RKS French Literature: Extreme Poverty and Quasi Starvation (Émile Zola)

“Buried beneath the blanket, all that could be seen of her was her long face with its broad features, which had a certain heavy beauty, but which at the age of thirty-nine, had already been disfigured by her life of poverty and the seven children she had borne.

She told him how there was no food in the cupboard, and how the little ones kept asking for bread and butter, how there was no coffee left, and how the water gave you colic, and about the long days spent trying to cheat their hunger with boiled cabbage leaves.”

Émile Zola, “Germinal”, 1885.

RKS French Literature: The Reek of the Human Herd in the Coal Miner’s Tenement (Émile Zola)

“At the Maheus’ house, Number Sixteen in the second block, nothing stirred. Thick darkness filled the one and only first-floor room: it bore down like a crushing weight on the people sleeping there, whose presence could be felt rather than seen as they lay crowded together, their mouths open, stunned by exhaustion. Despite the bitter cold outside, the air was heavy with the warmth of the living, that stuffy heat to be found even in the best-kept bedrooms, with its reek of the human herd.”

Émile Zola, “Germinal”, 1885.

RKS Japanese Literature: Suffering the Result of Attachment (Natsume Sōseki)

“While we live in this world with its daily business, forced to walk the tightrope of profit and loss, true love is an empty thing, and the wealth before our eyes mere dust. The reputation we grasp at, the glory that we seize, is surely like the honey that the cunning bee will seem sweetly to brew only to leave his sting within it as he flies. What we call pleasure in fact contains all suffering, since it arises from attachment.”

Natsume Sōseki, “Kusamakura”, 1906.

RKS Japanese Literature: The Lack of Beauty of Western Food (Natsume Sōseki)

“Not a single Western food has a color that could be called beautiful-the only exception I can think of are salad and radishes. I’m in no position to speak of its nutritional vale, but to the artist’s eye it is a thoroughly uncivilized cuisine. On the other hand, artistically speaking, everything on a Japanese menu, from the soups to the hors d’oeuvres to the raw fish, is beautifully conceived. If you did no more than gaze at the banquet tray set before you at an elegant restaurant, without lifting a chopstick, and then go home again, the feast for the eyes would have been more than sufficient to make the visit worth your while.”

Natsume Sōseki, “Kusamakura”, 1906.

RKS Japanese Literature: Eyes Blinded by Worldly Passions and the Artist (Natsume Sōseki)

“I suppose you could say that the artist is one that lives in a three-cornered world, in which the corner the average person would call “common sense” has been sheared off from the ordinary four squared world that the normal inhabit.

For this reason, be it in nature or human affairs, the artist will see the glitter of priceless jewels of art in places the common herd fears to tread. The vulgar mind terms it “romanticizing”, but it is no such thing. In fact the phenomenal world has always contained that scintillating radiance that artists find there. It’s just that eyes blinded by worldly passions cannot see the true nature of reality. Inextricable entanglements bind us to the common world; we are beset by obsessions of everyday success and failure and by ardent hopes-and so we pass by unheeding….”

Natsume Sōseki, “Kusamakura”, 1906.

RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds)THE BIG B

THE BIG B

Your sons and daughters attend the best schools

While we carry the tools

and you try to categorize us as uncouth fools

cocaine at the big frat party

where anyone over 50 considered farty

drive the big cars

travel to countries afar

their brown Adriatic touched faces gleam

but for us Winnipeg is but a dream

sometimes it feels like we are being used

shoved out and abused

they live it up

we throw it up so they can flaunt their Afghan puppies

I’m just as content with my guppies

Robert K. Stephen

RKS WINES OF ARGENTINA: Kaiken Ultra 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon

Kaiken can be trusted to deliver good Malbecs but can the same be said for its Cabernet Sauvignons? The only way to so determine is to open a bottle of Kaiken Ultra 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon from Mendoza.

Grapes grown at 1,050 metres. 45% of the wine in French oak barrels (1/3 each in new/second/third use) for 12 months.

Aroma: Blueberry rules the roost. Way behind black cherry and dark chocolate. Decant for a richer nose and palate.

Palate: The blueberry keeps on rolling on big time. Overstimulated raspberry rollicks on the tongue. Tannins leaning on the heavy side. A mid length peppery hot finish with a tad of sweetness.

Personality: If blueberry is the hallmark of many a Californian Cabernet Sauvignon and you wish to avoid patronizing the wines of a threatening country and becoming state 51 like Canada, Greenland or Venezuela a good alternative awaits.

Food Match: Thai grilled pork.

Cellarbility: Down the hatch no later than 2028-year end.

Price: $23 CDN.

RKS Wines of Argentina Rating: 94/100. Joaquíin Hidalgo 94.

Kaiken Ultra 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon, Mendoza, Aiken, Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina, 14.5%, 750 mL).

Sampled 3June2026.

RKS Japanese Literature: The Journey and its Poetic Component (Natsume Sōseki)

“While we are on our journey, shod in our straw sandals as of yore, we may do nothing but grumble about its hardships from dawn to dusk, but when we come to tell the tale to others, we will never make a murmur of such complaints. No, we will speak smugly of its fascinations and pleasures and even proudly prattle on about all the things that annoyed us so much at the time. We do not do so from any intention to deceive ourselves or lie to others. Rather, the contradiction arises because on the journey we are our everyday selves, while when we tell the tale we speak as poets.”

Natsume Sōseki, “Kusamakura”, 1906.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom” : THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS HERE WE COME!

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS HERE WE COME!

Bobby Jr. was entrusted by his mother Madame Fong with the task of finalizing arrangements for a Fong charter of the Eastern & Oriental Express (E&OE) train for a journey through Malaysia.

This is luxury train travel Bobby Jr. said to me and, “Rory you may have a key role to play. This is the reason we brought you to Singapore as our guest. Your job is to cozy up to Sir Nicomshire and help my mother get what she wants. I promised you days ago no harm would come to you and if Mommy gets what she wants I will personally escort you back to your home in Toronto. I will give you further instructions once we are the train which will be next Sunday, four days from now.”

Home! That set my tale wagging. I was so happy to hear that for the time being I was not asking why the big cozy up was needed.

Fifty guests were invited and the journey was to be hosted by Madame Fong. I recognized the name of Sir Reginald Nicomshire, the fellow that organized Singapore Westie of the Year, the contest I won. I attended a “victory party” at his mansion in Singapore and we hit it off spectacularly so any big cozy up would be puppy’s play!

RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds):”FRUSTRATED YOUNG EXECUTIVES”

FRUSTRATED YOUNG EXECUTIVES

Group at the bar

Hoping for that big break

Lying at the bottom of an empty glass

Castrated ambitions

Thwarted

Recalled in fantasized dialogue

Of lust frenzied materialism

Only to be lost in

Yet another glass