<NEW TITLES
The Past from Above
"Stonehenge looks like
the 18th hole of the Augusta National
while Morocco's Lixus ruins appear to be
curlicues made by beach buggies
on Padre Island."

Fasting
"Where you or I
may want to take
a day or two off
from those meals
of fatback and chicken
or an evening of
fried popcorn and beer,
she is willing
to ban everything possible
that makes our lives
more bearable."

The Yiddish Policemen's Union
"In Sitka, there is
a special frequency
on the shoyfer ---
the mobile phones ---
for Jewish mothers to
call their sons
home for lunch."

On Retirement
"It's the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle in action:
you can know where you are,
or you can know how quickly
you are getting about ---
but you can't know both."

Mornings on Horseback
"The reform Republicans
wanted James G. Blaine out.
They were called mugwumps because
they sat on the political fence
with their mugs on one side
and their wumps on the other."

Medieval Obscenities
"It is our own conditioning,
as furthered by television and movies,
that makes us think that professors
have to be stuffy.
Forget it.
What they write here
is a lot of fun."

My Life in France
"For her it was a science,
one in which all the tools
and all the measurements were
calibrated perfectly, carefully tested.
Thus Julia Child could best be seen
as a physicist of the kitchen,
one with a PhD in French cookery."

Great Reviews of the Past
Camel's Eye
"It's a primer on
the politics and history of Morocco,
the habits and culture of desert dwellers,
the music and poetry of their language,
and the reality of the Islamic religion."

BRIEF REVIEWS
Kenny Fries
An Absolute Gentleman
The Poetry of Tennessee Williams

LETTERS
H. W. Fowler
Neither/Nor

MORE LETTERS
La Uña del Gato
Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer

EVEN MORE LETTERS
Multiple Personality Disorders
Functional Auditory Hallucinations

YET EVEN MORE LETTERS
My Bloody Life
Reymundo Sanchez

<TOP POP HITS
Twenty-one reviews, poems, readings,
articles and letters that seem to be
most beloved of our readers ---
ones that most regularly show up on
our server's
hit list.

ARTICLE
My Brilliant Career
"I settled back
comfortably in my chair,
and knew no more until
the lights came back on after the last slide.
I realized then that
I had discovered a true calling,
like Paul on the road to Damascus."

READINGS
World-Wide Slum-Growth
"By 2015 there will be
at least 550 cities with a
population of more than one million.
Already this aggregate population is growing
by a million babies and migrants each week.
The peak will come in 2050,
when ten billion people,
by then the great majority of humankind,
will be living in cities."

The Verbover Rebbe
"But if your son was Messiah,
then I guess we're all in trouble.
Because right now he's lying
in a drawer down
in the basement
of Sitka General."

POETRY
Ham and the Moon
"You are sick
and you will die,
the doctors say,
but I refuse to let it be
from starvation."

Dappled Things
"Quickly then! Before someone remembers. Before night. Before winter
Sets in. Above all, before our teenage daughter gets home. Fleet as hers,
Our glad steps on the stair carpet threadbare from dolorous adult tread."

God's Depression
"God isn't dead, merely old and ignored. Who now knows or cares that
     He suffers
From indecision, panic attacks, short-term memory loss, chronic fatigue
     (narcolepsy
On chairs but insomnia in bed), despairing thoughts of insubstantiality and
     worthlessness."

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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