The Best of 2010
In our General Index
we give stars to books
that have most charmed our reviewers.
Here are a dozen of so from
this last year.

NEW REVIEWS
Full of Grace
"You know what they do to
the Prophets and Saviors
of the world:
ask Buddha (poisoned),
Socrates (enforced suicide),
Zarathustra (murdered at the altar).
First they kill you,
then they sanctify you."

Ezra Pound
New Selected Poems
"All the rest,
as far as we can figure,
is nothing but gibberish.
Elegant gibberish,
but gibberish nonetheless."

America in the Sixties
"I would prefer
to spend an evening
watching the '700 Club'
rather than read
a potted history book,
but this volume has
converted me."

Please Take Me Off the Guest List
"My father worked in
construction or finance or was
a tenured professor and
all I've ever wanted was
a job I could be drunk at."

Proofiness
"The proper thing was
to say that both
in Florida 2000
and Wisconsin 2008,
it was a tie.
Even well-run elections
can never be perfect."

The World of Yesterday
"I once met
G. B. Shaw at Hellerau;
H. G. Wells had visited
my house in Salzburg."

Nemesis
"This disability business
has infected the author,
made him ill in a way
we never thought possible.
It has turned him
into a big bore."

Great Reviews of the Past
The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire
"The poems and pictures
and the narrative make one
long for a time when
the world could accept
such complete nonsense
in good spirit,
a time where even
the staid Swiss would
accept the playful carryings-on
without a blink."

LETTERS
The Airmen and
The Headhunters

MORE LETTERS
Male Enhancement
Wicked River

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Cryptic Letters of the Month
Favour (Wab)
3,5 Millions d'Euros

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
Letters We Never Finished Reading
With Tears in My Eyes

ARTICLES
Two by Douglas Cruickshank
Simba's Kapchorwa by Night
"The man is
a funnel cloud of
charm and charisma,
benign manipulation
and big fun.
All around him are
pulled into the cloud."

Stairway to Heaven
"We enter what resembles
the interior of a
chambered nautilus.
And up we climb.
And climb.
And climb some more."

Articles We Never Finished Reading
[Repeat]
Ralph Magazine on
The Scrap Heap
"Men all over the country
will be crying into their beers tonight
after learning that
Ralph magazine
is no more."

READINGS
The Strange Troll and the Sunbeam
"Brother, I will present you
with one tenth of my wealth
if you tell me one thing:
where can one buy sunbeams?"

POETRY
The Menudo of a Cuchifrito Love Affair
"they called her mexicana rose
con piel de canela
pelo darker than bustelo café
eyes big like rellenos
color of a ripe avocado
her lips tasted like seasoned mangos
and her body was sweet as coconut milk
this menudo of beauty."

Prof of Profs
"Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! ---
because, with that last plosive, his top denture
popped from his mouth and bounced off an empty chair."

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
All the back-issues of RALPH,
including titles of books under review,
along with author, subject, and publisher,
plus links to readings, articles, and poems
that have appeared on-line
since 1994.

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

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