forced to study the text share these reactions: they find it a jolly romp, but they are not moved by it. They may appreciate some of the marvellous language and characterization in it, but they do not find it speaks particularly to them or their age group.

Yet I am forced to take this as one of my set texts this year because of a rigid habit established by our parent school (next year I may - shall - rebel!). And so I am determined to rattle through it as fast as is humanly possible (not quite this fast, but very, very briskly), hoping to allow my students to enjoy it as a piece of theatre, as a performance - without getting into too much analysis.

Luckily, I find assistance in this endeavour from the admirable John Green, who has compressed all the analysis of R&J you could ever want into two 12-minute Youtube clips in his occasional CrashCourse series of tutorials.

Part II can be viewed here.

Thought for the week

"The secret to serendipity is keeping your eyes open."

Caught on camera

A couple of months ago, my Film students were getting their first practice in filming some short interviews with staff or peers, as a preliminary exercise in their new unit of study on 'Documentary'. Three of them - Yudo Wong, Abi Yee, and Ciara Jacob - decided to do me.

Thought for the week

"What is now proved was once only imagined."

Thought for the week

"There is no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end."