The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities |
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Trains and the Civil War,
Gays and Fundamentalist Christians,
and Carl Sandburg
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Bound and Gagged
BRIEF REVIEWS
THE WEEKLY RALPH
ARTICLES
The Worst Journey in the World
READINGS
POETRY
Beaten by an Old Heart
LETTERS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Mr. Dimock Explores The Mysteries Of the East
"When I get through writing this review,
I'm going to get in touch with Edward Cameron Dimock,
tell him what a dandy writer he is, and mention that next year,
if he is planning another journey to Calcutta,
I might have some time off to go along with him."
Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America
"In fat pornography, no one is dieting. These bodies aren't undergoing transformation.
Cascading mounds of flab, mattress-sized buttocks, breasts like sagging, overfilled
water balloons, meaty, puckered, elephantine thighs, and forty- to fifty-inch waistelines
are greeted with avid sexual enthusiasm. The more cellulite the better."
The Making of McPaper
Part I Part II
"Whenever they trundle out the lachrymal discharges of the leading heavy,
it's probably time to man the bilges, especially when we know
that he is not necessarily riding away into the sunset after a job well done,
but more likely tucking his $100,000,000 in options in the trunk of his Lamborghini
and driving off into the Poconos."
The Newspaper World of E. J. Scripps,
The Philosophy of Confucius (in 90 minutes),
and Collecting 19th Century Photographs.
Presence in the Flesh: The Body in Medicine
"As he touches her breast, the doctor asks, How's your legal battles?
As he touches her vulva, another question:
Still riding your horse?
And as he inserts his hand into her vagina,
When were you in South Africa?
Why I'm Not Going to Write Another Stupid Book Review
"Once, when I was eleven or thirteen, I met Robert Frost.
I remember his great smile, and his white hair
like the blowing tassel atop the ripe corn.
I showed him my poems, and he told me to lighten up.
You'll make a great poet, he said.
Don't be so serious, he told me."
and I know they were blurred to my body at the time.
I think this applies to all of us, for we were much weakened and callous.
The day we got down to the penguins I had not cared whether I fell into a crevasse or not.
We had been through a great deal since then."
A Travel Tale by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
The Man Who Feeds Insects in India
"What would you do if this snake over here were to crawl up to you and try to bite you?"
"I would cautiously catch it, carry it to some deserted place outside the town,
and there set it free."
"And what if it bit you just the same?"
"I would take it for a decree of Fate and quietly leave this body to enter into another."
"I have perfected now the greatest invention
the world has ever known. I've taken light
from the air and the earth as I did with sound..
I want you to know about making a whole hillside blossom with light.''
Our Ancestors' Short Lives
"Thirteen-years-olds bearing children,/
four-years-olds stalking birds' nests in the rushes,
leading the hunt at twenty/
they aren't yet, then they are gone.
Infinity's ends fused quickly./
Witches chewed charms
with all the teeth of youth intact."
"My legs show worms of blood/
My face has new shoots
The eyes, where the sharp planets/
Used to lie, turn soft intergalatic dust, now.
At night all night long love/
My heart babbles to me of gone loves,
Racing with excitement and regret,/
My heart is beating me to death."
The Poverty Myth of Public Radio
"The phrase 'the commercialization of public radio' is an oxymoron.
This kind of broadcasting has always been commercial.
The boards of most public stations are made up not of home folk
but those people who own the cities of license."
This will lead you back through previous issues of RALPH
(at least as far back as Winter, 1994 - 1995.)
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Titles, authors, and publishers
of all books reviewed in RALPH ---
arranged chronologically.
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
San Diego CA 92176
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