“The Ying Yang masters do not concern themselves with those days of the calendar marked ‘Red Tongue Days’. Nor did people of old treat the day as unpropitious. It seems someone more recently has declared it unlucky, and now everyone has begun to avoid it, believing that things undertaken on this day will miscarry. ThisContinue reading “RKS Literature: Should One Be Concerned with Red Tongue Days Marked on the Calendar? (Yoshida Kenkō)”
Author Archives: Robert K Stephen (CSW)
RKS 2026 International Film: “The Blue Trail” (O Último Azul)
A Brazilian/Mexican/Chilean/Netherland production helmed by director Gabriel Mascaro presenting a dystopian panorama of humour and satire which is a gentle, silent and highly effective jab at ageism and massaged- “media managed” governmental oppression in society. A Brazil where at age 75 you are “honoured” as “national living heritages” with your residence marked by a laurelContinue reading “RKS 2026 International Film: “The Blue Trail” (O Último Azul)”
RKS Literature: Perfect Regularity as Tasteless (Yoshida Kenkō)
“In all things, perfect regularity is tasteless. Something not quite finished is very appealing, a gesture towards the future. Someone told me that even in the construction of the Imperial Palace, some part is always left uncompleted.” Yoshida Kenkō, “A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees”, 1329-1331?
“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: TALES FROM MY HOOD: NO WHEELS ON THE BUS TO GO ROUND AND ROUND
TALES FROM MY HOOD: NO WHEELS ON THE BUS TO GO ROUND AND ROUND Bob and Fay’s grandson J can’t quite get his fill of the children’s book “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round”. Twenty or thirty times a day sometimes. Wheels on a vehicle remind me of a story Bob tells.Continue reading ““Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: TALES FROM MY HOOD: NO WHEELS ON THE BUS TO GO ROUND AND ROUND”
RKS Literature: Avarice and the Great Fool (Yoshida Kenkō)
“Great wealth will drive you to neglect your own well-being in pursuit of it. It is asking for harm and tempting trouble. Though you leave behind at your death a mountain of gold high enough to prop up the North Star itself, it will only cause problems for those that come after you. Nor isContinue reading “RKS Literature: Avarice and the Great Fool (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: The Boring Show Home (Yoshida Kenkō)
“How ugly and depressing to see a house that has employed a bevy of craftsmen to work everything up to a fine finish, where all the household items set out for proud display are rare and precious foreign or Japanese objects, and where even the plants in the garden are clipped and contorted rather thanContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Boring Show Home (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: The Necessary Sordidness of Cash (Herman Melville)
“The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must alsoContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Necessary Sordidness of Cash (Herman Melville)”
RKS Literature: Why Cling to Life to an Ugly Old Age (Yoshida Kenkō)
“If our life did not fade and vanish like the dews of Adashino’s grave or the drifting smoke from Toribe’s burning grounds, but lingered on forever, how little the world would move us. It is the ephemeral nature of things that makes them wonderful. Why cling to life which cannot last forever only to arriveContinue reading “RKS Literature: Why Cling to Life to an Ugly Old Age (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: How to be an Elegant Lover (Yoshida Kenkō)
“The elegant thing is for a lover to wander aimlessly hither and yon, drenched with the frosts or dews of night, tormented by the fears of his parents’ reproaches and the censure of the world, the heart beset with uncertainties, yet for all that sleeping alone often, though always fitfully. On the other hand, heContinue reading “RKS Literature: How to be an Elegant Lover (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: Murder: Aesthetics and Morality (Thomas De Quincey)
“Murder, for instance, may be laid hold of by its moral handle, (as it generally is in the pulpit, and at the Old Bailey) and that I confess, is its weak side; or it may also be treated aesthetically, as the Germans call it, that is in relation to good taste.” Thomas de Quincey, “OnContinue reading “RKS Literature: Murder: Aesthetics and Morality (Thomas De Quincey)”
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 