RKS Literature: Letter from Mozart to Father 17October1777, Augsburg: How Mozart Deals with an Arrogant Ass

“A certain Pater Aemilian, an arrogant ass and a simpleton of his profession, was in an especially hearty mood. He kept on wanting to joke with my cousin, but she just made fun of him-finally when he was drunk (which didn’t take long), he started to talk about music. He sang a canon and I said never in my whole life heard a finer one. I said I’m sorry, I can’t join in as I’ve had no natural gift for intoning. That doesn’t matter he said. He started. I was the third voice, but I made up some very different words, for example. O you prick, lick my arse. He said to me: if only we could have spent longer together. I’d like to discuss the art of composition with you. Then the discussion would soon be over, I said Get lost.

RKS Literature: Letter from Leopold Mozart to His Son 14November1777, Salzburg: What’s Necessary in Paris

“You can’t spend the whole winter travelling; and if you plan to stay anywhere, it should be in  large town with lots of people where there are hopes and opportunities of earning some money: and where is such a place to be found in the whole of this region?-apart from Paris- but life in Paris requires a completely different attitude to life, a different way of thinking, you have to be attentive and every day think of ways of earning money and exercise extreme politeness in order to ingratiate yourself with people of standing.”

RKS Literature: Lording it Like a Real Gentleman (Gogol)

“By and large he lorded it like a real gentleman, as they say in the provinces, married a pretty girl with a dowry of two hundred serfs and several thousand in cash. These funds were immediately lavished on a team of six truly excellent horses, gilt locks for the doors, a tame monkey for the house and a French butler. The young lady’s serfs together with two hundred of his own, were mortgaged for some business transaction. In brief, he was an exemplary landowner, a real paragon.”

Nikolai Gogol, “The Carriage”, 1836.

RKS Literature: Did I Really Lose My Nose (Gogol)

“My God, my God. What have I done to deserve this? If I’d lost an arm or a leg it wouldn’t be so bad. Even without ears things wouldn’t be pleasant, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. A man without a nose, though, is God knows what, neither fish nor fowl. Just something to be thrown out of the window. If my nose had been lopped off during the war, a duel, at least I might have had some say in the matter. But to lose it for no reason at all and with nothing to show for it, not even a copeck. No, it’s absolutely impossible…it couldn’t have gone just like that! Never. Must have been a dream, or perhaps I drank some of that vodka I use for rubbing down my beard after shaving instead of water….”

Nikolai Gogol, “The Nose”, 1836.

RKS Literature: The Hurons’ Anger Breaks Montcalm’s Promise of Safe Passage for the Surrendering British

“More than two thousand raving savages broke from the forest at the signal and threw themselves across the fatal plain with instinctive alacrity. We shall not dwell on the revolting horrors that succeeded. Death was everywhere, and in his most terrific and disgusting aspects. Resistance only seemed to inflame the murderers, who inflicted their furious blows long after their victims were beyond the power of their resentment. The flow of blood might be likened to the outbreaking of a torrent; and as the natives became heated and maddened by the sight, many of them even kneeled to the earth, and drank freely, exultingly, hellishly of the crimson tide.”

James Fenimore Cooper, “The Last of the Mohicans”, 1826.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THEY STOLE MY STEPS AND MADE ME NUTSO

THEY STOLE MY STEPS AND MADE ME NUTSO

It is all this neutering that is causing interminable problems for everyone!

I can’t enjoy my long walks. We are averaging 8,000 steps a day. I can’t meet my friends both humans and dogs. I can’t puppy fight.

I can’t tear around the snow-covered backyard. That is about 2,000 steps a day. Avoid busting open the stitches.

Can’t get the underbelly wet as may create infection risk.

Where can my puppy energy be expended?

Running around the house and creating more trouble than usual.

Bob says I am temporarily nutso!

RKS Poetry Anthology: “Too many apples and grapes later”

Too many apples and grapes later

A gasp

Thunderous deafening roar

Burning acrid gas

Hot molten lava

Slides down the porcelain precipice

A sigh like the spring wind

And the disaster sucked down to the bowels of the earth

only

The warm human smell remains

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Poetry Anthology: “The Bluebeard Café”

The Bluebeard Café

They mocked us as greasy punks

Kicked our ass out into the grasp of Montreal’s winter cold

To spoil those bugger’s weekend treat

Was going to be quite a feat

So we fixed them a cocktail that would cause any drinker to flush

Accompanied by screams

So it seemed as we warmed our hands in the heat of the fire

Robert K. Stephen

RKS 2026 Nova Scotian Wines: The 2022 Old Bill

Few wines from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia grace the shelves of Ontario’s liquor monopoly, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. All the brouhaha in Canada about promoting and buying Canadian products?

The producer Luckett Vineyards is in the Gaspereau Valley of Nova Scotia

It is blend of Pinot Noir, Castel and Lucie Kuhlmann (all grown in Nova Scotia) aged in Hungarian, French and American oak for 15 months.

Lucie Kuhlmann is an early ripening grape mainly grown in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and is a crossed sibling or Marechal Foch. Castel is a French-American hybrid crossing Cinsault and Vitis Rupestris.

Aroma: Rich and heady black currant, blackberry and blueberry. A tad of burnt rubber.

Palate: Very close to what you smell what you taste. Noticeable tannins with restrained acidity. Short grapey finish.

Personality: So what if I am not Vitis Vinifera aside from my Pinot Noir but Canadians are not snobs and they support Canadian wineries right?

Food Match: Broiled Lac Brome duck topped with a blueberry-Port reduction sauce. Singaporean spiced crab.

Cellarbility: Drink now but will hold until end of 2028.

Price: $33 CDN.

RKS 2026 Nova Scotian Wines Rating: 89/100

(Luckett Vineyards 2022 The Old Bill, Wines of Nova Scotia, Luckett Farms Ltd, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, 750 mL, 13%).