ARTICLES
Waiting for Lefty (To Shut Up)
Part I
"In Lefty's scheme of things,
the oil business is the sole determinant
of American attention
to any part of the universe,
thus explaining U.S. concern with
such likely pipeline sites as
Haiti, Kosovo, the moon,
the planet Mars, and next Afghanistan."
Part II
"Although I have long harbored
a sentimental attachment to the term left,
I think it is time to recognize
that Lefty and his ilk have robbed that term
of whatever value may have accrued to it
in the 20th or, more correctly,
the 19th century."

READINGS
John Sparrow, Oxford Tutor
Part I
"I imagined him settling down at
his small desk, to the sibilant plea of red-hot
fire-brick in the All Soul's gas fire,
delighted to have a reason to write, blotting and canting,
sometimes doubling the stroke or the serif
so as to make its blot thicker, fashioning an aphorism
only to shoot it down later:
Whoever you have a clear view of
has a clear view of you.
Vidi est percipi."
Part II
"This reminded him
of an old Anglo-Saxon metaphor,
the Venerable Bede's, in which a sparrow (he thought)
flew into and out of a banqueting hall.
Thus the image of human life,
from darkness into darkness,
with only an intervening gaudy amid smoke and cold stones."

POETRY
Consider the Poet
"who walks in a stony Field behind his plow
turning up old flints
adze-heads and the bones of ptarmigan,
who lives in terror of tea-leaves
ink-blots and mendicant feathers,
who spends his tears on jujubes
and on feastdays
pulls coins from dirty ears
to the applause of grassblades."
The Ladder
"the ladder is largely illiterate
and until recent times practiced
parthenogenesis;
the ladder does not wear pockets
or nurse its young"
Great Poems of the Past
St. Peter Got Smashed
"Here's to this old digit named Peter
(As in Peter, Paul, John, Matthew
And Mary Magdalene, she Ms Thumb).
As you can see, I hold my digits
In reverence --- and he (or she)
I trust holds me in equal
(and loving)
awe."

LETTERS
Nanaprobe Tracers and
Mind-transducers

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
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.

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

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TEN YEARS OF RALPH
For our 10th Anniversary, we'll be issuing
a compendium of our best reviews, articles, poems,
readings, and paradoxes. Here we include
the Preface and Introduction to the book
which will be called
Rock Gardening in the Ukraine