“Dune was a box-office bomb. It was also, as Lynch himself later put it, both a ‘failure’ and a ‘huge gigantic sadness’ in his life. It wasn’t just that Lynch had made a mistake in signing a contract that explicitly states he would not have Final Cut on the film. It’s that he knew–even as he signed it–that he was making a mistake.” (p. 45)

Scott Maslow analyzes the quirky reality of the 1990s seasons of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks on ABC. Lynch, fresh from his successes with Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, together with his partner Mark Frost, approached ABC with a project where a young girl is murdered and the investigation reveals the secrets of a small town. Twin Peaks  premiered on ABC on April 8, 1990, and ran for two seasons until its cancellation in 1991. The show returned in 2017 for a third season on Showtime.

Lynch found out that making episodes for a TV Network was NOT like making a movie. Meddling by TV executives and censors caused problems. Lynch, who was also filming a movie, Wild at Heart, had to depend on other writers and directors to produce the Twin Peaks episodes. And, like Dune, Lynch slowly lost control of his original conception of Twin Peaks.

Scott Maslow follows the arc of initial success with Twin Peaks and the slow build-up of factors that doomed it. Twin Peaks–famous for its music–still has a loyal following decades after ABC cancelled it. Are you a fan of Twin Peaks? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword / Harley Peyton — viii

A woman in trouble — 1

Welcome to Twin Peaks — 19

A whole damn town — 45

Filled with secrets — 65

I promise, I will kill again — 83

When you see me again, it won’t be me — 99

And now, an ending — 121

The last seven days of Laura Palmer — 139

Is it happening again? — 167

It is happening again — 185

Gotta light? — 205

People are under a lot of stress — 219

What year is this? — 235

Acknowledgements — 251

Bibliography — 253

Index — 255

We must live on the lowest part of our block because when it rains, our sump pump runs all the time. Lately, during our rainy season, the sump pump started to emit a grinding sound. Not good.

Since we had Joe the Plumber installing new bathroom faucets, Diane and I decided to ask him to replace our 12-year-old Zoeller submergible sump pump. Joe’s face lit up when I mentioned Zoeller. “That’s the sump pump brand I recommend to all my clients,” Joe said.

After Joe returned from a trip to the plumbing supply store, the sound of a drill and some hammer began. Within an hour, Joe was pouring a bucket of water into the sump and wah-lah!

The new Zoeller sump pump worked flawlessly and much more quietly. Do you have a sump pump?

We use our bathroom faucets every day. And use means wear and tear over time. Diane noticed our bathroom faucets were showing their age: loose handles and parts starting to separate. Time to call Joe the Plumber.

We first met Joe the Plumber years ago when we converted out downstairs bathroom tub to a walk-in shower. While we were at it, we had Joe replace our upstairs bath tub with a new tub. I’ll never forget Joe carrying the new tub up the stairs on his shoulder. That tub was HEAVY! But Joe handled it like it was a feather!

Diane told Joe that she wanted a chrome faucet in the upstairs bathroom and a brushed metal faucet in the downstairs bathroom. Joe recommended we go with MOEN and we agreed. A few hours later, Diane and I were delighted by brand new faucets replacing our worn out ones. Have you had any plumbing problems lately?

STARK HOUSE’S new release of Raoul Whitfield’s Green Ice brings the return of an early classic hardboiled detective novel. Private Eye Mal Ourney takes a fall for a crime he didn’t commit. After serving a two-year sentence at Sing Sing prison, Ourney meets Dot Ellis, the woman he protected with his voluntary admission of fault (she killed someone while drunk driving), on the day of his release–and Dot is murdered within minutes.

Dot Ellis’s death triggers a series of murders while Ourney tries to figure out why. Whitfield provides a complicated plot as the dead bodies mount up. But those deaths are just to build up to the fistfights and the epic tommy-gun massacre.

“The plot does not matter,” Dashiell Hammett wrote in a review of Green Ice in the New York Evening Post “… What matters is that here are 280 pages of naked action pounded into tough compactness by staccato, hammerlike writing.”

Slick plotting, relentless action, and hardboiled dialogue make Green Ice one of the great detective novels of that Black Mask era. GRADE: B+

The story first saw print as a 6-part serial in Black Mask, beginning in December 1929 (along with part 4 of the serialized Maltese Falcon). Though green ice provided the motive for most of the killings, it failed to get the title role. Instead, the serial was called “The Crime Breeders.” Green Ice was published in hardcover by Knopf in 1930. It was reprinted in paperback by Avon Murder Mystery Monthly in 1946.

This Rhino Records compilation came out in 2000 under the VH-1 banner. For many of these groups and singers, their heyday was 20 years in the past by the time this CD hit the market. So this is a retro CD of semi-memorable bands and One-Hit Wonders.

Will we have a Cruel Summer this year? Banarama thinks we will. And, how about relationships? Soft Cell thinks about “Tainted Love.” And one of Cap’n Bob’s favorite groups–Bow Wow Wow–delivers their provocative message: “I Want Candy.”

Then there’s the epic “I Touch Myself” by Divinyls. They should have listened to The Waitresses’ “I Know What Boys Like.”

Do you know where these groups are now? Do you remember these songs? GRADE: B

TRACK LIST:

1	Big Country–	In A Big Country	3:55
2	The Cars–	Good Times Roll	3:47
3	The Motels–	Only The Lonely	3:17
4	Squeeze (2)–	Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)	3:59
5	Mr. Mister–	Kyrie	4:16
6	Kim Carnes–	Bette Davis Eyes	3:48
7	The Alarm–	Sixty-Eight Guns	3:18
8	Divinyls–	I Touch Myself	3:47
9	The Beat (2)–	Save It For Later	3:36
10	Adam Ant–	Goody Two Shoes	3:32
11	Bananarama–	Cruel Summer	3:34
12	The Dream Academy–	Life In A Northern Town	4:17
13	The Hooters–	And We Danced	3:51
14	Soft Cell–	Tainted Love	2:42
15	Bow Wow Wow–	I Want Candy	2:47
16	The Waitresses–	I Know What Boys Like	3:15

There was a time that I would automatically buy Year’s Best anthologies as they were published: Year’s Best SF, Year’s Best Mysteries, Year’s Best Fantasy, Year’s Best Horror. But about 10 years ago, I stopped.

After over 50 years, I found the Year’s Best anthologies now contained stories I was not engaged with. And the writers I knew and respected were replaced by new names and writers whose talents didn’t connect with me.

The bright side of this situation is that I have many Year’s Best anthologies on my shelves that I bought long ago…and never got around to reading. The Best American Mystery Stories: 2001 is one of these books.

The most graphic story in The Best American Mystery Stories: 2001, not surprisingly, is Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Girl with the Blackened Eye.” The abuse is stomach-churning. T. Jefferson Parker’s “Easy Street” concerns bank robberies. I liked Bill Pronzini’s “The Big Bite” with a private investigator involved in a blackmail scheme.

For those who like historical mysteries, Peter Robinson’s “Missing in Action”–set at the beginning of World War II in England–focuses on a missing young boy whose father was aboard the fleet carrier Courageous which was sunk by a German U-boat off the southwest coast of Iceland. Over 500 men had been lost include the missing boy’s father.

Lawrence Block and Otto Penzler did a nice job with this anthology. GRADE: B+

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Foreword by Otto Penzler — ix

Introduction by Lawrence Block • xiii

Jennifer Anderson “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster” • 1

Russell Banks “Lobster Night” • 25

Michael Downs “Prison Food” • 43

Leslie Edgerton In the Zone • 61

William Gay “The Paperhanger” • 75

Jeremiah Healy “A Book of Kells “• 91

Steve Hockensmith “Erie’s Last Day” • 111

Clark Howard “Under Suspicion” • 133

Michael Hyde “Her Hollywood” • 157

Dan Leone “Family” • 169

Thomas Lynch “Blood Sport” • 182

David Means “Carnie” • 193

Kent Nelson “Tides” • 202

Joyce Carol Oates “The Girl with the Blackened Eye” • 228

T. Jefferson Parker “Easy Street” • 239

Bill Pronzini “The Big Bite” • 271

Peter Robinson “Missing in Action” • 285

Roxana Robinson “The Face-Lift” • 305

John Salter “Big Ranch” • 318

Nathan Walpow “Push Comes to Shove” • 327

Contributors’ Notes • 337

Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2000 • 347

Water For Elephants: The Musical is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Sara Gruen. Diane’s Book Club read the book and loved it. A young man loses his parents in a traffic accident and joins the “Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth” circus during the Great Depression. Jacob Jankowski was forced to withdraw from the Veterinary program at Cornell University after the death of his parents. The greedy owner of the circus, August, hires Jacob because of his veterinary knowledge to care for the circus animals.

The circus buys an elephant named Rosie and August beats the beast when it doesn’t follow his orders. Jacob solves that problem, but encounters another problem when he falls in love with August’s wife, Marlena.

I found the gymnastic exploits on the stage to be incredible! Think of Cirque du Soleil squared! The music was fairly bland and unmemorable. Clearly Water For Elephants: The Musical is more of a visual experience than an auditory one for me. The story was predictable. But the cast held my attention until the unsurprising end. GRADE: B-

Musical numbers:

Act I Overture – Orchestra Prologue – Company “Anywhere/Another Train” – Jacob, Camel, Wade, Company “The Road Don’t Make You Young” – Company “Easy” – Marlena “The Lion Has Got No Teeth” – August, Jacob, Company “I Choose the Ride” – Camel, Jacob, Company “Ode to an Elephant” – Mr. Jankowski, Jacob, Marlena, August “Just Our Luck” – Mr. Jankowski, Barbara, Camel, Walter, Vera, Sue “I Shouldn’t Be Surprised” – Marlena, Mr. Jankowski “Silver Stars” – Jacob “The Grand Spec” – August, Company

Act II “Funny Angel” – Mr. Jankowski “Zostań” – Company “Squeaky Wheel” – Barbara, Walter, Camel, Jacob “You’ve Got Nothing” – August, Jacob, Marlena, Camel, Walter, Wade “What Do You Do?” – Marlena “Wild” – Marlena, Jacob “The Road Don’t Make You Young (Reprise)” – Wade, Company “Go Home” – Jacob, Company “Zostań (Reprise)” – Jacob, Mr. Jankowski, Company “I Choose the Ride (Reprise)” – Company

“Upon its release in 1977, Rumours became the fastest selling LP of all time, eight hundred thousand copies per week at its peak, that success makes Fleetwood Mac a cultural phenomenon. The million-dollar record that took a year and untold grams of cocaine to complete became a totem of 1970s excess, a yardstick by which to measure just how ’70s the ’70s were.” (p. 115)

“In short, Lana Del Rey is Amy Winehouse with the safety on.” (p. 59)

“I can still listen to Led Zeppelin and take joy in…James Brown. I condemn the things they did. I’m not reminded constantly in the art, because the art is not about it. But if you’re listening to ‘I want to marry you, pussy’ and not realize that he [R. Kelly] said that to Aaliyah, who was fourteen, and making an album he named Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number–I had Aaliyah’s mother cry on my shoulder and say her daughter’s life was ruined, Aaliyah’s life was never the same after that.” (p. 43)

Jessica Hopper has been a rock journalist for decades. Her articles in The First Collection of Criticism By a Living Female Rock Critic (2021) cover Major and Minor groups and singers over the past 30 years.

As you can discern from the passages above, Hopper has a crisp, snarky writing style. The third excerpt comes from an interview with Jim Derogatis, the reporter who covered R. Kelly’s molesting of young girls for years. Like Jeffrey Epstein, R. Kelly ruined the lives of many, many girls for many, many years before Justice finally prevailed.

Anyone who is interested in contemporary music will enjoy The First Collection of Criticism By a Living Female Rock Critic. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Forward by Samatha Orby — xi

Introduction: I have a strange relationship with music — xiii

PART I: Chicago.

Chance the Rapper (June 2013) — 3

Viva la filthy noise! : Coughs’ Secret passage (October 2006) — 7

Sweet things (January 2006) — 13

LIL’ SQUIRT: JUICEBOXXX TAKES HIS SHOW ON THE ROAD, RIGHT AFTER HE GRADUATES HIGH SCHOOL — 15

San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Oswego: An Up-and-Coming British Post Punk Trio Wows the Preteens of a Suburban High School Gym — 21

Pogoing Across Boarders — 26

The “Stomach-Churning” Sexual Assault Accusations Against R. Kelley: Conversation with Jim Derogatis (December 2013) — 31

Part II: Real/Fake

We Can’t Stop: Our Year With Miley (January 2014) — 49

Gaga takes a trip (April 2011) — 53

Deconstructing Lana Del Rey (January 2012) — 56

St. Vincent, Strange Mercy (November 2011) — 66

Kacey Musgaves, Pageant Material — 71

Louder Than Love: My Teen Grunge Poserdom (Spring 2005) — 76

Part III: Death/Redemption

The passion of David Razan (July 2009) — 83

Flirting with religion : Rickie Lee Jones (March 2007) — 94

Superchunk : I hate music (August 2013) — 99

Why Michael Jackson’s past might be Gary, Indiana’s only future (July 2009)– 102

Between the viaduct of your dreams : On Van Morrison (July 2008) — 106

Part IV: Nostalgia

When The Boss went moral : Bruce Springsteen’s lost album (November 2010) — 111

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours Box Set — 115

Shouting out loud : The Raincoats (October 2009) — 123

Chalk Circle: Reflection — 127

You’re reliving all over me : Dinosaur Jr. reunites (April 2005) — 131

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me — 137

Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation Deluxe –141

Nevermind already : Nirvana’s 20th anniversary boxset (September 2011) — 146

PART V: CALIFORNIA

Kendrick Lamar : not your average, everyday rap savior (October 2012) — 153

Lana Del Rey: HONEYMOON — 162

California demise : Tyler, the Creator and EMA feel the bad vibes (2011) — 166

Will the stink of success ruin The Smell? (February 2009) — 169

Part VI: Strictly business

Punk is dead! Long live punk! : a report on the state of teen spirit from the mobile shopping mall that is the Vans Warped Tour (August 2004) — 181

Chief Keef, King of Chicago’s Insurgent Rap Scene (August 2013) — 191

How selling out saved indie rock (November 2013) — 196

Not Lollapalooza : Rollin Hunt, Screaming Females & Abe Vigoda (August 2007) — 213

Part VII: Desire, power, pleasure

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville, Expanded Reissue — 221

Cat Power : Sun (September 2012) — 228

Body/Head, Coming Apart — 238

Joanna Newsom — 243

Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More than Ropes Will Ever Do — 247

Nicki Minaj, Pink Friday — 251

Part VIII: Personal/Political

Emo : where the girls aren’t (July 2003) — 257

TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain — 265

SWF, 45 : Mecca Normal’s The observer (April 2006) — 269

An Interview with Lida Pimienta — 275

Robyn Knows What It’s Like to Feel Bad — 290

M.I.A.’s Maya (July 2010) — 295

Janelle Monae is Breaking Rules and Creating Space for Others to Do the Same — 308

Part IX: She said

You will ache like I ache : the oral history of Hole’s Live through this (April 2014) — 315

“It Was Us Against Those Guys”: The Women Who Transformed Rolling Stone in the Mid-1970s — 338

Joni Mitchell: The Studio Albums 1968-1979 — 358

Sleater-Kinney: A Certain Rebellion — 369

The Invisible Woman: A Conversation with Bjork — 379

A Woman Every Hour: How Nashville’s Women Are Fighting Country’s Bra Rule — 392

Kacy Musgraves, Janelle Monte, and the Year of the Woman…Again — 399

Afterword — 411

Acknowledgments — 425

— — — —-

About ten years ago, Diane and I bought a Breville Oven. It’s a handy unit that sits on our counter and is perfect for quick cooking. Instead of using our big Frigidaire oven, the Breville makes sense for baking pizza logs (15 minutes), chicken patties (15 minutes), and various veggies (usually 5-8 minutes).

But the other day, when Diane turned the Breville on, there was a loud grinding sound. Diane immediately turned it off and unplugged it. So I do what I usually do when an appliance fails: I ordered a replacement Breville from AMAZON. AMAZON set me an email that the new Breville would be delivered the next day. It was.

When I was telling my Pool friends about the Breville problem, Mark the Electrician asked, “Can I take a look at it?” I said, “Sure, it’s yours. We ordered a replacement already.” Mark drove over to our house and picked up the dysfunctional Breville. “I’ll take it apart and check it out,” Mark promised. We’ll see if Mark can fix it…and enjoy it as much as we did. Have you had an appliance problems lately?