‘Oh you know, deuce take it’ said this gentleman, looking round the board with an imbecile smile,’ we can’t forego Blood, you know. We must have Blood, you know. Some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may be a little wrong, youContinue reading “RKS Literature: A Twit Pontificates on Aristocratic Blood (Charles Dickens)”
Author Archives: Robert K Stephen (CSW)
RKS 2024 Wine: German Pinot Noir: Attractive Price But Quality?
At $21 the 2021 Ruppertsberger Imperial Pinot Noir Trocken is at an attractive price but its quality? Aroma: No doubt this is a Pinot Noir or as they say in Germany Spätburgunder! Raspberry, cherry and a tad of strawberry jam. Palate: A jolt of kirsch mixes it up with raspberry. The fruit is a bitContinue reading “RKS 2024 Wine: German Pinot Noir: Attractive Price But Quality?”
RKS 2024 Film: Toronto’s Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival: “Dalton’s Dream”
Jamaican Dalton Harris wins the 2018 X Factor UK “talent contest”. He had been preparing for an X Factor UK appearance for seven years winning several Jamaican talent contests including “Rising Star”. Now translate the X Factor UK win into stardom, fortune and fame! Pictures circulate showing Dalton hugging a man and sitting on theContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: Toronto’s Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival: “Dalton’s Dream””
RKS 2024 Wine: Jean-Maurice Raffault Chinon from the Loire
Ontario is a province in Canada producing excellent Cabernet Franc in Niagara, Lake Erie North Shore and Prince Edward County so theoretically there is no need to look to Chinon in the Loire for good Cabernet Franc but to escape being labelled as unadventurous one may wish to try a French version of Cabernet FrancContinue reading “RKS 2024 Wine: Jean-Maurice Raffault Chinon from the Loire “
RKS 2024 Arts and Culture: Käthe Kollwitz at New York’s MoMA
In the early decades of the 20th century, when many artists were experimenting with abstraction, Käthe Kollwitz remained committed to an art of social purpose. Focusing on themes of motherhood, grief, and resistance, she brought visibility to the working class and asserted the female point of view as a necessary and powerful agent for change. “I haveContinue reading “RKS 2024 Arts and Culture: Käthe Kollwitz at New York’s MoMA”
RKS 2024 Arts and Culture: LaToya Ruby Frazier Photographic Exhibit Opens at New York’s MoMA
LaToya Ruby Frazier: Monuments of Solidarity opened 12May2024 and runs until 7September2024 at New York’s MoMA. For this exhibition, Frazier has reimagined her diverse bodies of work as a sequence of original installations that she calls “monuments for workers’ thoughts,” which address the harmful effects of industrialization and deindustrialization, the healthcare inequities facing Black working-class communitiesContinue reading “RKS 2024 Arts and Culture: LaToya Ruby Frazier Photographic Exhibit Opens at New York’s MoMA”
RKS Literature: A Step Away from Being a Robber or Vagabond (Charles Dickens)
“I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources or the difficulties of my life. I know that if a shilling were given to me by Mr. Quinion at any time, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I know that I worked from morning until night, withContinue reading “RKS Literature: A Step Away from Being a Robber or Vagabond (Charles Dickens)”
RKS Literature: Mr. Micawber’s Creditors (Charles Dickens)
“The only visitors I ever saw or heard of, were creditors. They used to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious. One dirty-faced man, I think he was a bootmaker, used to edge himself into the passage as early as seven o’clock in the morning and call up the stairs, toContinue reading “RKS Literature: Mr. Micawber’s Creditors (Charles Dickens)”
RKS Literature: The Secret Agony of My Soul (Charles Dickens)
“No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these hence-forth every-day associates with those of my happier childhood-not to say with Steerforth, Traddles and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in myContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Secret Agony of My Soul (Charles Dickens)”
RKS 2024 Wine: Encruzado to the Rescue?
So many Portuguese white wines have a functional element of suitability with food and their thinness and acidity making many of them a superb match with seafood a commodity which Portuguese menus are rarely lacking. Rabigato, Viosinho and Arinto do not exactly make stellar sipping wines. I had the privilege of visiting the Dâo wineContinue reading “RKS 2024 Wine: Encruzado to the Rescue?”
