  The challenge of explicitly evaluating, in elementary closed form, the weakly
singular sixfold integrals for potentials and forces between two cubes has been
taken up at various places in the mathematics and physics literature. It
created some strikingly specific results, with an aura of arbitrariness, and a
single intricate general procedure due to Hackbusch. Those scattered instances
were mostly addressing the problem heads on, by successive integration while
keeping track of a thicket of primitives generated at intermediate stages.
  In this paper we present a substantially easier and shorter approach, based
on a Laplace transform of the kernel. We clearly exhibit the structure of the
results as obtained by an explicit algorithm, just computing with rational
polynomials. The method extends, up to the evaluation of single integrals, to
higher dimensions. Among other examples, we easily reproduce Fornberg's
startling closed form solution of Trefethen's two-cubes problem and Waldvogel's
symmetric formula for the Newton potential of a rectangular cuboid.
