RKS Japanese Literature: Tomada’s Increasing Intoxication and Infatuation with the West (Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro)

‘My infatuation and intoxication grew deeper with every mile we travelled. When I reached Paris I threw myself wholeheartedly into a life of decadence. The bashful Oriental mind can hardly imagine the things I found there. Paris was a whirlpool of lust and desire-a dizzying vortex of excess, debauchery and sick perversions. It’s everything I’d dreamed it would be-a paradise of sensual pleasures. I leaped in headfirst, desperate to be sucked into the whirlpool. I gave myself up to it body and soul. A true hedonist is quite happy to pay with his life for pleasure. Alcohol, tobacco, gourmandizing and women; a hedonist would happily sacrifice his health and life to satisfy his appetite for these toxic pleasures. I lived in the moment, resigned to the knowledge that each wave of pleasure might be my last.’

Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro, “The Story of Tomada and Matsunaga”

RKS Japanese Literature: The Failure of Orientals to Deal With a Full Dose of Excitement (Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro)

‘Subtle they call it. Suggestive. Refined. What a lot of nonsense. It’s a question of aptitude. Orientals just can’t deal with a full dose of excitement. Take singing. Here in the East, no one would dream of really opening up and belting out the loudest voice they can produce. It’s more refined you see to sing in that lonely little whine. When a woman is preparing herself to enter mixed company, does she do whatever she can to make herself attractive? Quite the opposite. She buries whatever charms she may have under several layers of sleeves and sashes. It’s supposed to be more alluring that way you see. Poppycock. The truth is that they don’t because they can’t.’

Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro, “The Story of Tomada and Matsunaga”

RKS WINES OF GREECE: A True Greek Blend: Novus Altitude White

A blend of 60% Moschofilero, 25% Assyrtiko and 15% Malagousia.

Aroma: Peach, apricot and Nafplio marmalade

Palate: Explosion of Greek peaches and juicy oranges with a long spicy finish.

Personality: A true Greek blend I am.

Food Match: Gavros tiganitos (fried anchovies).

Cellarbility: Drink in 2026.

Price: $18 CDN.

RKS WINES OF GREECE Rating: 87/100.

(Novus Altitude White 2024, PGI Peloponnese, Novus Winery, Tripoli, Greece, 750 mL, 12.5%).

RKS EUROPEAN FILM: Radu Jude’s “Kontinental’25”: Panoply!

Orsolya (Ester Tompa) is a bailiff in Cluj, Transylvania, Romania. In the process of evicting a homeless man, a squatter, he commits suicide by strangling himself with a wire affixed to a radiator. Despite Orsolya making every effort to accommodate the squatter it ends with his suicide. Orsolya had given him, out of compassion an extra twenty minutes to pack up and even provided him with a van to move to a homeless shelter. Ironically her compassion evidenced by that extra twenty minutes enabled the homeless man to strangle himself.

Orsolya is traumatized by the gruesome death scene seeking relief by repeating the events to countless people with all agreeing she has no legal or moral responsibility despite some of the sensationalist press fingering her as the cause of the suicide. Unanimous compassion and non culpability in Orsolya’s favour fail to ameliorate her deepening guilt driving her to desperation that neither a priest, colleagues, husband, casual sex or alcohol can assuage.

Jude launches a panoply of social commentary emanating from characters and images in his film including;

  • A corrupt real estate development business
  • Racist and anti-Semitic police
  • Slanderous and sensationalist media
  • Ethnic and nationalist issues particularly concerning Romanians, the Hungarian minority in Transylvania and the Roma people
  • Homelessness
  • Disrespect towards religion
  • Empty sloganeering of politicians

Against numerous panoramic shots of Cluj’s historic architecture and monuments there are numerous shots of new and under construction apartment blocs leading me to a possible symbolic conclusion that the “new Non-Communist Romania” socially and economically may not be so superior to the old Communist Romania with its brutalist apartment bloc architecture.

With all the social, political and economic commentary and the two scenes shot at a dinosaur walking trail is Jude going so far as to say humanity is heading towards moral extinction that neither a chequebook or guilt can prevent.

A thinking person’s movie that starts sliding off the rails of easily understandable comprehension at the point of Orsolya encountering her former student turned delivery boy and her long conversation with Father Serban (Serban Pavlu).

Watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9umCIsc-zc

Radu Jude is both the writer and the director.

Theatrical release in Canada was 23April2026.

RKS EUROPEAN FILM Rating: 66/100.

RKS Japanese Literature: Tomoda Begins to Reject Japanese Culture (Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro)

‘A friend during my student days in Yokohama was another bad influence. He took me to Yokohama a couple of times, where I entered a dream world that few Japanese in those days had seen. It was my first glimpse into the world of the white man’s pleasures. From that moment, I had nothing but contempt for Oriental tastes and traditions. It was all so gloomy-just like that old house in Yagū. The idea of elegance and restraint disgusted me. It was the exact opposite of everything that was honest and genuine in life, of everything natural and spontaneous. It’s not a culture for healthy young people with the energy and drive to make a life for themselves. Doddering old fogies put up with it because they have no choice. They force themselves to find meaning and pleasure in their tedious lives. But really it’s nothing more than a sad and twisted mix of inhibition and self-deceit. Even when he indulges in pleasure, the Oriental never really lets himself go. It’s all so half-hearted.’

Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro, “The Story of Tomada and Matsunaga”

RKS Literature: The Omnipresent Fortune Hunter Giovanelli Sticks to Daisy Miller Like Glue (Henry James)

‘Who is Giovanelli?’

‘The little Italian. I have asked questions about him and learned something. He is apparently a perfectly respectable little man. I believe in a small way he is in a small way a cavaliere avvocato but he doesn’t move in what are called the first circles. If she thinks him the finest gentleman in the world, he, on his side, has never found himself in personal contact with such splendour, such opulence, such expensiveness, as this young lady’s. And then she must seem to him wonderfully pretty and interesting. I rather doubt whether he dreams of marrying her. That must appear to him to be an impossible piece of luck. He has nothing, but his handsome face to offer, and there is a substantial Mr. Miller in that mysterious land of dollars. Giovanelli knows that he hasn’t a title to offer. If he were only a count or marchese. He must wonder at his luck at the way they have taken him up’.

Henry James, “Daisy Miller”, 1878.

RKS Literature: All Women are Fearful and Frightful Flirts (Henry James)

‘I’m a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you never hear of a nice girl that was not? But I suppose you will tell me now that I am not a nice girl.’

‘You’re a very nice girl, but I wish you would flirt with me, and me only,’ said Winterbourne.

‘Ah! Thank you, thank you very much; you are the last man I should think of flirting with. As I have had the pleasure of informing you, you are too stiff.’

Henry James, “Daisy Miller”, 1878.

RKS Literature: Wealthy American Mrs. Walker Collects European Specimens (Henry James)

“Mrs. Walker was one of those American ladies who, while residing abroad, make a point, in their own phrase, of studying European society; and as she had on this occasion collected several specimens of her diversely-born fellow-mortals to serve, as it were, as text-books.”

Henry James, “Daisy Miller”, 1878.

RKS CANADIAN Documentary: “Hearse Chasing”: Seeing the Damage the Bottle Has Done

Watching the home video clips of Cassidy Waring and her younger brother Cooper in their childhood home in 1990’s Calgary there is a happy family flow which rapidly deteriorated into misery after Cassidy’s parents joined a dart club and quickly fell victim to the bottle.

The misery extended beyond Cassidy and Cooper to neighbours and family members revealing on screen their tales when Cassidy and Cooper return the “scene of the crime” in Calgary. Heart wrenching treachery of a mother and father.

Cassidy suffers from CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) which occurs over a long period involving people you have had a trusting relationship with. Faced with a period of blackout drinking Cassidy is currently in therapy.

Cassidy has found some degree of healing in her songwriting and performing all intertwined in the documentary along with archival home movies and discussions with family members and friends.

Some, but not all of us, have seen with various levels of tragedy what damage the bottle has done but “Hearse Chasing” is an upfront and personal glimpse effectively replacing platitudes describing the damage with in your face reality.

You may watch the trailer here https://vimeo.com/1134113626?fl=pl&fe=sh “Hearse Chasing” is a TELUS original documentary from award-winning director Teresa Alfeld (Doug and the Slugs and Me), is set to release in Vancouver at the VIFF Centre on May 10th, 2026. The special event screening will include an intimate musical performance with the film’s subject Cassidy Waring and her band as a part of the VIFF Live series. 

“Hearse Chasing” will premiere on May 13th, 2026 on TELUS Optik TV Video on Demand channel 8 and TELUS Stream+. Simultaneously, the film will premiere on the TELUS originals YouTube channel at 7:00pm PT / 8:00pm MT on the same day and be available until May 31, 2026, in honour of Canadian Mental Health Awareness Month.

RKS Literature: Daisy Miller Positively Scandalous in Rome (Henry James)

‘It has happened very well,’ said Mrs. Walker. “If she is so perfectly determined to compromise herself, the sooner one knows it the better; one can act accordingly.’

‘I suspect she meant no harm,’ Winterbourne rejoined.

‘So I thought a month ago. But she has been going too far.’

‘What has she been doing?’

‘Everything that is not done here. Flirting with any man she could pick up; sitting in the corner with mysterious Italians; dancing all evening with the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o’clock at night. Her mother goes away when visitors come.’

‘But her brother’ said Winterbourne, laughing, ‘sits up till midnight.’

‘He must be edified by what he sees. I’m told that at their hotel everyone is talking about her and that a smile goes round among the servants when a gentleman comes and asks for Miss Miller.’

Henry James, “Daisy Miller”, 1878.