R A L P H The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities Volume
XXIII, Number 3 Mid-Winter 2000 - 2001 |
Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China,
Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition, 1914 - 1916, and
Nude Sculpture: 5000 Years
REVIEWS
A Heart So White
The Best Spiritual Writing 2000 Great Reviews of the Past
BRIEF REVIEWS
ARTICLES
READINGS
The Day I Saw Everything Twice
Our Man in Vienna
"Conroy writes in a sardonic style that can best be compared
to a very literate Raymond Chandler...or maybe one of those
English teachers we had in college who viewed the world
with a subtle edge, deep interest tempered by
a profound sense of the folly of it all."
"Why speak, why remain silent, why refuse,
why know anything if nothing of what happens happens,
because nothing happens without interruption,
nothing lasts or endures or is ceaselessly remembered,
what takes place is identical to what doesn't take place,
what we dismiss or allow to slip by us is identical to what we
accept and seize, what we experience identical
to what we never try."
"Has Zaleski pored over originals or translations from
the Zoroastrians in Iran, Buddhist tracts from the Ainu Islands,
Transcendental works from Benares, Nahuatlan tracts from the Yucatan?
If we are pretending to be spiritual, let us encompass
a bit of humility in the process."
H. L. Mencken on the Yogis
"The essence of the Yoga revelation is that an adept,
by the double device of thinking profoundly and breathing deeply,
can throw off the trammels of the body and become a sort of
gaseous angel, purged of sin and as happy as the boy
who killed his father."
You Have to Say Something,
The Life of Andrew Marvell, and
Wally Byam's Airstream
Rosa's New Baby
"Finally, at 6:22 A.M. there comes from Rosa
a particularly strong, sad wail, and ten seconds later
there is another cry, in another key, one slightly more keen.
At that moment, as they say in the language of this blessed country,
the mother ha dado a luz --- she's 'given to the light.'"
Eccles House
"The room was a sliver: not even a garret,
but a bit of corridor blocked off. There was a sash window
which rattled, and a spiritless divan with a brown cover,
and a small brown chair with a plush buttoned back,
which had a grey rime of dust, like navel-fluff,
accumulated behind each of its buttons."
"I awoke one morning
to find that everything had doubled during the night.
Two wives, four children, that sort of thing.
I did the best I could shaving around
both of my noses."
A Parliament of Trees --- Part II
POETRY
To His Coy Mistress
LETTERS THE OFFICIAL RALPH
HELP
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE PREVIOUS RALPH
"The outside trees were bare and looked like hideous corpses;
only the pines and firs had their needles of dark green.
The trees stared sullenly at the palm.
You'll freeze to death, they seemed to be telling her.
You don't know what frost is."
Portrait of a Lady
"Your thighs are appletrees
whose blossoms touch the sky.
Which sky? The sky
where Watteau hung a lady's slipper."
"Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My ecchoing Song; then Worms shall try
That long preserv'd Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my Lust."
A Correction to our review of
The Letters of S. J. Perelman
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