“The man of quality never appears entranced by anything; he savours things with a casual air. Country bumpkins, however, take flamboyant pleasure in everything. They will wiggle their way in through the crowd and stand there aimlessly gaping up at the blossoms, sit under the trees drinking sake and indulging in linked verse making togetherContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Flamboyant Pleasure of a Country Bumpkin (Yoshida Kenkō)”
Category Archives: literature
RKS Literature: Truman Capote Defines a “Movie Star” (Truman Capote)
“Defined practically, a movie star is any performer who can account for a box office profit regardless of the quality of the enterprise in which he appears; the breed is so scarce that there are fewer than ten actors today who qualify for the title. Brando is one of them; as a box office draw,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Truman Capote Defines a “Movie Star” (Truman Capote)”
RKS Literature: Marlon Brando on Analysis (Truman Capote)
“Have you ever been analyzed. I was afraid of it at first. Afraid it might destroy the impulses that make me creative, an artist. A sensitive person receives fifty impressions where somebody else may only get seven. Sensitive people are so vulnerable; they’re so easily brutalized and hurt just because they are sensitive. The moreContinue reading “RKS Literature: Marlon Brando on Analysis (Truman Capote)”
RKS Literature: What Types of People Should Not Be Your Friends? (Yoshida Kenkō)
“There are seven types of people one should not have as a friend. The first is an exalted and high-ranking person. The second, somebody young. The third, anyone strong and in perfect health. The fourth a man who loves to drink. The fifth, a brave and daring warrior. The sixth a liar. The seventh, anContinue reading “RKS Literature: What Types of People Should Not Be Your Friends? (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: Should One Be Concerned with Red Tongue Days Marked on the Calendar? (Yoshida Kenkō)
“The Ying Yang masters do not concern themselves with those days of the calendar marked ‘Red Tongue Days’. Nor did people of old treat the day as unpropitious. It seems someone more recently has declared it unlucky, and now everyone has begun to avoid it, believing that things undertaken on this day will miscarry. ThisContinue reading “RKS Literature: Should One Be Concerned with Red Tongue Days Marked on the Calendar? (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: Perfect Regularity as Tasteless (Yoshida Kenkō)
“In all things, perfect regularity is tasteless. Something not quite finished is very appealing, a gesture towards the future. Someone told me that even in the construction of the Imperial Palace, some part is always left uncompleted.” Yoshida Kenkō, “A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees”, 1329-1331?
“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: TALES FROM MY HOOD: NO WHEELS ON THE BUS TO GO ROUND AND ROUND
TALES FROM MY HOOD: NO WHEELS ON THE BUS TO GO ROUND AND ROUND Bob and Fay’s grandson J can’t quite get his fill of the children’s book “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round”. Twenty or thirty times a day sometimes. Wheels on a vehicle remind me of a story Bob tells.Continue reading ““Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: TALES FROM MY HOOD: NO WHEELS ON THE BUS TO GO ROUND AND ROUND”
RKS Literature: Avarice and the Great Fool (Yoshida Kenkō)
“Great wealth will drive you to neglect your own well-being in pursuit of it. It is asking for harm and tempting trouble. Though you leave behind at your death a mountain of gold high enough to prop up the North Star itself, it will only cause problems for those that come after you. Nor isContinue reading “RKS Literature: Avarice and the Great Fool (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: The Boring Show Home (Yoshida Kenkō)
“How ugly and depressing to see a house that has employed a bevy of craftsmen to work everything up to a fine finish, where all the household items set out for proud display are rare and precious foreign or Japanese objects, and where even the plants in the garden are clipped and contorted rather thanContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Boring Show Home (Yoshida Kenkō)”
RKS Literature: The Necessary Sordidness of Cash (Herman Melville)
“The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must alsoContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Necessary Sordidness of Cash (Herman Melville)”
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 