R A L P H The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities Number 137 Early Fall 2005 |
NEW TITLES
Good Faith
"I am as game as the next guy
for a bit of goo between the sheets ---
or between the pages ---
but on tape, this stuff can come to be
something of a sticky wicket."
Weegee
"He was a parasite,
at a time when we romanticized
parasites and Runyonesque characters
who boozed it up,
beating up on each other,
getting vengeance with a pistol, and ---
if caught --- hiding behind a fedora."
Molvanīa
Griffin & Sabine The Klondike Quest Pat McCarran and Anti-Communism
Great Reviews of the Past
Most Inexplicably Popular Reviews from the Past
BRIEF REVIEWS LETTERS MORE LETTERS
ARTICLES
READINGS
POETRY
Hearing Roy Orbison
Today on Sports Radio WIP THE OFFICIAL RALPH
GENERAL INDEX
A PITHY SAMPLE
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"Molvanīa can be
a singular destination. For instance,
there is the matter of power,
'available in all but
the most outlying areas:
The electrical current is a rather unusual 37 volts ...
[so] a transformer may be required.'"
"The whole thing is a corker.
Lovely geckoes,
kangaroos with hats,
giraffes with cigarettes."
"Arriving in Dawson
created a madness that sometimes
forced a break between fellow-travellers and
lifetime friends --- in some cases
splitting sleighs down the middle,
halving bags of flour, and,
in one case, cutting a fry-pan
into two equal but useless pieces."
Part I
"It may be difficult
to imagine the post-WWII world
in which a virtually unscathed America
felt deeply threatened by a few thousand
Communist zealots and their overseas supporters."
Part II
"Joe McCarthy was a sideshow,
ever colorful and quotable,
who dominated news coverage
while the heavy lifting was done by
McCarran and his Republican co-conspirators."
The Farm Security Administration Photographs
"So soon after WWII,
the country began to turn strange.
The great beast television
invaded the towns and cities and
farms portrayed here.
The easy nature of interaction between people
so much a part of the
lives of America and Americans
went away."
My Bloody Life
Of the over 2500
reviews, articles, poems, and readings
we have posted at RALPH since 1994,
this one continues to receive
all too many hits and
most of our letters of inquiry.
The Gods Drink Whiskey
Silver Mining in 1950s Idaho
The Other RALPH
A Fly for the Prosecution
Spivy's "I brought culture to Buffalo in the 90s"
Richie Havens
My Bloody Life
Left Time
"Whether the Scottish demonstrations
were peaceful or noisy is irrelevant
to the point that, coming when they did,
they were superfluous --- unless time
could be made to run backwards."
At Home with the Rich
"Outside, the fountain tinkled softly
in the patio, and a fitful night breeze
searched aimlessly back and forth among the cloisters,
like a ghost, murmuring,
as it seemed to me,
Lost, lost, lost."
The Cathedral at Cuernavaca
"The heads of the choirboys were
thrown back and their faces uplifted as they sang,
their child eyes glancing upward at the great Roman
columns and vaults with their gold ornamentation;
the dirty, bursting shoes
sticking out from under
the priestly and choral robes and
shuffling over the worn flagstones."
A Departing Son
"My father's words still speak out from the watch
As moonlit icicles drip on your sill
Repeating what the goldsmith has etched there
We choose to say goodbye against our will."
On the Tape Loop at Starbucks
"Poverty and what passes
is our music,
the self
subtracted from sense,
Hendrix under the dome of the dream,
Brahms on a red donkey bearing sticks and straws."
"For a solid couple-three hours nobody mentioned
the Piazza rumor, or how Shawn Held went 6-for-6
and set a new record for single-game runs scored,
or that Heather Mitts, striker and mid-fielder
for the local women's soccer team
had posed half-naked on the cover of Philly Mag."
Paradox-of-the-Month
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.
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"
Help perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
With your $25 subscription, you get
a free copy of one or more of the titles from
Mho & Mho Works
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 thirty years. The Fessenden Fund Describing the good works of RALPH's official godparent Copyright Notice The Reginald A. Fessenden Educational Fund, Inc. |
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