“The work of behavior therapists, then, is to figure out which behaviors are causing problems in their clients’ lives, and then work to change them. Behavior therapy is therefore a form of psychotherapy that is based on a behaviorist approach. The focus of the treatment is to help clients replace negative behaviors such as anger and aggression toward others. With positive behaviors, including acceptance and the understanding that there is no good or bad. It’s about letting go of the negative in your life and embracing the positive. The most important thing in determining whether therapy is successful or not is whether the client does want to change his or her behavior. “
From “Building a Life Worth Living” by Marsha M. Linehan (Random House)
The great power of documentaries is that they explore what one can think of as untouchable. In “Love it Was Not” Helena Zitron, the daughter of a Slovakian cantor is transported to Auschwitz in 1942. An SS officer at the camp Franz Wunch takes a liking to Helena and acts as her protector saving her life against certain death. Yet as for the Jewish men at the camp he is a nasty brute. He manages to save her sister from the gas chambers but not her children. Is it love?
The name of this Austrian/Israeli documentary says no! Play the odds it was an act of survival but what does love know about the odds?
Having visited a concentration camp in Poland as a younger man in the 1970’s I remember taking a train there and thinking about the trains that transported thousands to their death. I remember travelling through forests. I remember a special exhibit of recovered children’s art that lingers in my memory today. But I remember little more. It may be that I have repressed it for my own mental health.
The film chronicles the life and sickening atrocities at Auschwitz. How could a Jewish woman fall in love with an SS officer? It may have saved many in her circle of “friends” not that she was popular with all being beaten on occasion but refusing to name her assailants.
We hear from Helena recounting her relationship with Wunch and from Wunch as well. Wunch tried to locate her after the war in Israel but she had married and had children. An SS officer in Israel! No way.
Some survivors call her a Jewish whore all very brave now but had she not had the relationship with Wunch would these survivors be alive today!
Wunch was tried for war crimes in Vienna in 1972 and Helena, despite death threats against her in Israel, testified what he had done for her perhaps saving him from a conviction. Wunch was acquitted and given the low conviction rates in the Austrian judicial system for war crimes that is no surprise.
It seems clear that Wunch loved Helena but not so clear the other way around.
Moral of the story is that survival causes twists and turns but Helena hurt no one. Betrayed no one and if she used love to achieve that goal what fault is there in that?
You be the judge of any moral wrong but who are you to judge never having been in Auschwitz?
This 2020 86-minute Israeli/Austrian production directed by Maya Sarfaty shows in early December at Ted Rogers Hots Docs Cinema both in theatre and virtually.
One thing for sure in this world is that a trip to Italy will evoke gastronomical, oenological, architectural and topographical memories.
Since this is a wine column, we might want to talk about wine memories of Italy. My most recent memories are of the Greater Naples area few years ago, pre plague days, where I was invited by the Italian Trade Commission for a trip to Naples to experience its gastronomy, wines and tourism sights. I stayed on after the media trip and spent 4 days discovering Naples and then another two weeks exploring the Greater Naples area. You may have a preconceived notion it is some dangerous city best kept to a departure point to see Positano, Capri and Sorrento. Not so. It is one of the most beautiful cities of the world steeped in the old way of life. It has so many beautiful sites to see including what I would say an outstanding Archaeological Museum. I am not a great fan of marble statues but what I saw at the Museum had my jaw dropping. And the subway of Naples makes Toronto’s subway look like a third world barrio. And most importantly tourists are not rampant like in Roma or Venice.
Oh the pizza of Naples: Photo Robert K. Stephen
And here is Vesuvius and the spectacular Pompeii. And Capri, Sorrento and Positano just to name a few.
The food of Naples? Well it rivals Tuscan and Roman cuisine. Just visit Umberto’s in Naples and you might never want to leave. Superior dining in a casual setting that rivals the best in the world. And the pizza of Naples is enough to send you back across the ocean to tear into the world’s best pizza.
Not forgetting about wine the volcanic soils of Vesuvius add an element of complexity to the wines grown in that soil. You can pick out notes of charcoal and carbon in many of these wines. Incredible Barbera, the deadly smooth Lacryma Christi (tears of Christ) and the feisty Piedirosso (red chicken feet) and the Greco di Tufo all of which are so rarely seen in Canada and if they were they would give Tuscan wines a run for their money.
Sorry for meandering but why not try a Campanian wine from Donnachiara, its Aglianico. Aglianico is most often found in Campania and Basilicata concentrated in Campania in the provinces Benevento and Avellino.
This Aglianico has a transparent garnet colour and has aromas of bright red cherry, dark chocolate, strawberry, prunes, espresso and raspberry. On the palate one notes that this a tight and compact wine. One might say disciplined! Very restrained red cherry, cranberry, pomegranate and rhubarb. I might call this an old school European wine refusing to open its raincoat and reveal its fruit until it is ready to do so which in this case might be in 3-5 years. If you want to consume now decant for an hour. The label says good with strong pasta sauces, steak and cheeses. Generally speaking I’ll agree with that but wait what about a pizza made with Capputo flour and baked in a Matozzi pizza oven!
On the local Train to Pompeii: Photo Robert K. Stephen
OK so I am talking about Napoli pizza a bit too much. I am in a dilemma as now is not the time to return to Naples so I wake up with chills and night sweats dreaming of Napoli pizza. There is no pizza rehab centres here in Toronto specializing in Napoli pizza withdrawal. I am hanging on!
My favourite restaurant in Naples! Photo Robert K. Stephen
(Donnachiara Campania Aglianico 2019, IGT, Donnachiara, Montefalcone-Avellino, Italy, $18.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 19334, 750 mL, 13%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 91/100).
You may recall the rather messy split between PP and his flame Celine? Well, he tells me he is on the rebound and is throwing a party with a “romantic announcement” to make. Could I suggest a couple of red wines for the simple BBQ chicken and marinated flank he is serving with sides of organic California sweet potatoes and grilled and marinated Barese dandelion? He has picked a Viognier and a Côtes du Rhône for the whites.
Well I am in a bit of a tizzy here. What’s going on? PP has lots of cash with his Bitcoin investments and his Panamanian bank accounts. Plus he settled for $500,000 against Canada Revenue Agency for having him held in jail for extradition hearings in Rome as an abuse of process. He insists on being parsimonious with wines as sort of a hobby/obsession.
Since PP has selected a Côtes du Rhône white why not a red counterpart? We try an Xavier 2019 Côtes du Rhône red. It has a black cherry transparency to its colour. As for aroma as with many organic wines there is a pure and clean nose to it. There is blackberry, black cherry, root beer and raspberry. On the palate the tannins are a notch above light good enough to match the flank steak which will be marinated in soy sauce, garlic, ginger and sesame seed oil which will be the same marinade for the portobello shrooms used for the veggie burgers. There is good grip to the wine and it has strawberry jam, cherry pie and bright red cherries on the palate. Refreshing and clean but not too light for the beef and might suit the chicken as it is marinated in a beer can chicken rub mixture.
Drink by the end of 2023. It might improve slightly in the bottle.
(Xavier Vignon 2019 Côtes du Rhône AOP, Xavier Vins, Courthézon, France, $16.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 297317, 750 mL, 14.5%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 91/100).
We move to a 2019 Louis Bernard Côtes du Rhônes Villages. It is GSM blend. i.e. Grenache, Mourvèdre and Syrah.
On the nose you can tell a beautiful and seamless integration of the GSM all in a taught and compact fashion. Loads of blackberry and cassis. There is a bit of creaminess and vanilla suggestive of mostly seasoned oak. On the palate integrated tannins and acids. There are notes of blackberry, black cherry and date. Dense and cloistered fruit. There is a moderate finish. Old school French wine with the fruit being well folded into the wine with 3-4 years of ageing reaping rewards. A solid and well-built wine. As a food match homemade pizza dough slapped with some Pasta a La Norma sauce topped with Feta Cheese which by the way was the appetizer served at this little fête.
(Louis Bernard Louis Côtes du Rhône-Villages 2019, AOP, Louis Bernard, Vaucluse, France, $ 16.95, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 561290, 750 mL, 15%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 93/100).
So the get together went well and after the caterer cleaned up a large screen was wheeled into the living room where PP said to his astonished guests that he would like to introduce to us his new fiancé Tatiana from the Ukraine. Tatiana is 23 years old and young enough to be PP’s daughter. She certainly is beautiful but PP admits his deepest love for someone he has yet to meet. She says hello via a video link up to the crowd and how much she is looking forward to meeting them all. PP tells me he will meet Tatiana next month on a “Ladies Social Club Tour” organized out of Moscow where a group of men will spend 7,000 Euros to meet possible fiancés at several social events over a 5-day period in Kiev.
There is back slapping and congratulations but a dazed look on the faces of the guests. I hear several side conversations in hushed voices saying poor PP is being flim flamed.
Eno Ergot the reformed nephew of the Zorollian tyrant Redbeard plunged himself into preparations for the invasion of Zorollia. He spent most of his waking hours at the Zortixian Defence Academy with top intelligence agents. Two hundred Zorollian exiles and 543 Zortixian Special Forces experts were to land in the Zorollian province of Huba on the shores of the Bay of Prigs. Here they would establish contact with local resistance forces. They would attack local military outposts and start rallying the local population around them for a later and more serious challenge to Redbeard. A date for the rendezvous with the local Zorollian resistance forces was established and frantic last-minute planning continued. Garth Reseudo would accompany the military force and conduct his own non-violent campaign where he would wander around the planet in the attempt to build a quick panarchist movement. Squid was making every attempt to join the mission but Zortixian authorities were dead set against the idea lest anyone perceived as an Earthling be associated with the invasion. Earth simply could not be dragged into a civil war on Zorollia.
The Jiber had long been executed and his crew “rehabilitated” but one last crewmember called Blintz languished in the rehabilitation centre refusing to renounce Oppositism. Blintz dreamt of revenge as life at the rehabilitation centre was boring with all its inmates suddenly turned into goody goodies incessantly discussing their rehabilitation and how it was helping them overcome their faults. He simply had to escape this brainwashing environment. Zorollia was his home and sanctuary. Now if he only had an escape plan. Then he remembered that old black and white film he had seen on Earth where a prisoner faked illness and his moaning brought a guard into his cell whom he knocked senseless, stole his gun and blasted his way out to freedom. That is exactly what he did grabbing the guard’s laser gun and zapping two guards at the exit station jumping into the warden’s space shuttle and set the controls for Zorollia. Another scum gone to where it belonged.
The escape occurred at an inopportune time as it was the moment the invasion of Zorollia began. The liberators landed on the shores of the Bay of Prigs where local resistance fighters whisked them off to secret refuges. Reseudo walked like some bizarre prophet towards the capital city uplifting the spirits of the repressed Zorollians prompting a growing wave of general strikes that was bringing the nation to a grinding halt. The population was joyous as the word spread of the invasion.
Redbeard as usual sent his blackbooters to shoot up the strikers but the general strikes were so large they feared being overpowered if they fired their ray guns. Huge surly mobs galvanized by Reseudo pushed through to the gates of the capital palace. Only the fanatical blackbooters and thick gates separated the mob from Redbeard. The armed invaders broke down the gates and a vicious firefight ensued between the invaders and the blackbooters.
Eno, aware of the layout of the palace hastened to Redbeard’s quarters where he discovered Fox Terrier, Redbeard’s mistress, dead zapped in the head by a ray gun. Had Redbeard murdered her or was it suicide? Out of the window he saw Redbeard running towards his private heliport but he was so overweight Eno caught up to him and switched the meter on his ray gun from stun to kill and walked over to his uncle who was blubbering for mercy. All Eno heard before pressing the trigger was “Pig traitor.” Eno wasn’t a killer. It was just that his pirate instincts overtook his rationality.
After delivering this poetic justice to his despot uncle he walked into the communications centre and placing a gun at the head to the technician said. “I want to speak to the nation.”
And that he did, “Greeting’s citizens of Zorollia. This is Eno Ergot speaking to you from Redbeard’s palace. Although there may be scattered fighting taking place your leader Redbeard has committed suicide and the nation is now free of tyranny of Redbeard and the Opposite Party. Soon you may elect your leader in free elections. Let all of us talk politics freely and openly instead of like criminals whispering in basements. Let us all celebrate this glorious victory.”
Zortixians and Zorollians were in the thralls of wild celebration. Hopefully the Opposite had been crushed for eternity. Zorollians and Zortixians could co-exist in peace. Eventually elections were held creating a truly democratic People’s Assembly. And Eno Ergot, the formerly misguided pirate, was elected as the new President of Zorollia. Reseudo was appointed Zortixian ambassador to Zorollia. Humpty Dumpty had fallen at last!
I have just realized some of you readers may not have any knowledge of or even heard a Beach Boy song. They were young men of the 1960’s from Southern California that brought beautiful harmony to their initially lighthearted surf centric songs. Three brothers, Carl, Dennis and Brian along with a neighbour and a relative. Life on the beach, girls and somewhat simplistic and teen centric lyrics. They were huge and almost always a cheerful listen in a pop barbershop style. They were an early Boomer’s delight but being on the tail end of the Boomer cycle they were more of my older sister’s band. For me it was Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.
I do recall some chatter about Brian Wilson being screwed up by drugs and sidelined. But the story is deeper than that.
The film is guided by a long-time buddy Jason Fine who met Brian in 1995 and followed him in 1997 when he launched his solo career. Fine was a Rolling Stone editor who first interviewed Brian in 1995. During the interview Brian became fidgety and Fine found him hiding in the refrigerator.
We should thank Fine for setting us straight about Brian’s mental health which started a downward twist at age 21 when he began having auditory hallucinations telling him cruel and degrading things which was diagnosed years later as a rare schizoaffective disorder but even with drugs and therapy these voices continue to this day. There were drugs as well that didn’t seem to help.
In 1964 he suffered a panic attack on tour and decided to remain in Los Angeles to focus on writing and producing.
Fine takes us on a long historical road that Brian Wilson has traveled from where he was born to where he is today. Both Elton John and Bruce Springsteen candidly express their thoughts on Brian’s brilliance. Elton John saying Brian had an orchestra in his head. Perhaps Brian’s greatest contribution to pop music can be marked by Linda Perry’s comments that he brought us a “haunting harmony” so true in the post surf music period of the Beach Boys. Give some of the songs composed and produced by Brian a listen and indeed they are complex, brilliant and orchestral.
His big album “Pet Sounds” was released in 1969 to lukewarm acceptance which must have been a disappointment to a man who at 22 had produced 7 top 10 hits.
There is something of an uneasy and strange nature about Brian who is shy and would rather be interviewed in a car than in a room.
The Beach Boys were a big part of North American culture and it is the brilliant Brian Wilson that deserves a significant credit for that but he wanted something more meaningful than girls, surfboards and cars.
Fine drives us from the beginning to today and we are treated to an intimate portrait of Brian Wilson and the bumps the man has suffered.
He still records and performs but recent Hollywood Bowl Concert footage reveals him with a large cast of musicians and not to be cruel but there is nothing wrong with celebrating a musician of brilliance but with rock n rollers one must be honest at one point and say living and performing their past glory like the Rolling Stones of The Who is a sad spectacle for many to watch. Brian Wilson may have somewhat moved on to a newer creative space but how relevant is he today?
This 93-minute 2021 American film plays in theatre at Toronto Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema in December and can be accessed virtually as well. For more information visit their website at https://www.hotdocs.ca/
Was it November of 2013 after a tasting of Sandeman Ports deep in the Douro hills of Portugal we sipped Sandeman Splashes (tonic and White Port) on a terrace overlooking the Douro River below in the thin early afternoon sunshine munching on Portuguese roasted almonds? My goodness what a memory and what a wonderful lunch afterwards.
In the glow of this unforgettable moment we try a 1999 Sandeman Vintage Port. You won’t get a Vintage Port every year only in the most exceptional years. It is expensive and represents about 3% of total Port production. It can last just about forever. The oldest one I have had was from 1867 and it had years left in it! The wines used are only from that vintage year. I will not go into the bureaucratic process involved in declaring a vintage year. But I will say as an illustrative example I have 3 bottles of Quinta Dona Matilde 2011 Vintage Port in my cellar with instructions they will pass to my children after I go to the big vineyard in the sky and even then they may hit their prime long after that. That is a classic Vintage Port my friend.
So we try the 1999 Sandeman for the third time and opened for a virtual tasting a couple of weeks ago. I have some guilt for trying this Vintage Port that should be sleeping far after my Big Sleep. But as duty calls let’s try this one out.
It has a garnet black cherried colour so far from the transparent brownish orange Tawny Ports. You might mistake the aroma for a rich red table wine but an incredibly rich aroma of nuts, orange, vanilla and Douro Porto crepe sauce is nothing you’ll get in a red table wine. On the palate you’ll know it is Port by, pardon me, the muted 40-year Tawny Port aroma. But a Tawny this isn’t. It is full of candied orange, pralines, coconut and dates. A long finish but this wine is strangely prematurely matured and should be consumed promptly. There is lurking under all these aromas a whiff of raisins. There is a maturity to this Port that suggests it is nearing the end of its life cycle which is strange considering it is a Vintage Port. But I have heard from a person who knows a good deal about Port that this was designed more for the American market which is a bit impatient and that is not the temperament that tolerates a classic Vintage Port. It’s low price for a 1999 Vintage Port caught my eye and perhaps served as a tip this grand old Port is heading to the big lagar in the sky?
Not that wine causes reflections on your mortality but a classic Vintage Port just may cause you to realize how short life is and how unfair a bottle of Vintage Port will outlive you! The cruelty of Vintage Port?
As for Canada it seems unavailable at the time of writing but the SAQ says it is coming soon to Quebec.
(Sandeman Vau Vintage 1999 Vintage Porto, Sandeman, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, $26.20, SAQ, 20%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 89/100).
You may recall that Fay and Bob gave Bosco, my fellow Egyptian Rescue Dog, to our neighbour and very famous Canadian singer Mr. Gordon Lightfoot. We see our comrade Bosco and Mr. Gordon Lightfoot at least a couple of times a week for jasmine tea and cake from our favourite Toronto bakery “The Cake Ladies”. Dylan the Westie and I bark for a song or two and Mr. Gordon Lightfoot knows we howl a few times with delight when we hear him sing “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.
Bosco tells us he is so very happy living with Mr. Gordon Lightfoot. We see this great musician walking Bosco around the Bridle Path in Toronto and we often run into him there and at Sherwood Park at the off-leash dog trail. We all talk and us dogs check out all the other dogs. We are in heaven and I think Bob, Fay and Mr. Gordon Lightfoot are also in heaven seeing how happy we are. Life can be so good.
So one day Mr. Gordon Lightfoot appears at our door with VIP tickets to his 168th performance at Massey Hall which is opening in Toronto after three years of renovations and he will have its first three performances.
We go in Mr. Gordon Lightfoot’s limousine to Massey Hall and go backstage with him for a light sushi supper for the humans and deluxe chicken kibble and Greek spring water in our own separate bowls. Bob takes me, Bosco and Dylan the Westie out for a walk before the show. Bosco sits at Mr. Gordon Lightfoot’s feet for the performance by a remarkable man in his 80’s. The crowd holds this musician in wonderment. After the last encore the crowd roars in applause and Mr. Gordon Lightfoot motions for Bob, Fay, Dylan the Westie and me Reggie the Egyptian Rescue Dog to join him on stage with Bosco. We dogs run around in circles and Mr. Gordon Lightfoot pets us and says to the audience that he has a special encore song for all the dogs in the world. It is “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. This song brings down the house. We dogs can’t clap but get some good barks and howls in. Yes, life can be so good. Strangely had I not had that street dog experience in Egypt I wouldn’t have realized how good it can be.
Mutated COVID-19 with apparent origins in South Africa cases already in Europe valiant and brave efforts to block the spread lest the First World descend to yet another lockdown dread it would have been better to avoid by sharing the vaccine to the Second and Third World instead the First World Countries got far too greedy jabbing up their folks to no avail as up may go the counts of the dead just when they became smirky and confident by in effect ignoring the need elsewhere in their comfortable medico dreams yet another lockdown may be in sight oh God the democratic threat only augments and the midnight fires burn at the offices of Big Pharma the world is not having very good kharma for better or worse it’s everywhere and possibly ready for a fatal tear or it is just a media scare?
Occasionally I watch a film that I review twice and several times more than twice. If you watch “La Flamme Rouge” you may need multiple views because it is so full of subplots that it is hard to connect all the dots on one view. However the film, written and directed by the Maze Brothers (Brent and Derek), may be deliberately crafted that way. My experience is that North American audiences are used to being spoon-fed. You will not receive that with this film.
If you like a film with a great soundtrack that matches its emotional roller coaster thread you’ll find it here. I love those “Blade Runner” influenced riffs throughout the film.
If you like great sets and cinematography you’ll find it in abundance here.
You know I can’t give away too much of the plot. In fact I will admit I feel like I am missing “clear linkage” of all the sub-plots and the role the characters play in each. Whether the Maze Brothers did this intentionally to take us off track I am not certain. What I will say if you like colourful characters, double dealing, murder, treachery, psychotic killers, bad ass thugs, gangstas and eccentric characters you’ll find it in the film. One might say the film is jammed with flawed and untrustworthy characters.
The acting is decent with Rick Van Pelt played by Balthazar Getty, the main character being a bit weak here and there but he has a difficult multidimensional role to play. Detective Morrison played by George Griffith puts on a superb performance as a somewhat seedy and unconventional officer of the law. Charlie McElveen is brilliant as a slimy doped up snake of a man.
As of November 5th, the film was available in theatres and on demand.
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