LETTERS
Whipping Students
Into Shape

ARTICLES
For Your Eyes Only
"My turn came and
I approached the counter,
tapping my cane on the floor
to find my way because,
with my falcon glasses,
everything closer than 500 yards
is a blur."

READINGS
Elvis in Italy
"In the car, they were worried,
and then they heard a little voice:
'Anch'io canto un poco...
I sing a bit, too.'
The driver translated.
'Elvis,' said the cop,
'you know Elvis?'"

David Richards
"If Paul Wolfowitz
were a money manager,
and he made the forecast about
weapons of mass destruction
and the Iraqis greeting
the American forces with flowers,
and then declared 'mission accomplished,'
when in fact we were totally unprepared
for the uprising we face there,
he would have been fired for incompetence."

POETRY
Jugs That Sing
"Aunt Ada big as a casa lived in Mexico
in the village of Tepeyacac
where she crawled on her knees
to take communion
at the altar of the Black Virgin
Our Lady of Guadalupe."

Great Poems of the Past
Berating Your Son in Sri Lanka
"Listen carefully. This is your father speaking. A simple man,
a rather grey man, and so on and so forth, but still your father. The only one
you have, and that's something your irony can't change."

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
A complete list of all books reviewed in RALPH,
arranged by title, including author, subject, and publisher,
plus a listing of all readings, articles and poems
that have appeared since 1994.

A PITHY SAMPLE
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"

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