“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: MIDNIGHT TUNNEL RAT CAPER AND THAT FAMOUS ROBERT DUVALL LINE

MIDNIGHT TUNNEL RAT CAPER AND THAT FAMOUS ROBERT DUVALL LINE

One minus 18 evening in Toronto Bob and I finished watching the CBC national news which Bob turned off in disgust. Imagine Adrienne Arsenault the anchor saying Alexander the Great was Macedonian? He was Greek and considered himself Greek!

I slipped out the back door and Bob called me in at 23:30 but as I was having so much fun tearing around in the snow I “didn’t hear him”. When I did hear him his tone of voice was angry. I thought he’d cool down a bit if I romped around a bit more. All was quiet for 15 minutes until at midnight I heard an ultimatum being delivered “COME IN RIGHT NOW!” Oooh I think that means trouble and Bob came charging out….yes I could see him in the frigid moonlight struggling in the snow in his boots and pajamas. I dodged to and fro and like an American soldier tunnel rat in Vietnam zipping in and around my snow tunnels until a furious Bob caught me delivering a blistering tongue lashing. The mortality rate of tunnel rats in Vietnam was close to 90%. I escaped death. I just hope I remember this experience, so it won’t happen again.

Speaking of Vietnam my favourite line in that war movie “Chickenpox Now” was by Robert Duvall that he loved the smell of napalm in the morning. Well for me it is, “I love the smell of toasted bagels in the morning.” Bob gave me a piece the next morning so I guess we are friends again. I love the crunch but those sesame seeds stick to my gums!

RKS Literature: Happiness as Mass Hypnosis? (Anton Chekov)

“But we don’t hear or see those who suffer: the real tragedies of life are enacted somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is calm and peaceful and the only protest comes from statistics-and they can’t talk. Figures show that so many went mad, so many bottles of vodka were emptied, so many children died of malnutrition. And clearly this kind of system is what people need. It is obvious the happy man feels contented only because the unhappy ones bear their burden without saying a word: if it weren’t for their silence, happiness would be quite impossible. It’s a kind of mass hypnoses.”

Anton Chekov, “Gooseberries”, 1898.

RKS 2026 International Film: “A Poet”: A Titanic Disaster or The Poseidon Adventure with a Poet on Board?

“A Poet” is the official submission of Columbia for the Best International Feature Film for the 98th Academy Awards in 2026. A co-production between Columbia, Germany and Sweden.

Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) is a Columbian poet inching toward 60 having won several poetry prizes early in his “poetry career” never making the leap to prominence but then again what poet ever does! Self described as a perpetual dreamer with suffering the cornerstone of his poetry. Extremely passionate and over metaphorical and emotional about poetry he struggles on having lost his creative edge living with his mother in an apartment paid for by his brother. At one point he asks his teenage daughter Daniela (Alisson Correa) to lend him a small amount of money indicative of how hard up he is. What true poet can be hindered by gainful employment!

Forced by his penury and the threat of being evicted from his apartment he takes a teaching job at a high school and with the best intent and drinking liquor from a Thermos in class an even bigger shipwreck awaits him as a result of his attempts to develop his 15 year old student Yurlady (Rebecca Andrade) into a great poet obfuscated by his incredibly bad judgement. A metaphorical iceberg awaits! Through successive gaffes fuelled by an excess of alcohol the viewer will be breathlessly cringing watching if Oscar sinks.

A tragedy poetically recounted with large doses of humour and satire about poetry, poets, the “management of poetry”, justice, the legal system, Columbian poverty stereotypes and the institutional knack for refusing to take responsibility.

Can Oscar salvage any respect from his family and Yurlady? Can he redeem himself? Is he ruined as a human and a poet? Does he survive like Ernest Borgnine or perish like Shelly Winters in The Poseidon Adventure?

Thank goodness for some low key but highly effective comedic moments.

Rios is the epitome of a poet in a meltdown. Andrade pays the disinterested Yurlady perfectly more interested in the material world scamming money for purple nail polish and sparkles and groceries for her family than in poetry. The scene with her obese family matriarchs gobbling chicken legs smuggled out from the Poetry Fair reception is riddled with absurdity and is a classic Larry David “Curb Your Enthusiasm” moment.

The scene in the urinal where Oscar and Efrain (Guillermo Cardona) peek to see whose is more manly an excellent foil to mounting cinematic misery.

80% tragedy. 20% comedy.

You may agree with Oscar that suffering is indeed a cornerstone of poetic inspiration, at least as far as he is concerned.

You may watch the trailer here https://vimeo.com/1142155488?fl=pl&fe=vl

Directed by Simón Mesa Soto.

RKS 2026 International Film Rating 76/100.

RKS Literature: Accepting a Nasty Marriage (Anton Chekov)

“She had married for money because, as her ex-schoolgirl friends put it, he was madly rich, because she was terrified of becoming an old maid, like Rita, because her doctor father got on her nerves and because she wanted to annoy Little Volodya. Had she guessed when she was contemplating marriage that it would turn out to be so nasty, painful and ugly she would never have agreed to it. But the damage was done now, she had to accept things.”

Anton Chekov, “The Two Volodyas”.

RKS Poetry Anthology: Woes of the protestant grave searcher

Woes of the protestant grave searcher

Journey to find father cremated in 1964 (Anglican)

Soon lost

As 14,867 interned Catholics

Some snickering avenging certain historical losses

A gate

And the wrong cemetery obfuscates the search

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Literature: Old Men Far More Interesting Than Young Men (Anton Chekov)

“She was really very gay and in an exultant mood. For two months after her wedding she had been tormented by the thought that she had married Colonel Yagich for his money or, as they say, par dépit”. That same evening in the out of town restaurant, she finally became convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite of his 54 years, he was so trim, sprightly and athletic, and he told puns and joined in the gypsy girls’ songs with such charm. It is true that nowadays old men are a thousand times more interesting than young ones. The Colonel was two years older than her father, but was that important if, to be quite honest, he was infinitely stronger, more energetic, and livelier than she was, even though she was only twenty-three?”

Anton Chekov, “The Two Volodyas”.,

RKS 2026 Ontario Wine: Fogolar Funk Riesling?

Aroma: Fascinating funk as an aroma in decay. Never encountered this bizarre and alluring fog from Fogolar. Fog meets Fogolor! Niagara peach and apricot intertwined in this strangeness. Slate and marmalade.

Palate: This medium dry Riesling is Pfalz all the way. Honeyed smoothness. Penetrating stone fruit with an endless finish. A full bodied almost a bruiser of a Riesling.

Personality: Typical Fogolar. Quietly impressive with all its wines. Modesty or anonymity?

Food Match: If you can wait until summer pizza with Niagara peaches as a topping. I had the perfect such pizza a couple of years ago at Elgin Harvest Pizza just outside of St. Thomas, Ontario.

Cellarbility: Here and now is just fine but can sail into 2027 nicely.

Price: $20 CDN.

RKS 2026 Ontario Wine Rating: 94/100. Natalie MacLean 91.

(Hughes Vineyard 2022 Lincoln Lakeshore Riesling, VQA Lincoln Lakeshore, Fogolar Wines. 9.1%, 750 mL).

RKS Poetry Anthology: Frustration of a poet who in a narcissistic moment might join an advertising agency

Frustration of a poet who in a narcissistic moment might join an advertising agency

Is the poet’s gross national product

Limited to 87 poems

And from that point on clever loquaciousness

Which for all concerned

Might better have remained as crumbled balls of paper

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Poetry Anthology: Is it possible to go fishing after your funeral?

Is it possible to go fishing after your funeral?

The gnawing worms

Probably reached you by now

Spelling the end

Can you be but a pleasant memory

Or are you there watching while I string you on my hook?

Robert K. Stephen