commonplace book

Urban picnic #1

2010-05-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

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5-9 Nan Wan Rd, Tai Po, Hong Kong

7th floor back stairs.

Not too windy. View of the mountains between apartments on a clear day. To overcast and misty today.

Only known passers by.

Convenient.

Urban picnic site 2

2010-04-29T22:47:00.000-07:00

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Urban picnic site 2

A warm low wall outside an attractive school playground. Busy footpath. Interesting seedpods from nearby trees. Plentiful road noise. About 13 min walk, including stop at starbucks.

Wise words from Steve and Mission Control

2009-05-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

This is what it looks like when it's working.

They're not responding to you.

How do I occur for myself?

Habit construction:

Attitude       Emotion
Behaviour   Action
Cognitive    Explanation
(doesn't mean anything)

'i hate myself' is a speech habit that feeds the work habits.

Hassling Connie with Rilke

2009-04-28T20:26:00.001-07:00

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rainer Maria Rilke
-Letters to a Young Poet

Integrity and Teutonic Knights

2009-04-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

I read this article while looking for a Hanseatic League ref. It's a neat example of integrity as workability rather than as good or bad. (Luther arguing against the Pope's order that the Knights Templar reform and be more monastic). I'm sticking it in here so I don't lose it, i don't have any other point. It caught my attention.

It's from here:

Luther saw this, and inaugurated a different kind of reform. He seized a favorable opportunity, and exhorted the Knights, in a public address, March 28, 1523, to forsake the false monastic chastity so often broken, and to live in true matrimonial chastity according to the ordinance of God in paradise (Gen. 2:18), which was older and wiser than popes and Councils. "Your order," he argued, "is truly a singular order: it is both secular and spiritual, and neither; it is bound to wield the sword against infidels, and yet to live in celibacy, poverty, and obedience, like other monks. These things do not agree together, as is shown by reason and by daily experience. The order is therefore of no use either to God or the world."⁷⁸⁷

List of failures and disappointments that I suppress

2009-03-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

Things I failed at and haven't forgiven myself for and use as a justification not to do new things now.
The Cornerstones of playing a game successfully:
Enrolment Relationships

I didn't write an article for J.M.
The stupid extravaganza thing in canberra in ... 1993?
dropping out of Uni in 1993
not learning russian properly, not having an english lit degree
the jigsaw project for the basketball thing
being cut out of the final process of the water play at jigsaw
not getting sbu into the water
failing the pgde assignment
doing the other assignment so badly it's embarrassing

tongue twister

2009-03-10T20:22:00.001-07:00

yap sat
yim sat
gam gan
gap jai

(It's the one about going into the lab and turning off the switch).

N is for Neville

2008-12-03T16:51:00.000-08:00

Found someone has posted that lovely Gorey alphabet.

N is for Neville who died of ennui.

Kam Tin vs Tai Po: The 6 day war of 1899

2008-12-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

I went to this talk(PDF download):
By the author of The six day war of 1899: Hong Kong in the age of Imperialism:

Now I'm reading the book. Very interesting. I wrote to Phillip Adams and told him to read it. Write more when I've read more. But for now it's about British colonial policy on suppressing armed dissent.

European Poets Dinner & 6-Day war lecture

2008-10-31T00:56:00.000-07:00

30 oct
went to a lecture at HKAS about the 6 day war (yuen long vs tai po and blood on the mountain). later left my keycard in the autoteller. plan to buy that book next time i'm at HKU.

28 oct
dinner hosted by baptist u for eastern european poets.
told (by justus the journalist) to read to petushki by Venedikt Erofeyev and lokis by Prosper merimee

met a writer whose pen name is "pen name". works as a teacher librarian. crummy job i think.

Funky river 7.52am

2008-09-25T16:52:00.001-07:00

Morning after the storm

2008-09-23T15:47:00.001-07:00

Tai Po Market MTR 7.58am

2008-09-23T02:53:00.001-07:00

Kam sheung rd 5.48pm

2008-09-23T02:49:00.000-07:00

Kam sheung rd 7pm

2008-09-18T04:02:00.001-07:00

... From the 64K.

New School!

2008-09-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've started work at a school in Tai Po. I'll pop a video in here when i've uploaded it. I am meeting all my students this week, next week I'll actually start teaching them stuff. That's the plan. There is a lot of variety between the classes, of ability and intention. In general, I like them. Some of them are a bit wild.

Je fais des trous, des ptits trous

2008-07-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas
Le gars qu'on croise et qu'on ne regarde pas
Y a pas de soleil sous la terre, drôle de croisière
Pour tuer l'ennui, j'ai dans ma veste
Les extraits du Reader's Digest
Et dans ce bouquin y a ecrit
Que des gars se la coulent douce à Miami
Pendant ce temps que j'fais le zouave
Au fond de la cave
Parait qu'il y a pas de sots métiers
Moi je fais des trous dans les billets

J'fais des trous, des p'tits trous, encore des p'tits trous
Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous
Des trous de seconde classe, des trous de premiere classe.
J'fais des trous, des p'tits trous, encore des p'tits
Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous
Des petits trous, des petits trous, des petits trous, des petits trous
Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas,
Pour Invalides changer à l'Opéra,
Je vis au coeur de la planète
J'ai dans la tête un carnaval de confettis
J'en ammene jusque dans mon lit.
Et sous mon ciel de faïence
Je ne vois briller que les correspondances
Parfois je rêve, je divague, je vois des vagues
Et dans la brume au bout du quai
Je vois un bateau qui vient m'chercher
Pour sortir de ce trou, je fais des trous
Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous
Mais le bateau se taille
Et je vois que je déraille
Et je reste dans mon trou à faire des p'tits trous
Des petits trous, des petits trous, des petits trous, des petits trous
Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas,
Arts et Métiers direct par Levallois
J'en ai marre, j'en ai ma claque de ce cloaque.
Je voudrais jouer la fille de l'air
Laisser ma casquette au vestiaire.
Un jour viendra, j'en suis sur
Où je pourrai m'évader dans la nature
J'partirai sur la grand route
Et coute que coute
Et si pour moi il est plus temps
Je partirai les pieds devant.
J'fais des trous, des p'tits trous, encore des p'tits trous
Des p'tits trous, des p'tits trous, toujours des p'tits trous
Y a d'quoi devenir dingue
De quoi prendre un flingue.
S'faire un trou, un p'tit trou, un dernier p'tit trou.
Un p'tit trou, un p'tit trou, un dernier p'tit trou
Et on me mettra dans un grand trou.
Et j'n'entendrais plus parler de trous
Des petits trous, des petits trous
Des petits trous, des petits trous.

work

2008-07-04T01:20:00.000-07:00

Article that makes me think about a few different things.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft

I found it on this blog
http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2008/03/can_you_fix_thi.html#001748

Just putting it here till i work out what i am thinking.

One thing, is it clarifies the resistance the SBUI project. gives me some clarity on crafts people's resistance to computers.

Sham Shui Po blog 2004...

2008-06-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

The Mao to Now exhibition went up on Saturday 28th in Sydney.

I'm very happy about it. I'm in Hong Kong, so i wasn't at the opening. Mum, Dad, Mick, Imants, Dzidra, Mike & Sylvia, Robert & Dawn were all there. I had two things there, my 'Crimes of my Neighbours' diaries and the collaborative Sham Shui Po website co-curated with

Chau Yee Mei.

However there was no video projector for the Sham Shui Po blog,which sits on a computer screen in the corner by the door, and we didn't have anything spectacular up on the wall to draw people in, and the 'Worksheets' i'd fedex'd over with the site address on them (shamshuipokaifong.org) were behind the table so they wouldn't get wine spilt on them... and the blog/ website address is not in the catalogue, so there is no way for people to find it. I didn't think people would sit down and look at a website during a big art opening, but i hoped they'd notice it and be able to find it later, with the worksheets or from the catalogue. There will be other events though. Different audiences. And it was there, which rocked. Now that we know what the space looks like, we will print up some big versions of the postcards and the worksheets series, and put them up on the wall. There are some other great pieces in the show. A tank by Ian Howard. And a pile of rubble by Paul du Moulin.

The catalogue version of the name was 'Sham Shui Po blog' (2004) by Chau Yee Mei and Tanya Hart, so I'm going to write it here in case anyone googles it. In fact, is it called Sham Shui Po Kaifong: Creative Dissent, and the blog was created in 2008. The urban renewal project is the thing that started in 2004.

There are two addresses for the blog. One I bought recently is a forward. When i have time to re-build the website, it will be a site of its own: shamshuipokaifong.org

The other is the straight blogger address: shamshuipokaifong.blogspot.com

the magical rat infested alley

2008-06-09T06:00:00.001-07:00

one of the restaurants caught fire today, black oily smoke and
firemen in bright yellow hard hats in the alley. I scuttle through
the alley almost everyday, squeezing around piles of cardboard boxes
and leaping over puddles of mystery in my respectable teacher frocks.
the cleaners greet me with enthusiasm because i am hilarious. When
kath was visiting. I said 'let's cut through the rat infested alley'
and i was joking, but a huge rat ran across our path and up a
drainpipe and out of sight.

there are so many special parts of the alley. hidden art and niches
with godesses. restaurant staff have dinner there, and sleep during
the day and they hang their washing to dry between pipes. they
defrost fish and meat by dumping it on the ground in big plastic tubs
and running a hose over it. the kind of gross thing you try to forget
when you are on the other side. It seems ancient and magical to me,
like a portal to elizabethan london. an invisible world, backstage.
the nursery is kind of 'barnacle' shop. it nestles in under the eaves
of some other shops. it grows and grows, onto the path and down the
alley. I dont think anyone minds, because the shop is so beautiful
and green, full of trees and flowers. they used to be a shop for
making and fixing iron security gates, but they don't break often and
people don't buy them often.

aberdeen main rd, bus stop

2008-06-09T02:06:00.001-07:00

this is the drain that i fell in and wrote a poem about.

To my sweetheart, the drain

It all started with the drain.
Running late, my skin cold from the frigid air on the bus,
my sandals slippery from the sudden return to humidity,
the bag on my back is heavy with everything i have to do today and then
an old lady is ambling, carrying shopping bags that span the whole
path, taking her time.
I dodge up along the edge.
I slip…
It takes 15 minutes from losing balance to hitting the ground.
Falling backward from the weight of my bag.
Time to notice everything.
Then I fell in a drain.
Green slime on my summer dress, leaves stuck to my legs,
bruised, messy, embarrassed, fascinated.
The old woman stops and gives me a tiny packet of tissues, one at a
time,
the people at the bus stop watch me with palpable schadenfreude.

This is a falling in love story.

wu pak st pt 2

2008-06-09T01:41:00.001-07:00

neighbours fish and chinese new year sticks of pussy willow. you can see the tiled wall of the roof, where it used to be the bathroom of an illegal rooftop flat.

wu pak st pt 1

2008-06-09T01:39:00.000-07:00

floating snack shop, wu nam st

2008-06-09T01:37:00.000-07:00

The woman who owns this shop seems to float from place to place
around the block. she could be selling tea eggs and sugar cane juice
or jewellery, flowers. It seems like she runs more than the snacks. I
suspect she's the wu pak street mafia. I used to buy her tea eggs on
the way home from work, and juggle them on my lap in the minibus you
can see there, the no 58, between the little plastic bag and a soggy
kleenex tissue. so good.

Tin Shop

2008-06-09T01:26:00.001-07:00

these photos are from austra's favourite shop on pottinger street. when she lived here, she would go in to get a foot massage on this street every saturday, and she chatted to the guy who owned the shop, she never really needed to buy anything there. it's a small kiosk style shop and there are no longer licenses given for this type of shop. the owner cannot hand it down to his children, after he dies, the shop will disappear. pottinger street is famous and beloved for the shops that line the stone steps. it's one of those 'you will find anything you could ever need' lanes. the bad neighbour in this case is whichever bureaucrat comes up with aesthetically arid town improvement plans.

Gardner’s 7 (or 8) intelligences

2008-06-09T00:46:00.000-07:00

Maths Language Spatial Kinesthetic Musical Interpersonal Interpersonal Natural

I can never remember what they all are, so i'm writng them down here.

Exhibition: From Mao to Now

2008-05-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

The fishball diaries will be in the Mao to Now show in Sydney. Yay! I have about a week to get them ready to send. They'll need to be framed in Sydney i think. They need to arrive by Saturday 14th June. This is still the draft. I'm changing the writing style. Better but slower.

Notes from sitting in on classes at Creative High School

2008-05-25T07:18:00.000-07:00

NSS Starts 09-10
First lesson, listening exam prep, focussing on numbers.
Second lesson, comprehension and local issues. Teacher so patient, doing an open cloze, hard work keeping ppls attention.
Both classes: Ss need some chinese vocab support/ glossing.
Students safe behind chairs and tables. Discussion be easier in a circular space (even keeping chairs & tables)
Throughout one lesson, students were working on a 3D design project to build a living space (for a class in the afternoon), they were cutting, fitting, gluing and listening more or less at the same time. How could you harness that desire for 3-dimensions and focus it toward the English lesson (vs cope with it).
Possible: Create a 3D game, use play sets (like the barbie sets in Marvel/DC). Lego. Read intro to a play, make the set with lego (like the Endgame one). Watch a HK TV show, re-make the set, describe the set, get prepositions. See if you can describe a set and the other team can make the set you described.

Drama games that cd be used to back up the lessons: Nouns: Mona Lisa game, freestyle. The furniture game; Prepositions: Look at blueprints and plans. Design own house or shopping mall. Make a book mapping a district. Go to the park and write down/map out which plants are where (the labelled plants).

Reading Notes and Writing Notes

2008-05-25T07:02:00.001-07:00

Cross-curricular education: a New York Times article on Claudius Conrad.

There's a book of essays by a french guy from Madeleine's Roof Party, I can buy it at Parentheses 2/F, 14 Wellington St.

Notes from my little black book:
Textures of Aberdeen
Mixed media
Colour photograph, crayon rubbing on rice paper, diary entry.
Glue and transparency

Crimes and Complaints
Drying the fishing
Hanging fish-line
The drain (hi res enough)
New Apt with dust
My illegal roof
The guitar

Textures of SSP
Baby playground
Roof of old apt
Street
8s
All the numbers

How to win a game

2008-05-16T00:05:00.001-07:00

I sat in on a Landmark seminar this week and it was about what you need to have in place to make a brilliant idea work. This is it:
Integrity
Relationship (i.e. interested in what's in it for them)
Existence (this blog is me working at existence structures)
Enrolment

I had a sudden flash of every fabulous idea I've had in the last ... 15 years... that has gone to shit. the cringe-making list. But when i looked at it, i realised I completed quite a lot of other things that didn't suck. They are just out-shone by the failures. So my new project is spend some thinking time to look at the failures without cringing, working out what i didn't do (from the above list) and put them to sleep. Beautiful and useful doesn't need me dragging donkeys and pianos around on my coat tails. (you know, that film with the cloud and the eye).

People I met this week

2008-05-15T23:58:00.000-07:00

and want to remember. Stuart More from AIS in the primary part. Maarike's baby's first birthday, Amilia, the blondest baby in Hong Kong. Lots of great teaching/ using tech ideas. I'm going to go into the school and meet the Australians.

Louise Ho the poet. Lives in Queensland, is in HK at the moment. Wants to go and draw pictures of Sham Shui Po and around, and take photos. She will have a book launch here in a few weeks. I'd better find out when.

Theatre du Pif & Elsie Tu

2008-05-15T00:22:00.001-07:00

Last night I auditioned for a production that will be created by Theatre du Pif. They are my favourite theatre company in HK. They are movement-based and multi-lingual and build their work from primary sources. I don't have acting experience (besides the everyday kind), so I don't know if I'd cast myself. But I love their style and I knew an audition would be great in itself. It was. And I liked the improvised thing I did more that the one i practised a lot. I improvised something based on the life of Elsie Tu. I hadn't heard of her but now I have. Her documents are online at HKBU. She's responsible for the ICAC. I talked to Dad today, who said she was in LegCo when he moved here. He said 'she's a professional thorn in the side of HK Government'. Brilliant. I'd like to be a thorn if it in no way inconvenienced my lifestyle.

Ink Pen and Overview

2008-05-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

Converation with Marina about the 'Crimes of my neighbours' series. I should be writing the diary entries with a proper pen. But I'm so lazy and it will take about 3 times as long. It's really pretty, and it makes the text more about image than content which is the effect i was going for.

Conversation with Linda about the Sham Shui Po project. It needs to make sense. I didn't set it up to make sense to an outsider. I set it up to be one place with English translations. But now the context has changed, so it's suddenly a problem. Of all my blogs, it's the one that gets hit by people I don't know. It's time to make it make sense.

Tanya is...

2008-05-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

Tanya Hart is an Australian visual artist, writer, teacher and performer. She has travelled and exhibited in in Australia and China, and has been living and working in Hong Kong for the last six years. Her work extends through photography, hand-made objects, paper arts, journalling, poetry, performance and installation.

In my life, most of my work is about relationships, communities, self-expression and making a positive difference in the world. I work as a volunteer with Landmark Education to create more powerful possibility for people in my communities and in the world. In my job I work in schools with Hong Kong (Chinese) teenagers, teaching English and empowerment through performance.

By contrast, my artwork is about the microcosm; about capturing and extending small moments in time, emotion, space; looking into the 'dark corners' and finding the thing that is beautiful there; sublimating; finding the political within the personal.

Inspired by strange obsessive women whose brilliance is in their power of observation. Sophie Calle and Marguerite Duras. Anais Nin. Alice Walker. I'm inspired by mothers who bring their whole self to their work.

I find it impossible to make 'art' while I'm travelling. I enjoy being a tourist and looking at things as an outsider, taking snapshots, writing emails, but there's no 'art' in it for me. For something to feel like art, I need to have pulled it through my own experience. To photograph the fish drying on the roof, I need to have been astounded that someone would do that on MY side of the roof where I'm drying my laundry. I photographed the drain after I fell in it on the way to work. It has to be all about me.