Twelve More
Hits from the Future
As we announced
in our last issue,
we'll soon be printing
a compilation of the best reviews,
readings, articles and poems
from our first fifteen years.
Here are some more selections
from our editorial staff.

NEW REVIEWS
Felice Beato
"It is reported
that Beato and his assistants
brought the bones out
onto the courtyard,
sprinkled them about judiciously,
and took the photograph ex post facto."

Unlikely Friendships
"As he ran his hands
over her skin,
her wing tips vibrated
like a dog's leg during
a particularly good
belly scratch."

Learn World Calligraphy
"India uses a dozen scripts
just to print its money.
The founding fathers of America
considered making classical Greek
the official written language
of the new nation."

In the Shadow of Freedom
"Waddy Thompson, a slaveholder
from the deep south,
delivered one of the most
ferocious insults of them all.
He told the House that
Giddings was nothing but the
very obscure of the obscure."

Green Clean
"Your beautiful new carpet
and sofa can be
spitting out chemicals.
It's called 'outgassing.'
Avoid furniture made from
particleboard or other composites."

The Brothers Ashkenazi
"It's a novel that
Marx himself might have written
if he had been interested in
story-telling rather than
manifestos. "

The Oriental Wife
"It is bad enough
for us to have to put up
with our day-to-day,
but to have the author
sketch our lives in
such a piteous manner
should earn her a round
of boos, catcalls, and
vigorous thumbs-down."

Great Reviews of the Past
Umberto Eco
"The translator finds that
communication between the two
is nothing but twaddle, so
when the politician says, in Spanish,
'Would you like me to order you some tea?'
he changes it to,
'Tell me, do the people
in your country love you?'"

LETTERS
A Radio/Television Theory of
the American Mind

MORE LETTERS
Surviving
Blow Molds

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Cryptic Letters of the Month
Amos Oz
I am a girl

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
Letters We Never Finished Reading
About to End the Race

ARTICLE
The Collywobbles
"It might be punishing us for
all the years we were
getting a free lunch ...
lunches (and dinners) that never
were free at all."

READINGS
Managing Arthritis
"My favorite
always makes people snicker ---
until they try it:
gin and raisins.
The well-known recipe is fun,
cheap, tasty and really works,
but you need to follow
the recipe."

Great Readings from the Past
From Versailles to Cybernetics
The word cybernetics
is familiar, is it not?
But how many of you
know what happened
at Versailles
in 1919?"

POETRY
Mummy
"Sometimes they deliver
only a shrunken body,
yellow and leathery as
a dog toy. "

Two by András Gerevich
It had chilled down, grown dark, I was waiting
for you after a quarrel: glaring at every tram
in the square, noting how the more people passed
the more they resembled each other: the crowd
was getting on my nerves..

Great Poems from the Past
The Earth Is a Satellite of the Moon
"Apollo 8 cost a fortune, but no one minded
because the astronauts were Protestant
they read the Bible from the moon
astounding and delighting every Christian
and on their return Pope Paul VI gave them his blessing."

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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