In the lab I showed the very opening of Chris Marker’s Sunless (Sans Soleil). Widely regarded as the masterpiece of essay films. What I showed was the film’s first minute:

I emphasised how it discussed itself, solved its problems by describing (not explaining) them. How to begin with this image of happiness?, will they see happiness?, telling us why we see black leader, as a response to a question.

The commentaries we are writing. Record them. Do not get bogged down in making them perfect. They never will or can be. Ever. Record, use them. The essay you write about your film is where you can justify or not why it has ended up the way it has. That is where all the learning is laid out plainly. Not the film, that’s our experimental lab. It will always be messy.

Finally, this chunk below is taken from Sei, Shonagon. The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon. Trans. Ivan Morris. Penguin Books, 1971. It was completed in 1002 and I think of it as an 11th century blog. It is a beautiful read. Here is one section where she compiles lists. This inspired a lot of lists this semester:

[90] Infuriating things – Thinking of one or two changes in the wording after you’ve sent a message to someone, or written and sent off a reply to someone’s message.
Having hurriedly sewn something, you’re rather pleased with how nicely you’ve done it – but then when you come to pull out the needle, you find that you forgot to knot the thread when you began. It’s also infuriating to discover you’ve sewn something inside out.

I remember an occasion while Her Majesty was staying in the Southern Residence, 1 when she announced that some clothes were urgently needed, and ordered us all to set to and sew them then and there. She handed out the pieces of robe, and we all gathered at the front of the building and started work, each on her separate piece. We looked quite crazed, everyone sewing away furiously to see who could do the most, each of us seated on her own and all facing in different directions. Nurse Myōbu raced through her sewing and put down the finished work. However, just as she was in the act of tying off the thread she realized that she’d stitched one of the sleeve pieces together the wrong way round. She flung it down in a panic and rose to her feet, but when her piece was put together with the back section the mistake was discovered. We made great fun of her for this, and told her she had to hurry and re-do it, but she wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Why should I re-sew it just because I find I’ve sewed it up wrongly?’ she demanded. ‘If it’s figured cloth or something then you can tell what’s back and front, and it would be fair to make anyone who hadn’t looked re-sew it in that case, but this is unpatterned cloth, so there was no way of telling. Why should I re-sew this! Get someone who hasn’t done any of the sewing to fix it.’

‘Well, we can’t just leave things at that, can we,’ said Gen Shōnagon and Chūnagon, and they drew up the pieces and grimly set about doing the necessary re-sewing. It was most entertaining to observe how Nurse Myōbu sat there staring balefully at them as they worked.

You’ve just had some lovely bush clover or plume grass planted and are admiring it when some fellows arrive carrying a long box and a couple of spades, set about brazenly digging away at it, and carry it off. This is both depressing and infuriating. They wouldn’t dream of doing this if someone of standing were present, but though you do your utmost to stop them, they simply ignore your orders. ‘We’re just taking a little,’ they assure you, and off they go, which infuriates beyond words.

It’s also most infuriating for those concerned when a servant from some grand establishment arrives at the residence of someone such as a Provincial Governor and addresses everyone with an offhand rudeness, obviously feeling he can get away with it where such lowly folk are concerned.

You’ve received a letter you’re anxious to read, and someone snatches it from you and retreats to the garden, where he stands reading it. Infuriated and miserable, you pursue him as far as the blinds, but there you have to stop. 2 As you stand there watching while he reads, you’re almost overwhelmed by the frustrated urge to dash out and retrieve it. 3

[91] Things it’s frustrating and embarrassing to witness – A guest has arrived and you’re sitting talking when people inside begin a conversation of a confidential nature, and you have to sit there hearing it, powerless to stop them.
Similarly, your lover becomes terribly drunk, and starts coming out with confidential things when he can be overheard.

Someone starts talking about another person, unaware that he’s sitting within earshot. This is very embarrassing, even if the person concerned is a mere servant and not someone of consequence.

Witnessing the serving men in the place you’re visiting overnight being playful and silly.

Someone insists on telling you about some horrid little child, carried away with her own infatuation with the creature, imitating its voice as she gushes about the cute and winning things it says.

A person of no learning, making ostentatious use of famous names in front of someone truly learned.

It’s also painfully embarrassing to have to stand by and hear someone proudly reciting to others a poem of theirs that isn’t really much good, or bragging about the praise they’ve received for it.

[92] Startling and disconcerting things – The way you feel when an ornamental comb that you’re in the process of polishing happens to bump against something and suddenly snaps.
An ox cart that’s overturned. You’ve assumed that something of such enormous bulk must of course be thoroughly stable, and you’re simply stunned to see it lying there, and deeply disconcerted.

Someone bluntly saying things that are embarrassing and unpleasant for the other person.

It’s horribly startling and disconcerting to stay up all night waiting, certain that someone will come, then finally begin to give up thought of him as dawn breaks, and drift off to sleep – only to wake with a start when a crow caws suddenly just outside, and discover that it’s broad daylight.

Someone with a letter that’s to be delivered elsewhere shows it to a person who shouldn’t see it.

Someone pins you down and commences laying down the law about something that means absolutely nothing to you, without your being able to get a word in edgeways.

Spilling something is always very startling and disconcerting.

[93] Regrettable things – When a dark rain falls instead of snow for the Gosechi Festival or the Litany of Buddha Names.
When an imperial abstinence turns out to coincide with one of the Palace Festivals. You’ve all been busy preparing for and looking forward to the event, and suddenly this obstruction brings everything to a halt.

It’s a great pity when there’s a musical gathering, or some other such thing you want someone to see, and you send to have them come, but they don’t arrive.

A like-minded company of women or men 1 sets off together from the palace to visit a temple or some other place. The sleeves spill tastefully out from their carriage, scrupulously, even overscrupulously, arranged – so much so that someone of taste might find the effect if anything a bit repellent – and then, to everyone’s deep chagrin, you don’t meet with a single horse or carriage bearing anyone who could appreciate the effect. It’s quite extraordinary how, from sheer vexation, you find yourself longing for even some passing commoner to have the sensibility to appreciate the scene, and later spread the word.