On Foot Across Borneo

We've had to withdraw this reading since we received the following e-mail from the author:

It has recently been brought to my attention that your online magazine is using a chapter from my book Stranger in the Forest. The online usage is entitled "The Banana Pin Charm'" and it appears in Vol XV, Number 3 (MidWinter, 1998-1999) issue of Ralph Magazine.

I am the author of this work and I have not granted digital or any other rights to your publication. I contacted Ralph R. Doister, the editor-in-chief, last week, but have not heard back from him regarding the purchase of these rights. If I have not heard from Mr.Doister, or a representative of Ralph Magazine within ten days, I will refer this matter to the legal department and people in subsidiary rights at my publishing company, Houghton Mifflin.

Dear Eric:

Stranger in the Forest is one of those books that knocked me out when it came in the door --- we got it for review several years ago. Funny, and sad, and wise. I even went out and bought more copies (me --- a book reviewer! Buying books!) for my friends that were travelling to the East.

Now comes your e-mail, to wit: "If I have not heard from Mr. Doister, or a representative of Ralph Magazine within ten days, I will refer this matter to the legal department and people in subsidiary rights at my publishing company, Houghton Mifflin."

We'll get the excerpt out of the magazine at once because I am afraid RALPH would not do very well in tussle with your legal department. You know lawyers, while we are but a tiny edge of hyperspace, with an all volunteer staff of reviewers, and a miserable and paper-strewn office in the wilds of Normal Heights, in San Diego.

The magazine, by-the-bye, is put out by The Reginald A. Fessenden Educational Fund, Inc. We're non-profit, have been in existence since 1972, have tax-exempt status from the feds and the state of California, and give most of our proceeds to clinics for the disabled poor in Mexico. RALPH is an offshoot --- something to keep us based in the world of non-reality: people who invest in things, and write cook-books, and novels about the most absurd things, and (would you believe it?) go wandering around Borneo, without so much as a bye-your-leave, avoiding monsters in the process.

Sorry we put you up without permission. We won't do it again.