R  A  L  P H
  The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities

Volume XXVI, Number 1

Late Mid-Summer, 2001

 
NEW LISTINGS
Witches,
Second Hand Stores, and
Fun and Frolic with Farm Machinery


REVIEWS
The Ordinary White Boy
"One is reminded of the early John Barth ---
where minuscule details and spare dialogue
lead to happenings fraught with meaning ---
rich with the possibility of misunderstanding,
filled with overtones of something else again."


A Testament of Revolution
"It was all so innocent --- reminding us of the Summer of Love:
money boxes were left unguarded, placed on the streets
to help those who were wounded. Peasants from the country
came into Budapest to bring food to the students."


Jesse Helms and Homosexuality
"We can envision another Helms Amendment, calling
for the repeal of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution,
the one that forbids slavery. And if his belief in the Bible
is as powerful as he claims, and if he truly wants to
punish the wicked of the world,
Helms Amendment #2 can reintroduce the ancient penalties,
those that called for stoning the young to death."


Great Reviews of the Past
Climate

"Verkhoyansk, Siberia has the
greatest absolute temperature range in the world...
that is, outside the bathroom of our apartment
(94° F. during the summer,
94° below zero in the winter)."


BRIEF REVIEWS
Concentration Camps,
Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, and
Dan Fante Throwing Up


ARTICLES
National Private Radio
Part I
"They tell us that we should now be celebrating
the 30th anniversary of National Public Radio,
but for many of us who love radio,
and what it can do, and what it can be ---
I suspect it won't be much of a celebration.
It'll probably be more like a wake."

Part II
"All you have to remember is that early on,
public radio was just that --- for the public.
But then, somehow, while we weren't looking, they privatized it ---
gave it to those who had far more say-so than you or me;
turned it over to people who had and have
a bitter distaste for controversy, and challenge,
and complicated issues."


READINGS
Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta (In the Driveway)
"I pull into my parents' driveway
around nine in the morning and see my mother lying face down
on the driveway. Her wheelchair is a foot behind her.
My mother has fallen out of her wheelchair
onto the gravel driveway.
And she isn't moving."

Rape and the Desert
"A man in a turban,
wearing a kind of long coat, very thick and very hot,
particularly in the midst of the desert sands that lie all about him.
Veiled eyes, like two razor blades;
the copper-coloured sunburn of his round face,
glistening with sweat."


POETRY
Two Poems
"Because you are four years old
the candle is all dressed up in a new frill.
And stars nod to you through the hole in the curtain,
(except the big stiff planets
too fat to move about much)..."

Two More Poems
"the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished
souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also,with the church's Protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead..."


LETTERS
The Layout of RALPH, and
The Fakery of Samuel Beckett

MORE LETTERS
National Private Radio and
War and Our World


THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month


HELP
Perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
Subscribe, and get a free copy of one of the newest titles from
Mho & Mho Works
along with a print-out of some of our most pithy reviews, in
The Folio


THE PREVIOUS ISSUE OF RALPH
This will lead you back to the last RALPH, and,
if you persist, all the way back, through sixty-five issues
to the very first one, conceived in
the dark and wet Winter of
1994 - 1995.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Titles, authors, and publishers
of all books reviewed in RALPH ---
arranged chronologically.

T H E  F A C T S
Submitting Books

The best way to get books to RALPH for review.
Submitting Reviews
Suggestions for would-be reviewers --- and payment schedule.
History
RALPH didn't spring full-blown from the brows of the gods:
     We've been around (in different guises) for over twenty-five years.     
The Fessenden Fund
Other activities of RALPH's godparents, including
Mho & Mho Works

Lolita Lark, Editor-In-Chief
Post Office Box 7272, San Diego CA 92167
poo@cts.com


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