Some Also-Rans
Another thirty titles
that deserve your
consideration and affection.

A Dozen or So Stinkers
But it's not
all peaches and cream
out there in bookville.
Here are twelve that
irritated us so much that
we gave them each
a Golden Goose-egg.

Editors' Picks
What we believe to be among
the finest articles, readings and poems
from the first years
of the magazine.

A Pocketful of Paradoxes
Each issue of this magazine
carries a "Paradox-of-the-Month:"
those puzzling dicta that mean
everything (or nothing at all).
Here are our choices
of the very best.

NEW REVIEWS
Primeval and Other Times
"He allowed him
to stay in Primeval forever.
He set aside for him
one of those single, random
bullets that they say
are carried by God."

Revolutionaries
"As pointed out
by countless historians,
the war that sputtered on
between 1775 and 1783
was not truly a revolution,
but, better said,
America's first Civil War."

Bad Cop
"The joint alone
required forty minutes
and seven kinds of
documentation to process:
a quadruplicate voucher,
a paper security envelope label,
a plastic security envelope label,
a handwritten property log entry,
a typewritten property log entry,
a letter of transmittal, and
a request for laboratory analysis."

The Black Girl Next Door
"I don't think he realized
that my California girlhood had
instilled as much rage in me
as his Louisiana boyhood had
instilled in him."

Brief Reviews
Noise
Polygamy
Alexander McCall Smith
Five Photographers in Yosemite's Wilderness

Great Reviews of the Past
Dancing Under the Red Star
"I sliced open
toothpaste tubes lengthwise,
thoroughly washed and dried them,
and straightened out all the wrinkles.
This produced very shiny pieces of gold foil,
which I used to make sequins,
stage jewelry, and ornaments
for the stage."

LETTERS
Get Along Little Doge
Oil from Iraq

MORE LETTERS
The Effects of War
Charles Bukowski on Boils
Subscriptions to RALPH in Foreign Currencies

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Cryptic Letters of the Month
I Like You
Gone thru a Profile

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
Letters We Never Finished Reading
Prince Al

ARTICLE
A Classic Article from the First Year of RALPH
The Partial Vapor Pressure of Khometz
"Unlike snooty khometz,
matzo just sits there,
mild, plain, and flat,
wishing only to be of help."

READINGS
In the Time of the Lime Tree
"The dream does not
grow or develop along with it,
but is always exactly the same.
The trees are trapped in space,
but not in time."

Meeting D. T. Suzuki
"'What is the self?'
He smiled slightly with
the left side of his mouth and
his bat-wing eyebrows twitched.
'Who is asking the question?'"

POETRY
On the Death of Mr. Barker
"The first deceased. He for a little try'd
to live without her, likt not & dy'de.
They had noe children, whence we truly say
the good of all their offspringe in them laye."

Great Poems of the Past
Love & the Flowers
"Love and the flowers
And such a past is not too easy to forget;
Sometimes I think it gets too soon too late ---
And sometimes I think of the terrible dark space
Lying between stars and petals."

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
All the back-issues of RALPH,
including titles of books under review,
along with author, subject, and publisher,
plus links to readings, articles, and poems
that have appeared on-line
since 1994.

A PITHY SAMPLE
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"

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