“You know what your trouble is man?’ he said. ‘Your white skin. You think it makes you better than me. You think it give you the right to lord over a black man. But you know what it make you, man? It make you white. That is all, man. White. No better or worse than me-just white.”
Andrea Levy, “Small Island”, 2003.
“In the light of day, locked behind a toilet door, the enormous throbbing sore had produced a hat of pus. I felt it pop like a grape in my pants as I sat down to another meal of potato and sausage. It was ringed with a blue line clear as if drawn with a pencil. Once I saw its seeping pus matted into my pubic hair. And the next time I wrapped the sore in a bandage. It was unbearably itchy and clammy inside this wrapping. And useless-a small spot of yellow brown muck had soon stained it through. When I eventually unwrapped it, the bandage clung like paper to a sticky toffee. I bit the leather of my belt to stop me yelling out. I knew what this angry pustule on my penis was.”
Andrea Levy, “Small Island”, 2003.
“The medical officer, on the boat when we first came out east, had warned us RAF recruits. Ulcers, inflammations, colourful discharge, swellings. All the result of sexual relations with the wrong type. He’d given us lectures. Colourful pictures were passed around. Lurid photographs. Quite shocking. Parts of the body unrecognizable as human. Turned some of the chaps a sorry shade of grey. Had them worried. Frowning. Thinking back. Stopped their bragging. One of them I recall, fainted-blamed seasickness. ‘Always use this, the MO had said. Took a sheath out of his pocket. Waved it around in the air.”
Andrea Levy, “Small Island”, 2003.
A new digital series CBC ON DESIGN launches on 4July2025 with a new episode weekly. In five 15-minute episodes, the CBC Arts Original Series explores how an industrial designer’s idea evolves to become a product in your home.
The series begins with CONCRETE featuring Montreal designers Matt and Shawna Heide founders of CONCRETE CAT. Matt explains how concrete is perceived as an industrial product mostly rough and grey. Many are caught by surprise by the artistic creations of the Heide’s full of colour and shapes so unconcretish!
It is a tactile process working with powdered concrete, mixing vibrant colours into it, placing it a mold, drying and demolding. The colours in the finished objet d’arts are stunning bringing to life concrete and rescuing it from its boring and utilitarian prison.
Excellent laid-back narration by Jordan Bloeman.
You can watch on CBC GEM and YOUTUBE.
Having spent two weeks in Sicily in May very little wine was consumed. My agenda was tourism this time and not wine tourism.
The best wine I had in Sicily? Small batch Primitivo produced in the countryside proximate to the archaeological site of Villa Romana del Casale served with lunch in large jugs sourced from demijohns. As one of the world’s humblest and respected wine writers I was given a 1.5 litre water bottle filled with it with accompanying advice to drink within a few days unless kept chilled which would extend its life. Organic without being labelled organic from a fancy bottle. I have had similar wines from roadside stands in Tuscany and on farms in the Azores.
Well, no Sicilian wine in water bottles now that I have returned to Toronto. Back to bottled wine. Sigh!
This wine is from Planeta one of Sicily’s most globally respected wineries. The wine is Sicilia Noto DOC. The DOC was established in 1986. 85% Nero d’Avola and 15% Merlot. Lime marl soil with small amounts of light-coloured chalk. Grown at 50-70 meters above sea level. Aged 12 months in 4th and 5th usage Allier oak. Certified sustainable winery.
Aroma: Raspberry, cactus pear, milk chocolate and a touch of prune.
Palate: Raspberry, bright red cherry and ripe strawberry. Oak way in the back of the hall barely perceptible. Mounting tannins yet not a tannic wine. Spicy and moderately long finish with a Mini-ME sweetness. And yes there is Merlot in this wine softening it somewhat!
Personality: Serious and even tempered.
Food Match: Sicilian Caponata, Sicilian farm sausage and fried potatoes.
Cellarbility: Interesting evolution through to 2030.
Price: $25 CDN.
RKS 2025 Wine Rating: 91/100. Wine Spectator 90.
(Planeta 2020 Controdanza, Sicilia Noto DOC, Menfi, Italy, 750 mL,14%).
The breakout 2009 Yorgos Lanthimos film “Dogtooth” commences a North American theatrical release in a 4K restoration format.
Parents confine their three adult children in a family compound in a state of childlike innocence through manipulation, violence and abuse. Sexual perversion including incest is omnipresent. Outrageous falsehoods and childlike games and contests preoccupy the adult children. The children are nameless. About the only contact with the outside world for the children is watching planes flying overhead and with a security guard employed at their father’s factory who offers sexual services to the children in the family compound.
The film has carried the banner of absurdity for some time and indeed it has a deep streak of that nature throughout. But it is not so absurd that it obfuscates the plot and the messages of the film if your mind is expansive enough to “rationalize” and “intellectualize” what transpires on the screen.
What you may wish to think about as you watch the film. Think of the three children as society as a whole and the film’s message becomes clearer:
Intellectual analysis particularly metaphorically gives you excellent MPG on this film.
But..why do the parents raise their children in a sea of ignorance?
The shock value is tremendous but it shouldn’t take you off the scent there are numerous messages that transcend its seemingly bizarre plot.
The trailer can be watched here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Kh7-WIWF0
In Greek with English subtitles.
RKS 2025 Film Rating: 94/100.
“I think it may be easier to love the really helpless younger brother because he cannot enter into competition with one’s own ground, or on any ground at all, and can never question one’s role, or jeopardize one’s authority. In my own case, certainly, it did not occur to me until much later-to compete with Caleb and I could not have questioned his role or authority because I needed both.”
James Baldwin, “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone”, 1968.
“Thousands were killed in Calcutta. Men, women, children, even suckling babies. They called it a riot. Those of us who’d been in the thick of things with these bloodthirsty little men knew it was more than that. Muslims butchering Hindus. Hindus butchering Muslims. And who knows whose side the Sikhs were on? Rumour said the wounded were too many to count, the dead too many to be buried. They were fighting for who should have power when a new independent India comes. Made me smile to think of that ragged bunch of illiterates wanting to run their own country. The British out of India? Only British troops could keep those coolies under control.”
Andrea Levy, “Small Island”, 2003.
Not to exaggerate but hernia surgery is big business so why not cash in!
I am close to finalizing a pay for view event “Hernias the Agony and the Ecstasy” with Fightview International based in Pineville, North Carolina.
There will be three event viewings.
View one: “The Scourge of the Hernia Plague”
View two: “Hernia Surgery’s Deadly Dance”
View three: “Secrets Unlocked to Avoid Continual Pain and Suffering of Hernia Surgery”
$59.99 per view. $120 for the “Three View Package” with a Restorative Hernia Tea sampler package included.
I have lined up the best hernia surgeons from Moldova, Cuba and Punai. Hernia sufferers are a dime and dozen so I look for those with best agonized voices and fear ridden faces. Scientists from the Wuhan Viral Laboratory will elucidate on the plague of hernias far worse than COVID.
Victims of botched hernia surgery will groan and wheeze followed by undertakers explaining jammed packed funeral parlours burying and cremating hernia fatalities.
Secret remedies for post hernia surgery will be explained and sold with an emphasis on the insidious ED consequences rarely understood by those being wheeled into hernia operating theatres in the world.
The Hernia Help Hotline will be pitched to viewers.
Fear drives revenue!
Given that hernia surgery is one of the most “common surgeries” in the developed world and the citizens in the developed world have massive amounts of cash to squander on consumer goods why not create a global hotline assuaging and profiting from Hernia Fear? Where there is medical fear there is money to be made isn’t that what Tony Bobbins once said?
Imagine a 1-888-666-7777 Hernia Help Hotline accepting all credit cards. Train hotline staffers and as the porn hotlines are struggling help is cheap. Research “fear points” prepare standard answers. Build on a myriad of fears and create further fear and doubt. $99 USD for five minutes. 10-minute minimum chats with “Hernia Victims” and “Hernia Survivors”. $599 for 30-minute chats with Sri Lankan hernia surgeons. The business model is simple all answers must lead to the augmentation of Hernia Fear! An endless source of revenue.
Hernia surgery packages to Bangalore, Mumbai, Tirana and Fairbanks Alaska!
Merchandise too! Pickled hernia sacs, T-Shirts and coffee mugs!
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