RKS Literature:  Human Heads on a Pole in Kurtz’s Enclave (Joseph Conrad)

….I want you to clearly understand that there was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there. They only showed that Mr Kurtz’s lacked the restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him-some small matter which when the pressing need arose could not be found under his magnificent eloquence. Whether he knew of this deficiency himself I can’t say. I think the knowledge came to him at last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken upon him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude-and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core…

Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”, 1899

RKS Chinese Literature: The Wheel and the Hoof Have Flowed One Another in Such Quick Succession (Shen Fu)

I have travelled about working in government offices for thirty years now, and the only places in the world I have never been too are Szechuan, Kueichou and Yunnan. The pity is that the wheel and the hoof have followed one another in such quick succession. Everywhere I have gone I have been accompanying others, so that while beautiful mountains and rivers have passed before my eyes like drifting clouds and I have been able to form some rough idea of what they are like, I have never been able to search out and explore secluded places on my own.

Shen Fu, “The Delights of Roaming Afar” (Six Records of a Floating Life)

2026 GREEK TRAVEL ADVENTURE: Short Attention Span Version:13September2026: Thessaloniki and Samos: The Rapidly Ageing Doryssa Seaside Resort

After a long flight transporting you to different time zones one thinks of sleeping like a baby but for me that is rarely the case. I had a restless sleep waking up at 03:30 and tossing, turning and dozing thereafter. That afternoon nap might have backfired on me.

Down to a wonderful breakfast at 10:00. I enjoy my morning latte here at Daios Luxury Living. That barista is a wizard! Our meeting with the cousins planned yesterday did not occur. One cousin’s husband’s mother was in a bad state and they had to attend to that. Her memory is muddled and she’s had a couple of spills lately. That could be me one of these days.

We had a 14:00 flight to Samos. The airport is so much smaller and efficient than Athens.

Perhaps a reason for such a poor sleep was thinking about this flight on Sky Express. This one and the one after that on Sky Express that were to be cancelled as we missed our first flight to Thessaloniki with them in Athens according to their customer service agent at the Athens airport on 10September2026. Not true. Thanks for the stress Sky Stress Airlines!

At the gate we boarded a bus transporting us to our turboprop. Smooth flight. Luggage out in minutes in Samos. Picked up a rental car, a silver Suzuki, at Enterprise for the 7-minute drive to Doryssa Seaside Resort in Phytagorio still, in my opinion despite some of its flaws, the best hotel on the island of Samos. We always book a room with a seaside view. Our last stay was three years ago in the main building and it was beginning to show its age and now our room is really showing its age. I understand rooms in the main building will be under renovation starting in October. The resort closes for the season in October. The carpet is stained and there are ridges on it as an example but there are other signs of age such as peeling wallpaper and a crack on the sliding door glass. I spoke to the acting manager and he advised me he would contact me in the morning about possibilities of a room change according to their “upgrade protocols” but at the moment they were fully booked.

I went to the restaurant in the “recreated Greek village” section of the resort and ordered take away chicken souvlaki, fries and a Greek salad exceptionally tasty with very red and flavourful tomatoes. I picked up some wine and water at the shop by the restaurant. We enjoyed our dinner on the balcony listening to the waves below lapping on the shore. I had a shower and hit the sack. The air-conditioning vent is above my head and rattles every time the air-conditioning “kicks in”.

2026 GREEK TRAVEL ADVENTURE: Short Attention Span Version: 12September2026: Thessaloniki: Of Old Farts, Second Rate Seafood and Rain

Returning from MOMUS and the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography we discovered at last the construction of the Holocaust Museum of Greece has started. There has been talk of constructing the Holocaust Museum of Greece for a decade and finally construction is underway with an opening expected in 2028.  Germany has pledged ten million Euros for its construction.

As I recall from a previous visit to the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki almost 50,000 Jews were deported and executed in concentration camps but not before a mass public humiliation in the town square.

We walked to our hotel, Daios Luxury Living, on some of the side streets much quieter than the seaside walkway or the bustling Tsimiski Street well known for its shopping.

I managed a two-hour nap and then about 18:00 I heard thunder then a heavy rainfall. Although I have been visiting Greece since 1971 rain is foreign to me! But the thundering and rain made up for lost time!

Some tentative plans for meeting dearest F’s cousins but the heavy rain resulted in plan’s being revised to meet in a nearby bar at 22:30 and later attend a free outdoor concert, a thirtieth anniversary performance by Antonis Remos, at Nea Paralia (The Waterfront Beach of Thessaloniki). Too late for old farts like us and we had a flight tomorrow to the island of Samos. We changed the meeting tomorrow post breakfast at the hotel.

For dinner I went for “take away” to a restaurant at the corner which had an octopus on its signage. Lots of seafood on the menu. I ordered fried zucchini, calamari, Greek salad and roast potatoes. What a disappointment after our seafood dinner at Peraia last night. I sat waiting for takeaway for just over 15 minutes. Cost was 24 Euros.

RKS Literature: Kurtz’s Background and the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs (Joseph Conrad)

The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England, and-as he was good enough to say himself-his sympathies were in the right place. His mother was half-English, his father was half-French. All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz; and by and bye I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had entrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance. And he had written it to. I’ve seen it. It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high strung. I think. Seventeen pages of close writing he had found time for. But this must have been before his-let us say, nerves went wrong and caused him to preside at certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which- as far as I reluctantly gathered from what I heard at various times-were offered to him-do you understand?

Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”, 1899

RKS Korean Film: “The World Before”: Anything Here Deeper Than a South Korean Teen Romance Flick?

For most of the film one may be left with an impression it is yet another “teen romance” movie with puppy love oozing ubiquitously over the screen.

Yes, there is a strong puerile streak to the film but it contains a message that the world today is not what it was yesterday. But is that message deep or somewhat transparent and shallow?

Seventeen-year-old Jin (Sim-Su-bin) lives in a small South Korean island fishing village with her parents and younger sister. It is a strong closely knit family and Jin is the perfect teen daughter.

Dujae (Kim Eo-jin) returns from Seoul to the village for the funeral of his grandmother where he reconnects with Jin not having seen her for five years. Dujae’s mother, Sunhee, has not been seen for years rumoured to have absconded with some of the villager’s money. Not from a strong family indeed.

You guessed it; a “romance” develops between Jin and Dujae with the romance solely in Jin’s mind. Jin gradually becomes “hot to trot” and a bit belligerent in her pursuit of Dujae. Clearly he is not interested. With her sexual interest steamed up tinged with jealously of a best friend “rival” her world is rapidly changing.

That is not the only facet of life in the village changing. There are now “foreigners” living in the village. South Korea is a changing. It’s a new world!

Even late grannies’ diary speaks of a time of arranged marriages with her husband never once saying he loved her. Love marriages are the norm in South Korea now. Granny was from a world before.

Jin’s love is not returned by Dujae and the poor girl is shattered but not before showing true compassion for poor Dujae whose embezzler mother, Sunhee, has suddenly reappeared in the village. Sunhee reminisces with her sister briefly about the good old days of their youth in a previous world.

There is nothing remarkable about the plot and the soundtrack is ruinously sugary. What shines is the performance of Sim-Su-bin displaying remarkable range of innocence, poutiness, jealousy, grief and bullying.

“The World Before” is directed by Yoon Dun-bi and premiered at September’s Toronto International Film Festival and most recently at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

RKS Korean Film Rating 61/100.

RKS Literature: The Hungry Cannibals (Joseph Conrad)

Yes; I looked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear-or some kind of primitive honour? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than a chaff on the breeze. Don’t you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all of his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It’s really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one’s soul-than this kind of prolonged hunger.

Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”, 1899

2026 GREEK TRAVEL ADVENTURE: Short Attention Span Version: 12September2026:Thessaloniki. Greece: Thessaloniki Museum of Photography: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: “Light Play”

Always a mandatory stop when I am in Thessaloniki is the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography. Intimate and never crowded. A relaxing café and bar overlooking the ocean if you are in the mood.

Hungarian László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) has been a prominent figure of the modernism that exploded in the visual arts in the first decades of the 20th century. Multifaceted and pioneering, he worked in painting, photography, theatre and opera sets while he designed books, exhibitions and shop fronts. In 1923 he joined the Bauhaus where he taught the basic course, photography and metallurgy until 1928. In his more than 400 photographs he explored abstraction.

A visionary, multimedia, experimental artist he groped for the boundaries between media, techniques and materials, while in the relationship between art and technology he saw the threshold of a “brave new world” and the fulfillment of art’s social role.

The exhibition runs until 11November2026.

2026 GREEK TRAVEL ADVENTURE: Short Attention Span Version: 12September2026: Thessaloniki, Greece: MOMUS Experimental Center for the Arts

Headed to the old port area an enjoyable 20-minute walk from Daios Luxury Living, our hotel. The old wharf’s structures have been restored maintaining its flavour as a port with warehouses converted for cultural purposes. It reminds one, at first blush, of the Distillery District in Toronto.

One can always expect an interesting exhibit at the small and highly manageable MOMUS. The exhibition is a display of graffiti by Orestis Pangalos which runs until 4October2026.

The exhibition features more than 500 photographs of murals and graffiti, dozens of photographs of his installations and public spaces, objects collected from the streets, dozens of projections and videos and historical archival material spanning four decades, fourteen countries and thirty Greek cities and regions.

This exhibition-journey revolves around a sweeping and anti-nostalgic chronology, which functions not as historical documentation, but as a record of an obscure human geography of Thessaloniki’s parallel underground life, which also constitutes a major local cultural force.

Orestis Pangalos is an architect, visual artist, Ph.D in Art Theory and university lecturer. His works span the field of contemporary art, theory, architecture and public space combining artistic practice with research, writing, publishing, and university teaching.

RKS Ontario Wine: Big Head Red #14

Having scored 91 for Big Head Red #8 and 94 for Big Head Red # 11 I have high expectations for Big Head Red # 14.

There are enough grapes in this blend to encourage dizziness;

49% 2024 Cabernet Franc

21% 2024 Cabernet Franc (appassimento)

10% 2024 Syrah (appassimento)

10% 2024 &2025 Dornfelder (appassimento)

5% 2025 Merlot (appassimento)

2.5% 2024 Petit Verdot (appassimento)  

2.5% 2024 Malbec (appassimento)

Fermentation occurred in concrete and terracotta. Matured in Garbellotto and Moldovan oak.

Aroma: Primary and dominating notes of sweet red cherry and raspberry liqueur. Secondary notes of vanilla, plum and milk chocolate.

Palate: Medium high tannins. Ripe red cherry and sweetened cranberry juice. Short tartish finish.

Overall Impression: The wine is taking its baby steps. If you have the patience open in 2028.It will be a memorable wine. Requires food as it is a bit brutish at the moment.

Cellarbility: Consume no later than in 2032.

Food Match: The winery says, “Pair it broadly-grilled meats, burgers, tomato-based pasta, roast chicken or hard cheeses….”. I would add Greek goat or lamb kleftiko.

Price: $28.80 CDN.

RKS Ontario Wine Rating: 92/100.

Big Head Red # 14, VQA Ontario, Big Head Wines, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, 14%, 750 ml.