RKS Literature: A Decaying Palazzo (Robert Louis Stevenson)

“All morning I went from one door to another. Some rudely shuttered. Some receiving their full charge of daylight. All empty and unhomely. It was a rich house. On which Time had breathed his tarnish and dust had scattered disillusion. The spider swung there; the bloated tarantula scampered on the cornices; ants had their crowded highways on the floors of halls of audience; the big and foul fly, that lives on carrion and is often the messenger of death, had set up his nest in the rotten woodwork, and buzzed heavily about the rooms.”

Robert Louis Stevenson, “Olalla”, 1885.

RKS 2026 Ontario Wine: Cave Spring 2024 Estate Grown Cabernet Franc from Niagara

Aroma: Blackberry, black cherry, raspberry with a pinch of strawberry jam. Very tight and high perimeter security encompass the fruit. A young wine with potential. Very clean and pristine.

Palate: Broad and assertive tannins. Tight and secretive as the wine has not even reached puberty. Raw power.

Cellarbility: I would boldly go where many a wine critic has gone before and say don’t bother to consume before 2027. I think this will mature nicely through to 2030 and hold nicely into 2033.

Personality: Not to be confused with “Uncle Buck” and Canada’s beloved John Candy I am a young buck with plenty of potential.

Food Pairing: At this youthful stage pair with grilled beef with chimichurri sauce and a red onion salad.

Price: $25 CDN.

RKS 2026 ONTARIO WINE Rating: I can only put myself out on a predictive limb as it would be “unfair” to rate what is in my glass now. Instead, I will be the genie in the bottle and wish forward a few years to rate this as a “probable” 94/100. Given my tasting history with Cave Spring wines I feel confident with this rating.

(Cave Spring 2024 Estate Grown Cabernet Franc, VQA Beamsville Bench, Cave Spring Vineyard, Jordan, Ontario, 750 mL., 14%).

RKS Literature: Aristocratic Body but Degenerate Intelligence (Robert Louis Stevenson)

“The family blood had been impoverished, perhaps by long interbreeding, which I knew to be a common error among the proud and exclusive. No decline, indeed, was to be traced in the body, which had been handed down unimpaired in shapeliness and strength; and the faces of today were struck as sharply from the mint, as the face of two centuries ago that smiled upon me from the portrait. But the intelligence was degenerate; the treasure of ancestral memory ran low; and it had required the potent, plebian crossing of a muleteer or mountain contrabandista to raise, what approached hebetude in the mother, into the active oddity of the son.”

Robert Louis Stevenson, “Olalla”, 1885.

RKS Literature: Is Captain Ahab Nothing but a Poor Old Whale-Hunter? (Herman Melville)

“ But Ahab, my captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old       whale-hunter like him; and therefor all majestical trappings and housings are denied me, Oh, Ahab what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air.”

Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”, 1851.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: WHAT A SEVEN-MONTH-OLD WEST HIGHLAND TERRIER HAS LEARNT FROM DONALD TRUMP AND WHAT HE IS GOING TO DO ABOUT IT

WHAT A SEVEN-MONTH-OLD WEST HIGHLAND TERRIER HAS LEARNT FROM DONALD TRUMP AND WHAT HE IS GOING TO DO ABOUT IT

I could describe in a book what I have learnt from President Donald J. Trump. It would not be classified as intellectual. Behavioural might be a more appropriate word.

It would serve no purpose to mention lying, overstating, exaggerating, shallowness, stupidity, delusional and total ignorance about economics.

I have learnt that President Trump is all about him clouded in a delusional fog. He knows how to deal eh?  How many times has he declared bankruptcy cheating hard working Americans out of money his companies owe them! Does Make America Great Again hearken to cheating people?

To change the topic quickly before I am detained at the U.S. border smuggling kibble into New York State an activity Canadians regularly undertake to corrupt innocent American canines I am revising my approach to avoid you saying this book is all about me to include stories about our neighbourhood community.

My first story will be about a murder down the street. No need to call ICE or the National Guard though!

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: WE PUPPIES MUST BE BILINGUAL! WHAT IS CAINENGLISH?

WE PUPPIES MUST BE BILINGUAL! WHAT IS CAINENGLISH?

I understand English rather well. Some canine experts oh and ah about the 500 words dogs can master. Balderdash! I have picked up the language rapidly through overhearing humans talking on television and in conversations.

Despite English language proficiency humans underestimate puppy comprehension. Frequently they revert to a stratum of the English language directed towards us canines. I call it Caineenglish or in its long version Canine English.

Sort of a pidgin English if you prefer. Delivered in an exaggerated tone, simplified and with reduced words. COME. COME NOW. Wanna go for a walk? WALK! Kibby (for kibble). BATH. SLEEP. CRATE. There can be different tonalities such as a polite COME. An urgent COME. An angry COME.

One could easily be offended spoken to like some inmate in a federal prison but we are often easy going us puppies and most of us find it simply silly!

READ! KEEP READING! READ NOW!

Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom: MORE TALKING THAN WALKING TODAY!

MORE TALKING THAN WALKING TODAY!

I enjoy a good long walk but I like it more when Bob meets another dog owner and talks. This gives me the opportunity to play with the talker’s dog. What could be better! Today there were seven talks on three walks and that must be a record. I played so much by the time I met Billy at 18:00 I could only jump, hop around, smell and lick for a few minutes.

The warmer weather is a catalyst for longer conversations. Who wants to stand around and yak when it is minus 17 with a windchill factor of minus 25!

Bob says walking a dog invariably creates a sense of community. We really know the nitty gritty and neighbourhood reality. Who likes dogs. Who hates dogs. Who tolerates dogs. Who died. Who is ill. Who is on vacation. What houses are selling for. Politics. Gossip. We see people coming and going sort of a friendly security operation. This includes eyeing who shouldn’t be in our hood. Dog owners have eyes and ears and knowledge the dogless people lack.

My bestie, Golden Lab Jasper, is usually out at 23:15 or so. My day is not done. Jasper’s owner offered Bob some Blue Jay baseball tickets to see the Los Angeles Dodgers next week.

I hear a few mutterings from Bob about “the idiot drivers” he sees speeding and not stopping at stop signs. And the garbage those rude construction workers throw on the road. McDonald’s bags and the like. The slovenly side of humanity!

RKS Literature: The Train Ride from London to Clapham Common: Through the Suburban Stench (Henry Mayhew)

“ Now we get a whiff of the gutta-percha works; then comes a faint gust from some floor-cloth shed; next we dash through an odoriferous belt of bone-boiling atmosphere; and after that through a film of fetor rank with the fumes from the glazing of potteries; whereupon this is followed by bands of nauseous vapours from decomposing hides and horses’ hoofs, resin and whiting works; and the next instant these give place to layer after layer of sickening exhalations from gas-factories, and soap boiling establishments, and candle companies; so we are thus led by the nose along a chromatic scale, as it were, of the strong suburban stenches that encompass, in positive rings of nausea, the great cathedral dome of the Metropolis, like the phosphoric glory environing the head of some renowned Catholic saint.”

Henry Mayhew (b1812d1887) “A Train to Clapham Common”.

RKS Literature: A Fearless Man May be the Most Dangerous Man (Herman Melville)

‘I will have no man in my boat’ said Starbuck, ‘who is not afraid of a whale.’ By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.”

Herman Melville, “Moby Dick”, 1851.

RKS Literature: A Disgusting and Immoral Performance at a London Penny Gaff (Henry Mayhew)

“There was one scene yet to come that was perfect in its wickedness. A ballet began with a man dressed up as a woman, and a country clown. The most disgusting attitudes were struck, the most immoral acts represented, without one dissenting voice. If there had been any feat of agility, any grimacing, or, in fact, anything with which the laughter of the uneducated classes is usually associated, the applause might have been accounted for: but here were two ruffians degrading themselves each time they stirred a limb, and forcing into the brains of the childish audience before them thoughts that must embitter a lifetime, and descend from father to child like some bodily infirmity.

The most obscene thoughts, the most disgusting scenes were cooly described, making a poor child near me wipe away the tears that rolled down her eyes with the enjoyment of the poison.”

Henry Mayhew (b1812d1887) “Of the Penny Gaff”.