When I was little, I was convinced my dad was the Blown Away Guy. I was sure that was my dad’s martini swept up in the audio tempest, my dad’s tie thrashing behind him. The lush-haired guy in that ’80s-dominating ad for Maxell cassettes getting blasted by the music blasting from a pair of JBL speakers, the veritable…

Bob Christgau, the semi-mockingly self-styled Dean of American Rock Critics, diets on Mondays and Tuesdays, so on this particular Monday in December, lunch is just a small to-go bowl of chicken noodle soup from the Polish Deli across the street from his East Village apartment. He eats at his cluttered kitchen table,…