R A L P H The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities Volume
XXI, Number 4 Very Very Late Summer, 2000 |
REVIEWS
The Ethics of Homelessness
The Architecture of the Shakers
Great Reviews of the Past
BRIEF REVIEWS
RALPH'S TOP POP HITS
READINGS
POETRY
Trapping Rats and Other Problems
LETTERS THE OFFICIAL RALPH
HELP
THE PREVIOUS ISSUE OF RALPH
TABLE OF CONTENTS
NEW LISTINGS
Ghetto Photographs of Roman Vishniac,
Wonders of the Natural Mind, and
Circumcising Your Babe
Fishers of Men, by Kate Gale
"None of this Jorie Graham wispishness,
none of the Guggenheim summer-
none of those show-off references to
Ulysses, Shakespeare, Agamemnon.
It's here-and-now fist-in-the-nuts poetry."
"It is irresponsible for an editor
to ignore the central cause of
Homelessness in America.
Namely, a sterile economic determinism
that keeps those who havevery little
from gaining anything more than
a kick in the pants."
"A gorgeous volume
like this captures us through sentiment,
makes us harken to a time
when people weren't murdering each other nightly on television,
or indulging in drive-by shootings;
reminds us of a time whenthe sky
was blue, not brown, and when you and I could
ask a neighbor for a cup of sugar
without their thinking of us
as rapists or free-loaders."
The Innocents Within
Obersturmbannfìhrer Gerhard Gruber
"was thirty-seven years old, tall and thin though a bit hippy."
A bit hippy? Does that mean he smoked dope
and wore beads in bed when he wasn't out
murdering people in the streets?
The BIA Enculturates Native Americans,
The Secret Knowledge of Water, and
The Personal War between Hitler and Stalin
In more than five years of its existence,
RALPH has published
hundreds of reviews and articles.
Some of these have gotten (and continue to get)
an inordinate number of hits.
We list herein those which during the course
of this month,
for no reason at all that we can fathom,
appear again and again on our Daily Hit List.
ARTICLES
I'm Dying
"My death sentence is sitting on my body now.
It lets me know when I try to garden,
or to save a rose, or plant lettuce.
I even gave up turning over the dirt a while back.
Even when I am tethered to my oxygen tank, I huff. "
The Lolos
Part I
"We shared the spit-off challenge:
I voided mucus on their feet,
and they
did the same for me, like Tom Sawyer or
Gilgamesh assaulting the senses of
a potential buddy
before the all-important male bonding process could begin."
"Nobody was supposed to be aware of the modern theory
of where
babies come from. The assumption was
that women produced them in their
bellies through
an awesome, single-handed act of will and grace."
Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
"The bull or the fig don't know you, neither do
the horses --- nor the ants in your house.
Neither the children nor the evening know you
Because you have died forever."
"You're better off sleeping under the bed or in a chair.
Forget personal hygiene and the telephone.
Just crouch gnome like on the green carpet with brown stains
or the brown carpet with green stains by the television,
swimming in your own private glass blue world."
Cows, Nazism, Internet Waste-Piles,
From Here to Fraternity,
and "Take me off your list."
Paradox-of-the-Month
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
This will lead you back to the last RALPH, and,
if you persist, all the way back, through forty or so issues
to the very first one, conceived in
the dark and wet Winter of
1994 - 1995.
Titles, authors, and publishers
of all books reviewed in RALPH ---
arranged chronologically.
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
Post Office Box 7272, San Diego CA 92167
poo@cts.com
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