Blogcritics Author: Gordon Hauptfleisch

Vinyl Tap: Dave Edmunds - Repeat When Necessary

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:13:27 EST

Betcha can't play just once...
I get a new turntable and dust off some old records. Vinyl Tap #59:A truer title was never spoken, or at least a more anticipatory one has never been dreamed up. Put Dave Edmund’s 1979 LP Repeat When Necessary on the turntable, and you’ll find that 34 minutes and 11 tracks will require vast expansion and considerable recaps, do-overs,...

Pulp Pages: "Brother Murder" by T.T. Flynn

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:29:17 EST

"There�s a cold-blooded touch to murder..."
“The streets were dark with something more than night.” - Raymond ChandlerIf you like your pulp fiction writer to walk the walk, T.T. Flynn (Thomas Theodore Flynn) is your man. “I believe a fiction writer deals with life as a whole and he or she should know it from all angles,” he declared in Detective Fiction Weekly. The...

The Early Word: New Books for the Week of November 17, 2008

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:13:33 EST

Gladwell on how we succeed; Leary on Why We Suck. Also: Lincoln, Huckabee, "Magic" Johnson, Jonas Bros, James Patterson, Higgins Clark, P.D. James, Dickey...
After last week's feast, we're back to famine. But there are some treats... Outliers: The Story of SuccessBy Malcolm Gladwell In the fascinating Outliers: The Story of Success, New Yorker contributor Malcolm Gladwell, in analyzing and searching for a common thread among our developmental patterns, dismantles the myth of individual merit to...

The Early Word: New Books for the Week of November 10, 2008

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:34:54 EST

Stephen King, Lincoln, Toni Morrison, Glenn Beck, Artie Lange, Wally Lamb, Paul Simon, Churchill, Evel Knievel, Sinatra, Card, Deaver, Bola�o, Watchmen, Andrew Jackson...
"Shake and shake / the catsup bottle / first none'll come / and then a lot'll." Make a few metaphoric leaps and Richard Armour's quatrain about condiments might apply to book release schedules, too. Compare and contrast to previous weeks, or just do the math: FICTION: Just After SunsetStephen King In the introduction to this...

Book Review: American Lightning - Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Fri, 7 Nov 2008 11:08:36 EST

Would William Burns, Clarence Darrow, and D.W. Griffith "permanently transform the nature of American thought, politics, celebrity, and culture"?
In a sense -- the less metaphorical one -- lightning indeed only struck once in the same place. The three historic figures, strangers to each other -- legendary men who individually would "permanently transform the nature of American thought, politics, celebrity, and culture" -- at the heart of Howard Blum’s enriching and...

Vinyl Tap: Sugar - Copper Blue

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 12:10:54 EST

Bob Mould's sonic assault merges bracing buzz-saw power punk with manic pop thrill.
I get a new turntable and dust off some old records. Vinyl Tap #58:Sure, this Sugar helps the medicine go down, but not necessarily in the most delightful way. But we wouldn’t have it any other way, or expect it so from guitarist/vocalist front man Bob Mould, taking a respite from his post-punk post-Hüsker Dü solo career as he forms...

The Early Word: New Books for the Week of November 3, 2008

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:03:52 EST

Send out for some pillars and Cecil B. DeMille: Ackroyd covers the waterfront, Brands on FDR. Also: Foxworthy, Naipaul, Bond, Brando, Baldacci, Robb, Warrick Dunn...
This Early Word comes with a promise to spread a wealth of information around, just in time for Election Day...Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano RooseveltBy H. W. Brands Delving into considerable archival materials, personal letters, public speeches, and familial and professional accounts, prolific...

The Early Word: New Books for the Week of October 27, 2008

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:14:20 EDT

Rock bios: Lennon and Cobain; Presidential politics: Obama, Kennedy, and Lincoln; History: Irish Americans, Pearl Harbor, Loot!; Fiction: DeMille, Steel, Perry, Truman, Dickey, Butcher...
It’s beginning to look a lot like a wide variety of new book releases, fiction and non… John Lennon: The LifeBy Philip Norman The Life is what comes along when you’re busy expecting yet another Beatles biography. But then John Lennon: The Life is not just any life history. Philip Norman, the author of the highly regarded Shout!...

The Early Word: New Books for the Week of October 20, 2008

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:37:31 EDT

Robert B. Parker, Jonathan Kellerman, John Updike, Vince Flynn, Iris Johansen, Anita Shreve, Kelley Armstrong, Chagall, Eminem, John Grogan, Ancient Egypt, Star Wars...
Updike returns with the Eastwick witches. It's such an ancient pitch...NON-FICTIONChagall: A BiographyBy Jackie Wullschlager As one of the most innovative artists of the twentieth century, opening new inroads into modernism, Marc Chagall achieved fame and fortune, and over the course of a long career created some of the best-known and revered...

Book Review: The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike

Gordon Hauptfleisch — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:34:03 EDT

Readers of The Widows of Eastwick may be more bothered and bewildered than bewitched.
“People don’t know what to make of us and they’re hostile. I’d like August to be a month of harmony, of healing. Years ago we took what we wanted from the town and then left. Now we’ve returned to give something back." Whether it's hostility or harmony, enchantment’s never a sure thing. Readers, too, of...