READINGS
People Who Torture
"At 270 volts, there was an agonized scream. At 315 volts, the learner yelled,
I told you I refuse to answer! I'm no longer part of this experiment!
At 330 volts there were hysterical pleas and a prolonged, intense, and agonized scream.
Yet as long as an experimenter in a lab coat ordered the volunteer to continue
whenever he or she questioned the procedure, 62 percent of the subjects
continued to give shocks all the way to the end of the scale."

The Shark With A Lightbulb (On His Tongue)
"He buries himself under the sand
with only the light bulb sticking up
and then when a fish comes to see what is the light,
he snatches the fish up in his mouth."

POETRY
Two More Father Poems
Number One
"He will now go to sleep/ Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming
Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking/ Of nomads entering a subcontinent
through a narrow pass."

Number Two
"Nights, I squat in the cornucopia/ Of your left ear, out of the wind,
Counting the red stars and those of plum-color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue./ My hours are married to shadow."

LETTERS
Alfred Jarry,
My Father's Castles, and
The Boy on the Green Bicycle

RALPH'S TOP POP HITS
In the five years of its existence, RALPH has published
hundreds of reviews and articles.
Some of these have gotten (and continue to get)
an inordinate number of hits.
We list herein those which ---
for no reason at all that we can fathom ---
appear again and again on our Daily Hit List.

THE OFFICIAL RALPH
Paradox-of-the-Month