NEW TITLES
Paris Review Interviews
"Dorothy Parker
once shared offices
with Robert Benchley:
'He and I had
an office so tiny
that an inch smaller
and it would
have been adultery.'"

Pepys' Diary
"In the end,
we are distraught
to find ourselves
losing one who had come to be
a jolly, passionate, and
charmingly honest fraud,
from 350 years ago,
with all his foibles,
pride, lusts, fears."

James A. Garfield
"One of the few to testify
to this effect was
Charles Guiteau himself,
who, at his trial, stated,
'The doctors ought to be
indicted for murdering
James A. Garfield,
and not me.'"

The Instruction Manual for Receiving God
"Schulman seems to be
presuming a personal power,
no more nor less than
Paul Crouch, Binny Hinn, and
Creflo Dollar, who often assure us
that they have God resting easily,
back there in their
back pockets."

Memoirs of Montparnasse
"The thing to
watch out for
in a restaurant is
a head-waiter or a maître d';
as soon as you see one,
turn round and walk out.
Also, beware of
chafing-dishes."

Uneasy Listening:
Pacifica Radio's Civil War
"Between the two of them
they managed to desecrate
the founding principals of Pacifica
and in the process,
managed to stoke
a powerful reaction
to their demands
that the stations become
more popular, more centered.
How do you center
a maelstrom?"

Great Reviews of the Past
Unholy Ghost
"Maud Casey's mother told her,
'If you commit suicide,
I'll kill you.' And William Styron
quotes Baudelaire:
'I have felt the wind
of the wing of madness.'"

BRIEF REVIEWS
Everyman
Butterflies
Wolf Point

LETTERS
Bias in RALPH
The Republic of Texas
Sacco and Vanzetti

MORE LETTERS
Puzzling Letter of the Month:
Tom Cruise and
Sumner Redstone

ARTICLES
My Nautical Career
"Her ancient engine
broke down so often
that our regular marine mechanic,
the proprietor of
Endless Despair Repair,
simply moved his shop
aboard the Narwhal.
He eventually retired to the Bahamas
with his earnings,
as did our bank."

READINGS
Famine and the Dinka
"These are volunteers
who have to be rotated
every two months because
no one can bear it for longer
but who sometimes have to because
they can't be pulled out.
Who have to sleep
in their shoes with
a water bottle because
their camp may be overrun."

Competitive Willy-Wagging at NASA
"Travelling into space
tied to a huge
stick of dynamite,
and falling back
out of space
like a huge breeze block,
are inherently dangerous
things to do."

POETRY
Recalling War
"Fear made fine bed-fellows. Sick with delight
At life's discovered transitoriness,
Our youth became all-flesh and waived the mind.
Never was such antiqueness of romance,
Such tasty honey oozing from the heart."

Two Great Poems from the Past
Death Is Sitting at the Foot of My Bed
"Ms. Death is sitting at the foot of my bed.
This wretched Lady Death has got the hots for me
and wants to suck me drier than a fig plucked off a tree.
I grab a big stick and try to whack her on the head."

Moon Dog Song
"There are a thousand or so comets
Searching across the southern sky.
I pretend that they are friends visiting
From Antares coming to visit me
Coming to visit me
To visit me with love
From the cold and wandering star
They call Antares."

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month

GENERAL INDEX
All the back-issues of RALPH,
including titles of books under review,
along with author, subject, and publisher,
plus links to readings, articles, and poems
that have appeared on-line
since 1994.

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

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