R A L P H The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities Volume
XXXI, Number 2 Very Early Fall 2002 |
NEW LISTINGS
REVIEWS At the Ends of the Earth
Great Reviews of the Past
BRIEF REVIEWS
ARTICLES
READINGS A Visit to the Old Peoples' Home
POETRY
LETTERS THE OFFICIAL RALPH
GENERAL INDEX
A PITHY SAMPLE
SUBSCRIBE
RALPH's TOP POPS
Being a list of reviews,
readings, articles and poems
which regularly, month after month,
receive the most hits from RALPH readers.
Don't ask us why.
Fantasy Obits from the New York Times,
Philip Dick's Minority Report, and
Living with Alzheimer's
Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul
"Author Glucklich compares the Inquisition
to Freudian psychoanalysis ... the patient
could not see his interrogator standing behind,
the voice was there, as well as
the expectant silence between questions and commands.
The patient, of course, wanted to please the interrogator."
"The mayor of Fairbanks said that
the divine wanted The Prudhoe Bay pipeline it to be built.
God placed these things beneath the surface
for a purpose, he said.
For us to say that we shouldn't use them
is to be anti-God."
No One Knows What the Nose Knows
"Victorians had a love seat
that allowed a couple to sit close enough
to talk to each other and not touch:
it was a pheromonal piece of furniture, putting
a suitor's armpit within inches
of his intended's nostrils."
Photographs at St. Lawrence University,
Mountain Biking in New Mexico, and
Black Images in the White Mind
Pepe the Pensive, Raúl the Rambunctious
Part I
"Only half of them drink,
and that only on Saturdays and Sundays.
Those that do manage to get amazingly,
totally, brazenly, noisomely stewed out of their minds
in the cantina or at a fiesta ---
creeping in for work on a Monday morning,
claiming that they have been laid low by 'malaria.'
The sickness is usually gone by Tuesday."
Part II
"They say that 1500 years ago there appeared,
from the west, a large sloop with a high, crested bow.
On its single sail were a pair of eyes
painted brightly on the sail cloth: eyes so large
that when first seen on the horizon
it was as if they were gazing at you
from the far edge of another world."
Portrait of the Cyclops
"It is a portrait of me, she says.
One huge, club foot, sausage fingers,
a strangely calm, cyclopean eye."
"As I was about to mount the stairs
I caught a flurry of movement from the corner of my eye
and flinched as a delicate small woman with the face of an ancient girl
came scurrying up to me and plucked my sleeve
and said in a flapper's breathless voice,
Are you the pelican man?
An Orange on the Table
"An orange on the table
Your dress on the rug
And you in my bed..."
"All men are dogs, the married
doubly so: they think another clown
floats in my mouth, and has a bone
to prove it. Well, I won't get carried
off..."
The Black Beast of Death
"Your kisses tasted of ashes and gunfire.
You finally took the breast I think.
In your madness and in your fear
You knew I would come back but
As one of the gods to kiss you
Into transports of death."
World War II Revisited
Paradox-of-the-Month
A complete list of all books reviewed in RALPH,
arranged by title, including author, subject, and publisher,
plus a listing of all readings, articles and poems
that have appeared since 1994.
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"
Help perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
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Mho & Mho Works
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 Describing the good works of RALPH's official godparent |
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