The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities |
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Travelling to Cuba --- even if it's illegal,
Travelling --- or teletransporting one's body --- to Zanzibar,
And sad photographs out of the sad Spanish Civil War.
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The X-Rated Videotape Guide VII
"We were baffled with phrases like Suitcase Pimp, Reverse
Cowgirl, (evidently a special way of conjoining with the other party),
Pencil Test (we won't tell you) and the omnipresent description of movies
for people almost too weird for the author to describe: raincoaters."
Jacques Derrida and Right of Inspection
"We get photographs of women running up and down huge bare stairs
and in and out of huge bare rooms, men throwing glasses on the floor,
girls made up to look like women, a woman with no hair writing a note to herself...
and enough people smoking to give the Surgeon-General heart failure."
"When I moved to Clairemont in fifth grade, I was suddenly
being called the following: beaner, taco-bender, pepper-belly, spic.
My father had warned me about greaser and wetback.
But these new words were spectacular and vivid.
I couldn't figure out what we had done
to make them so mad at us."
Pictures from The Life and Works of Frank Lloyd Wright,
A lurid selelection of Victorian pornography,
And the tragic life of Tina Modotti.
Mars:
Discovering the Secrets of the Red Planet
"Mars would go forward across the sky every night,
and then stop, and then back up some,
and then stop again, and then move forward again.
That's the way a crazy planet and a good soldier do."
The Mexican Dalai Lama
"I'll point out to them that there are excellent rewards
for having a home-grown tulku as a son. They'll lose him for a while,
but, later on, they'll get to travel all over the world and meet
lots of interesting people --- presidents and sourpuss senators and the like."
"Zucchini quickly established himself as
the leading exponent of the al diente style,
and his compositions were performed everywhere
with relish on the side."
Deep & Simple: A Spiritual Path for
Modern Times
"Getting gas, praying in church,
buying a bagel, are all the same Mysterious Miracle.
They live in Love, so of course they are
in Love with the gas station attendant.
And at the bagel shop, they'll be in Love with the bagel boy."
"The tortillarķa was the world's
jolliest sweat lodge.
The heat was always high from the massive sheet of iron kept hot
by eternally burning propane burners.
Six or eight women
worked in there all day, sweating and
yelling over the sound of a radio.
You could smell the holy maiz
heating and sending out its incense all over the street.''
From "Don Juan" by Lord Byron
The Seduction of Don Juan
"And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation...
A little still she strove, and much repented,
And whispering I will ne'er consent --- consented."
"They say he became deaf --- but it isn't true
the demons of his hearing worked tirelessly
and the dead lake never slept in the shells of his ears..."
A blow to our review of Wind.
This will lead you back through previous issues of RALPH
(at least as far back as Winter, 1994 - 1995.)
perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
Subscribe, and get a free copy of one of the newest titles from
Mho & Mho Works
along with a print-out of some of our most pithy reviews, in
The Folio
Titles, authors, and publishers
of all books reviewed in RALPH ---
arranged chronologically.
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
PARADOX-OF-THE-MONTH