“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, nothing seems worthContinue reading “RKS Literature: Treating Life as a Practical Joke (Herman Melville)”
Category Archives: literature
RKS Literature: Emotions of the Whale Pursuit (Herman Melville)
“Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the first phantom in the other world;-neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Emotions of the Whale Pursuit (Herman Melville)”
RKS Literature: The Virtue of Pickled Cucumber (Shen Fu)
“There is dung in every house. The only question is whether one eats it. I don’t like garlic, but I still eat it because you like it. I would never ask you to eat stinking bean curd; but as for pickled cucumber, if you would only hold your nose and eat some you would realizeContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Virtue of Pickled Cucumber (Shen Fu)”
RKS Literature: An Insult to Stinking Bean Curd and Those Who Eat it (Shen Fu)
“Every day Yun would mix her rice with tea. She liked to eat a spicy, salty kind of bean curd that Soochow people call “stinking bean curd”. She also liked pickled cucumber. These last two things I hated all my life, so one day I said to her, ‘Dogs have no stomach, and eat dungContinue reading “RKS Literature: An Insult to Stinking Bean Curd and Those Who Eat it (Shen Fu)”
RKS Literature: Married Couples Gazing at the Sunset Will Not be Talking About it (Shen Fu)
“Yun said, ‘The world is so vast, but still everyone looks up at the same moon. I wonder if there is another couple in the world as much in love as we are.’ ‘Naturally there are people everywhere who like to enjoy the night air and gaze at the moon,’ I said, “and there areContinue reading “RKS Literature: Married Couples Gazing at the Sunset Will Not be Talking About it (Shen Fu)”
“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: I SENSE A NEW CHAPTER? A DAMN FINE DAY!
I SENSE A NEW CHAPTER? A DAMN FINE DAY! We all woke up to an inch of snow on the on the way greening grass this morning. This is 6April! We are too weary in Toronto to give a damn anymore as after all Iran is to be decimated a few hours ago. Was it?Continue reading ““Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: I SENSE A NEW CHAPTER? A DAMN FINE DAY!”
RKS Literature: Your One Chance When Being Charged by Elephants (Mary Kingsley)
“In the present case I remembered, hastily, that your one chance when charged by several elephants is to dodge them around trees, working downwind all the time, and go home. It was evident from the utter unconcern of these monsters that I was downwind now, so I had only attend to dodging, and I promptlyContinue reading “RKS Literature: Your One Chance When Being Charged by Elephants (Mary Kingsley)”
RKS Literature: Smoked Meat Cannibal Style (Mary Kingsley)
“Moreover I fancy it safer not to have an overpowering percentage of Fans in the party, as I know we shall have considerable stretches of uninhabited forest to traverse; and the Ajuma say that the Fans will kill people, i.e. the black traders who venture into their country, and cut them up into neat pieces,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Smoked Meat Cannibal Style (Mary Kingsley)”
RKS Literature: West African Villagers See Their First White Person (Mary Kingsley)
“Every child in the place as soon as it saw my white face let a howl out of it as if it had seen his Satanic Majesty, horns, hoofs, tail and all, and fled into the nearest hut, headlong, and I fear, from the continuance of the screams, had fits. The town was exceedingly filthy-theContinue reading “RKS Literature: West African Villagers See Their First White Person (Mary Kingsley)”
RKS Literature: A Man Should Never Have a Wife (Yoshida Kenkō)
“The one thing a man should not have is a wife. It is depressing to watch her bear children and fuss over them, and things don’t end with his death, for then you have the shameful sight of her growing old and decrepit as a nun. No matter who the woman may be, you wouldContinue reading “RKS Literature: A Man Should Never Have a Wife (Yoshida Kenkō)”
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