The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities www.ralphmag.org
Number 229 Early Fall 2012 |
Ten Testy Reviews
Sometimes our writers go overboard,
writing reviews that are,
to say the least,
on the edge.
Here are ten reviews that
fried the book in question and,
in some cases, produced
steamy letters of protest.
NEW REVIEWS
Orientation and Other Stories Ma, He Sold Me for a Few Cigarettes
Publish Like a Pro
American Boy Married at Fourteen Pacific Standard Time Hard Times
Great Reviews of the Past
Change Your Life Not Your Wife
"According to one online service,
marriage for a woman is
giving a husband
family control over her
sexual services, labor
and property."
"'But,' says our anonymous narrator,
'we're not supposed to
know any of this.
Do not let on. If you let on,
you may be let go.'"
"There are occasional flashes
of warmth and light in this book,
but they are so rare as to be noteworthy,
a tiny beacon of light on
the endless sea of rape
and hurt and pillage."
"I argued my case repeatedly,
for I cared and she cared,
and I wanted to be right,
and she knew she was right,
and finally she would snap,
'Don't fudge!'
And she wasn't talking hot chocolate."
"You know what?
I don't really need any more
of your kind in my life.
I don't mind putting out,
but from now on
I want it to be with someone
who can do me some good."
"She was married at fourteen,
had baby at fifteen,
got divorced at sixteen,
got remarried (to the same guy) at seventeen,
separated at eighteen."
"Cubism aims to destroy
by designed disorder.
Expressionism aims to destroy
by aping the primitive and insane.
Abstractionism aims to destroy
by the creation of brainstorms.
Surrealism aims to destroy
by the denial of reason."
"We poor English students
despaired of Dickens,
with all his detours and pontificating,
plots growing like weeds in the back yards,
filled with side-journeys and
sub-plots and ever-so lengthy dialogues."
The Volcano Adventure Guide
"Besides blasting off
the sides of whole mountains,
volcanoes have been cited by the EPA
for smoking too much and
for emitting hydrogen sulfide.
Which stinks."
In late 2012, we will have on hand
a boxed-set double hardback
with over 900 pages,
The Noisiest Book Review in the Known World.
It will contain more than
200 reviews, poems,
readings, and articles from
the first eighteen years of RALPH.
If you are interested, please click here:
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about our latest escapade.
LETTERS
Samuel Johnson's Psoriasis
Prisoners of War in Borneo
MORE LETTERS
Lay / Lie
EVEN MORE LETTERS
Flat Tax
YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
Bizarre Letter of the Month
Cocaine and Freud
ARTICLES
No Exit
"This is what happens
when I dare go to nursing homes
unaccompanied by a walking person!
It's inevitable that someday
I'll visit someone in a nursing home
and they'll never let me out!"
READINGS
The Revelation in the Dining Room
"I'm not bound to deliver
a lecture on my family affairs,
I have not undertaken to do it,
and I'm not a going to do it.
Therefore those who expect any explanation
whatever upon that branch of the subject,
will be disappointed."
The Exploding Whale
POETRY Mercer Street THE OFFICIAL RALPH
GENERAL INDEX
A PITHY SAMPLE
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"Soon after the fuse was lit,
there was a stupendous rain of
blubber chunks for 800 feet all around,
one of which smashed a car
a quarter of a mile away."
On Beauty
"What happened next was like a movie.
Soldiers clambering through knee-high water to a beach
Where villagers have set up card tables,
Platters of food --- what food
The camera doesn't care about because
Soldiers are throwing themselves on the grass,
Rubbing the red dirt on their faces, their mouths ---"
"Albert published the General Theory of Relativity in 1916.
After sleeping beneath the bed, refusing to eat,
Fuzzy limped in front of a moving car.
Time tells matter to move, matter tells time to curve."
Paradox-of-the-Month
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.
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"
Help perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
With your $25 subscription, you get
a free copy of one or more of the titles from
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