BRIEF REVIEWS
New Widows, Machos, Augustus Saint-Gaudens,
Nebuchadnezzar, and Carl Jung revealed

THE WEEKLY RALPH
"He that is wounded in the stones,
or hath his privy member cut off,
shall not enter into the congregation..."

ARTICLES
The Uses of Rubber Bands, or "Var Är Min Paraply"
"It went on like that for hundreds of years,
until finally King Karl the Potato
founded the University of Lund
in what is now Southern Sweden,
and they replaced the wars with faculty meetings."

READINGS
I Am That
Questioner: What if somebody offers to build you a beautiful Ashram?
Maharaj: Let him, by all means. Let him spend a fortune,
employ hundreds, feed thousands....
Questioner: But do you want it?
Maharaj: I do not want it.

The Worst Journey in the World: Part II
Custodian: Who are you? What do you want?
This ain't an egg-shop. What call have you to come meddling with our eggs?
Do you want me to put the police on to you? Is it the crocodile's egg you're after?
I don't know nothing about no eggs. You'd best speak to Mr. Brown;
it's him that varnishes the eggs.

Confessions of a Former (I Hope) Super Crip
"So there I was when the Soviet agent asked me to procure a top secret document,
and there I was when the CIA asked me to go to the Congo.
The Soviets will never suspect
that we have an agent in a wheelchair out in the black."

Returning Home
"Last winter I went down to my native town,
where I found the streets much narrower and shorter
than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a
new race of people, to whom I was very little known."

POETRY
Lot's Wife
"But I could have had reasons other than curiosity.
I looked back from regret for a silver bowl.
From distraction while fastening the latchet of my sandal."

Hitler's First Photograph
"And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe?
That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hittler's little boy!
Will he grow up to be an LL.D.?
Or a tenor in Vienna's Opera House?"

LETTERS
"There is no other alternative to being duped in this world or the next.
In fact, being duped continually
is the very essence of this world and of all other worlds.
Samsara can be nothing other than Nirvana."

ARCHIVES
This will lead you back through previous issues of RALPH
(at least as far back as Winter, 1994 - 1995.)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Titles, authors, and publishers
of all books reviewed in RALPH ---
arranged chronologically.
1995    1996    1997    1998
 

T H E  F A C T S Submitting Books The best way to get books to RALPH for review. Submitting Reviews Suggestions for would-be reviewers --- and payment schedule. History RALPH didn't spring full-blown from the brows of the gods:  We've been around (in different guises) for over twenty-five years. The Fessenden Fund Other activities of RALPH's godparents, including Mho & Mho Works

Ralph R. Doister,Editor-In-Chief
Post Office Box 7272, San Diego CA 92107
poo@cts.com