Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long­handled brush. He stopped by the fence in front of the house where he lived with his aunt Polly. He looked at it, and all joy left him. The fence was long and high. He put the brush into the whitewash and moved it along the top of the fence. He repeated the operation. He felt he could not continue and sat down.

    He knew that his friends would arrive soon with all kinds of interesting plans for the day.

    They would walk past him and laugh. They would make jokes about his having to work on a beautiful summer Saturday. The thought burned him like fire.

    He put his hand into his pockets and took out all that he owned. Perhaps he could find some way to pay someone to do the whitewashing for him. But there was nothing of value in his pockets—nothing that could buy even half an hour of freedom. So he put the bits of toys back into his pockets and gave up the idea.

    At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea came to him. It filled his mind with a great, bright light. Calmly he picked up the brush and started again to whitewash.

    While Tom was working, Ben Rogers appeared. Ben was eating an apple as he walked along the street. As he walked along it, he was making noises like the sound of a riverboat. First he shouted loudly, like a boat captain. Then he said “Ding－Dong－Dong”， “Ding－Dong－Dong” again and again, like the bell of a riverboat. And he made other strange noises. When he came close to Tom, he stopped.

    Tom went on whitewashing. He did not look at Ben. Ben stared a moment and then said: “Hello! I'm going swimming, but you can't go, can you？”

    No answer. Tom moved his brush carefully along the fence and looked at the result with the eye of an artist. Ben came nearer. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he kept on working.

    Ben said, “Hello, old fellow, you've got to work, hey？”

    Tom turned suddenly and said, “Why, it's you, Ben! I wasn't noticing.”

    “Say—I'm going swimming. Don't you wish you could? But of course you'd rather work—wouldn't you? Of course you would.”

    Tom looked at the boy a bit, and said, “What do you call work？”

    “Why, isn't that work？”

    Tom went back to his whitewashing, and answered carelessly.

    “Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”

    “Oh come, now, you don't mean to say that you like it？”

    The brush continued tomove.

    “Like it? Well, I don't see why I shouldn't like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day？”

    Ben stopped eating his apple. Tom moved his brush back and forth, stepped back to look at the result, added a touch here and there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested. Soonhe said，“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

    Tom thought for a moment, and was about to agree, but he changed his mind.

    “No—no—it won't do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don't think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough.”

    “No—is that so? Oh come, now—let me just try. Only just a little.”

    “Ben, I'd like to, but if it isn't done right, I'm afraid Aunt Polly … ”

    “Oh, I'll be careful. Now let me try. Say—I'll give you the core of my apple.”

    “Well, here—No, Ben, now don't. I'm afraid …”

    “I'll give you all of it.”

    Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun, Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought it for a dead rat—and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures.

    And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle time all the time, with plenty of company, and the fence had been whitewashed three times. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging to his friends.

    He had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get.

    In addition to seeing wonderful films, one of the joys of coming to the Quad Cinema is to hang out in the area. The Quad Cinema is located right in the heart of Greenwich Village, perhaps the most charming and interesting neighborhood in the city. Here are some attractions we recommend, all within a comfortable walk from the Quad Cinema:

Washington Square Park

    As one of the best－known of New York City's 1,900 public parks, it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity. Come on a Sunday when it's most lively and festive.

New York University

    It surrounds Washington Square. See the wonderful Bobst Library and visit the amazing bookstores.  NYU is now considered one of the most powerful universities in the world.

Judson Memorial Church

    Located in the south of Washington Square between Thompson Street and Sullivan Street, opposite Washington Square Park, this beautiful church was completed in 1892. The Judson Memorial Church is most famous for its vocal participation in social events.

Washington Mews

    It is a hidden, private street in New York City between Fifth Avenue and University Place, just north of Washington Square Park. It was first developed as a mews(马厩街) that serviced horses from homes in the area. Since the 1950s the former stables have served as housing,  offices and other facilities for New York University.

Jefferson Market Courthouse

    Built in 1833 as a market, it was later changed to a courthouse, and in the 1950s it was emptied and close to being destroyed. It was saved and turned into a library. Many consider it to be the most beautiful building in the village.

    Obama, Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs—what do they have in common? They are, of course, all Americans. And according to a survey by social networking site baidu. com, they all best illustrate(举例说明) the word “cool”.

    But just what does it mean to say someone is “cool”? Most would answer that it is something to do with being independent-minded and not following the crowd.

    Yale University art professor Robert Farris Thompson says that the term “cool” goes back to 15th century West African philosophy. “Cool” relates to ideas of grace under pressure.

    “In Africa,” he writes, “coolness is a positive quality which combines calmness, silence, and life.”

    The modern idea of “cool” developed largely in the US in the period after World War II. “Post-war 'cool' was in part an expression of war-weariness (厌战情绪), . . . it went against the strict social rules of the time,” write sociologists Dick Pountain and David Robins in Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude.

    But it was the American actor James Dean who became the symbol for “cool” in the hugely successful 1955 movie Rebel without a Cause. Dean plays a tough guy who disobeys his parents and the authorities. He always gets the girl, smokes cigarettes, wears a leather jacket and beats up bullies. In the movie, Dean showed what “cool” would mean to American young people for the next 60 years.

    Today the focus of “cool” has changed to athletics (体育运动) stars. Often in movies about schools, students gain popularity on the athletics field more than in the classroom. This can be seen quite clearly in movies like Varsity Blues and John Tucker Must Die.

    But many teenagers also think being smart is cool. Chess and other thinking games have been becoming more popular in schools.

    “Call it the Harry Potterization of America—a time when being smart is the new cool,” writes journalist Joe Sunnen.

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    An Indian movie about two sisters has become a huge hit in China. The Hindi language film, called Dangal, has earned almost $170 million in China since its release there on May 5.

    Much has been written about why Dangal has enjoyed such big success in China. Some people say one reason is that the film's star and producer, Aamir Khan. He is famous in India's Bollywood film industry. Two of his earlier films were also big hits in China.

    Khan's popularity was clear after he got more than 600,000 followers on the Chinese social media service Sina Weibo within two months of joining. But he is not the only reason that the film strongly connects with audience across China. Media has pointed out how it shows similarities between parental systems in China and India.

Dangal is based on the true story of a man who enjoyed the sport of wrestling(摔跤). He competed as a wrestler, but never could achieve his lifelong dream: winning a gold medal. As a father, he wanted his son to win the medal. But his wife only gives birth to daughters. So he finally decides to train them to be world-class wrestlers.

    The movie is more serious than most Bollywood productions, which tell happy love stories and include colorful music and dance performances.

    Edward Chan is a professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He says the strict way of parenting in the film is something people in China can easily relate to. "I think the father role described by the movie in India is quite to the culture, especially the traditional culture in China."

    The Chinese government supported Global Times newspaper pointed that movie critics (评论家) in China did not like Dangal. Most of them agree with the fact that the father in the film was forceful in pushing his daughters to become wrestlers. But the film Dangal is really aimed to educate children to work for their dreams.

    Picasso Blue and Rose' at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris

    Through Jan.6.2019

    In its first major partnership with the Musée National Picasso﹣Paris, the Mus6e d'Orsay presents a show about Pablo Picasso's "Blue and Rose periods. "Some iconic（标志性的）Picasso works from this period in 1900～1906 ﹣﹣which experts consider a key point in his career—will make their first appearance in France for this exhibit. The show features over 300 works, including 80 paintings, 150 drawings, sculptures and prints, alongside photographs and letters from this time in the artist's life.

    'Hodler Parallelism' at the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland

    Through Jan. 13, 2019

    This year marks a century since the death of one of Switzerland's most famous painters: Ferdinand Hodler. To honor his great achievements, the Kunstmuseum Bem and Geneva's Museum of Art and History have joined forces for a show focused on his theory of parallelism. Hodler considered parallelism a key principle of his work and employed it through the use of repetition, patterns, symmetry（对称） and mirror images, The show features 99 of Holder' s works.

    Claude Monet' at the Albertina in Vienna

    Through Jan. 6, 2019

    For the first time in over 20 years, a large﹣scale Monet exhibit can be seen in Austria. The Alhertina has gathered 100 paintings from more than 40 international museums and private collections, including the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the National Gallery in London, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.  Highlights include the works: "On the Boat," "Boulevard des Capucines," "Grainstack in Sunlight," and "The Japanese Bridge."