Bulemia and Anorexia
&
Milking Cows
&
RALPH and RALPH Magazine


Subject: Wasted, by Marya Hornbacher

Ralph,

Just a mail to say that you've lost the tiny ounce of respect that many people have credited you with.

Eating disorders are not a manifestation of vanity or a way to fuck up the family, they're about inner pain and suffering. Not that you'd know anything about that.

I understand that you're a critic but heaven help if anyone you know becomes affected by an eating disorder. Have a tiny bit of consideration for the people of this world who know a damn sight more about pain and suffering that you ever will.

--- FRKER
i97FRKER@dchs.bucks.sch.uk

Go to the review in question

Hello.

I wonder if you could assist me.  I'm looking for a specific source for the quotation Milking cows and being civilized appear to be as incompatible as drinking high-balls and standing on one's head.

You have excerpted this in context as H. L. Mencken on Civilization.

Another source puts the quote to the regularly featured column in the American Mercury entitled "The Library" and even gives a date --- January 29th --- but does not include a year.   So I am confused.

If the article appearing at the above website is indeed the full text of an article Mencken wrote entitled "What Is Civilization?" could you please tell me the date of its publication?

Thank you very much in advance for your assistance.

---Sincerely,
Andrew Breslin
roguespider@hotmail.com

Dear Mr. Breslin:

My friend Max, a genuine deadbeat, owed me too many months rent. The only way I figured I could salvage the situation without kicking him out or murdering him was by giving him something to do.

He was a bookish sort, so I sent him over to the local University library and asked him to Xerox all the book reviews that H. L. Mencken did for the American Mercury.

Well, Max was a deadbeat Xeroxer, too. In a few weeks, he appeared with 200 - 300 Xerox sheets of all of Mencken's reviews from the magazine, but since he could barely fit the two pages on the copier, often the right or left hand parts of columns were chopped off, along with the tops and bottoms of pages.

I found I could resuscitate most of the columns, but there was no additional information whatsoever, such as the date of the piece. Sorry.

--- Lolita Lark

Dear Lolita:

Mike Goodwin here --- in College Station, Texas.

I'm Canadian, eh? And I have just discovered RALPH online. What a bountiful treasure!

I'm convalescing now, and writing too, and the site has perked me up, up, up....

I shall familiarize myself with your "Brief (But Charming) History of This Magazine" and then queue up with the others who submit reviews.

--- Best Wishes,
Mike Goodwin
goodwins@txcyber.com

Subject: um

Dear poo@cts.com:

no offence.. but the 'other' ralph is awesome.. ;) so u can be the 'other' ralph :P

nah it's all good can i hav a free subscription? please?

(gets onto knees) pretty please?

---Cam
Cameron Hyland
givemeonegoodreason@hotmail.com


Go to the letter that engendered this one.

Hey Ignacio,

Give yourself a gold star for knowing that there is only one Strait of Magellan. I know lots of professional mariners who don't know the difference between a strait and straits.

--- Dick Taylor
Missoula, Montana


Go to the review that engendered this letter.

Dear Ms Lark,

I am writing to you on behalf of "Medycyna Praktyczna" Editorial Board, leading medical magazine for practising physicians in Poland. I am writing for your assistance.

We are publishing the article, which author cites the sentence of Mark Twain: "It ain't what people don't know that hurts them. It's what they do know that ain't so."

But we can't find the source of these words. If you could help me and prompt, where Twain wrote it. Please, advise.

--- Best regards,
Katarzyna Jagiela, MA
Managing Editor
Medycyna Praktyczna
Krakow, Poland

hi

i am loooking for the lizae machine witch makes graves on the glass

pls i want buy one

sena me e mail

--- thnks
Hazemm2@aol.com