Hits from the Future
In a year or so,
we'll be publishing
The Noisiest Book Review
in the Known World,
a compilation of the best reviews,
readings, articles and poems
from our first fifteen years.
Here are some early selections
from our editorial staff.

NEW REVIEWS
The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin
"In real life,
Chaplin met Cherrill at a boxing match,
and once said that she looked
'blind as a bat' without her thick glasses.
Thus she was, indeed, blind ---
if only terribly near-sighted."

Capital of the World
"I'll never forget
the arrogant opening lines
growled at us over the tapping
of a fake Morse Code key:
'Good evening Mr. and Mrs.
North and South America and
all the ships at sea ...
let's go to press!'"

History Thieves
"It's that uncanny feeling
of walking somewhere strange
and seeing a building that
you've seen dozens of times before
in dreams."

Daughters of the Revolution
"There was nothing
exploratory or sensory
about the kiss.
It was all transmission,
no reception:
he might have been having
a convulsion in my face."

Barrio Boy
"He tells of
what it was like
to come to the United States
where people laughed too loudly and
had big feet and long red noses and
ate these repulsive things
called sandwiches."

Sometimes a Great Notion
"I scarcely thought
I would end up loving
a Bible-toting evangelist logger ---
but he's a real sweetheart.
The worst of it all is
the way that Kesey chooses
to do him in."

A Lamp in the Darkness
"Kornfield was also the first
guru we ever encountered
who told us what to do when
you are sitting there
doing your practice and
a fly runs up your nose."

Otherwise Known as the Human Condition
"Your portrait --- and
by extension, you yourself ---
become famous because
Avedon has done you.
Lee Dawson said that he might
make your face look like
'a bag of spanners,'
but, still, you had been
elected to the club."

Marshall McLuhan
"Two Navajo Indians
were having a chat
across an Arizona valley
by smoke signals.
Midway through their chat,
the Atomic Energy Commission
released an atomic charge,
and when the big mushroom
cloud cleared away,
one of the Indians sent up a smoke
signal to the other, saying,
Gee, I wish I had said that."

Great Reviews of the Past
Bloomsday Dead
"How in hell is
he going to make it past
the five or so thugs?
Forsythe is in trouble ---
hell, he's always in trouble ---
and since the reader has, by chapter three,
gotten quite fond of him, we don't want him
to be 'topped.'"

LETTERS
Students on Drugs

MORE LETTERS
Down Syndrome

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Cryptic Letters of the Month
Hopefully

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
A Loving and Caring Angel

ARTICLE
Great Articles from the Past
Grandma Moses with
Pompadour and Peggers
"The overall effect of Graceland
is that of a kids' clubhouse
operated on an unlimited budget,
which is approximately what it was when Elvis
and the Lost Boys of Memphis,
forever calcified in their adolescence,
were headquartered here."

READINGS
The Drowned
"We were becoming men.
Our eyes seemed deeper-set,
and our cheekbones jutted:
it was as if
the beatings we'd suffered over time
had led to something permanent."

Say Butterfly
"The school was
not so much a melting pot
as a griddle where
Miss Hopley and her helpers
warmed knowledge into us
and roasted racial hatreds
out of us."

POETRY
Ode to My Socks
Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
that she knitted with her own hands
of a shepherdess,
two soft socks
you'd say they were rabbits.

Homo Habilis
"A pack of angels
from the main office came down ---
wanted to see how things were working
out. How we were getting along.
They ignored Edmond and his
fancy talk about astronomy, but they
fluffed their wings over my new drillbits."

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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