Robert K Stephen (CSW)

RKS Literature: The Essence of Zorba the Greek

“If today I were to choose a spiritual guide from the whole wide world- a “guru” as they say in India, a venerable father as the monks say in Mount Athos-the one that I would choose without fail would be Zorba. He possessed precisely what a pen pusher needs for deliverance: the primitive glance thatContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Essence of Zorba the Greek”

RKS Literature: Making a Proper Toilette (Thomas Mann)

“The preparation, the lavish equipment for what should have been the serious business of life used up all his energy. How much mental effort had been expended simply in making the proper toilette. How much time and attention went to his supplies of cigarettes, soaps, and perfumes; how much occasion for making up his mindContinue reading “RKS Literature: Making a Proper Toilette (Thomas Mann)”

RKS 2023 Wine: A Greek Tragedy? The Blood of a Lion Killed by Hercules?

So little Greek wine flows into Canada and that in itself is a tragedy. The choice is almost no choice and if you are a fan of red wine we seem to have wholesale buyers enamoured with Xinomavro which if well made needs age to be enjoyable somewhat like Italian Barolo. Young Xinomavro is highlyContinue reading “RKS 2023 Wine: A Greek Tragedy? The Blood of a Lion Killed by Hercules?”

RKS Literature: Dog on the Hunt (Thomas Mann)

“The racking out, the driving up, the chasing-these are ends in themselves to the sporting spirit, and are plainly so to him, as anybody would see who watched him at his brilliant performance. How beautiful he becomes, how consummate, how ideal. Like a clumsy peasant lad, who would look perfect and statuesque as a huntsmanContinue reading “RKS Literature: Dog on the Hunt (Thomas Mann)”

RKS 2023 Wines: Good Karma Malbec? Blueberry Jam Memories!

Most Argentinian Malbecs are infused with good Karma. Is it because of some higher power in the wine cosmos or a matter of terroir meeting the right grape and winemaker? I think it best not to disrupt any mysticism. So I will not answer the question. From Finca Sophenia we have a 2020 Malbec fromContinue reading “RKS 2023 Wines: Good Karma Malbec? Blueberry Jam Memories!”

RKS 2023 Hot Docs Films: “It’s Coming”: Reality Television?

Ashley lives in an old Brooklyn New York apartment with her children. Ashley claims to have been haunted since the age of 11 in the same apartament. Javier her young son has progressed (or regressed) to the point he is playing with a spirit he calls Kitty. He was terrified initially with Kitty who isContinue reading “RKS 2023 Hot Docs Films: “It’s Coming”: Reality Television?”

RKS Literature: The Tribal Laws of Dogs; (Thomas Mann)

“ My old familiar Bashan was a stranger to me, I found it impossible to enter his feelings or behaviour or understand the tribal laws that governed them. Certainly, the meeting in the open of two dogs, strangers to each other, is one of the most painful, thrilling, and pregnant of all conceivable encounters: itContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Tribal Laws of Dogs; (Thomas Mann)”

RKS Literature: A Dog and His Absolute Master: (Thomas Mann)

It is a deep-lying patriarchal instinct in the dog that leads him-at least in the more manly, outdoor breeds-to recognize and honour in the man of then house and the head of the family his absolute master and overlord, protector of the hearth: and to find in relation of vassalage to him the basis andContinue reading “RKS Literature: A Dog and His Absolute Master: (Thomas Mann)”

RKS Literature: History Professors Not Liking History! (Thomas Mann)

“He knows that history professors do not love history because it is something that comes to pass, but only because it is something that has come to pass: that they hate a revolution like the present one because they feel it lawless, incoherent, irrelevant- in a word unhistoric: that their hearts belong to the coherent,Continue reading “RKS Literature: History Professors Not Liking History! (Thomas Mann)”

RKS Literature: The Misleading Moment (Thomas Mann)

“For a human being tends to believe that the mood of the moment, be it troubled or blithe, peaceful or stormy, is the true, native, and permanent tenor of his existence: and in particular he likes to exalt every happy chance into an inviolable rule and to regard it as the benign order of hisContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Misleading Moment (Thomas Mann)”