Apologies, everyone, for the lack of updates on where we are with the proposals. Significant progress is being made, and a list of projects to which we’d like to offer contracts is taking shape.
Although it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to announce the final, official list of new books until late April (there are many necessary internal hoops through which to jump, here at Continuum), I should be able to start contacting authors with a tentative “yes” or a definite “no” within the next ten days or so.
In the meantime, here’s an entry from Nick Rombes’ forthcoming A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-82…
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“Gunning for Sex Pistols”
A letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times in 1977:
I’m greatly disappointed at Robert Hilburn’s enthusiastic review of the Sex Pistols’ debut album. If this is what is best in punk rock, then I will never buy such trash. Thanks for the education, but no thanks. By the time I was listening to the second track I was becoming appalled by the lack of imagination, the sameness of the melodies (what melodies?), the musical aridity and the unrelenting noise throughout, which Hilburn, regretfully, prefers to call “intensity.” Thank God and the Queen for sending us, instead, Paul McCartney and Wings and for their new and truly compelling and exhilarating “Girls’ School.”
[Tony Rico, “Gunning for Sex Pistols,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1977, p. X2]
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As someone who made the list of 170 but the 27, I just want to say Thank you for creating such an open and transparent submission process. Echoing some of the other comments, I too would like to see more hip-hop and country books and fewer books on big names like Beatles, Dylan, etc.
Always appreciative of the work at Continuum!If we have received notice from an artist about participating with the book project, should we contact you with that information or wait to hear back again?Thanks for your time.
“oscillation between super-confidence and hopelessness” is EXACTLY what I’ve been feeling for the last few days. With absolutely nothing in between. Well stated.
Agreed. I have been considering formulating the ‘SA’ (shortlistees anonymous) group for those psychologically affected by the torturous anticipation. My current symptoms include the random oscillation between super-confidence and hopelessness.
To THE TENSION IS RATHER UNBEARABLE … yes, I have myself been engaged in a hermeneutical consideration of this post for some days now, using David’s words to engage in a more general appreciation of the indeterminacy of the English language (if not the prophetic qualities of the announcement of THE EVENT, which perhaps takes a form that biblical historians would recognise!). For instance, when David said he would be contacting people ‘within the next ten days or so’ did he mean that after ten days or so the process of contacting us would begin, or … alternatively was the post saying that by the time ten days or so has elapsed, we will know? Ah … how can one live without this fun.
THIS TENSION IS RATHER UNBEARABLE!
Rev. Mike, thanks for the info, I’ll try and keep up with whenever a new submission period opens up (my proposal would have to do with the Jam’s “Snap!” release as it was made available on CD, called “Compact Snap!” if I remember correctly)
Trevor Seigler, if you search this blog back to august or september of last year you should see some posts on the process of submitting a proposal. However, you will likely have to wait another year+ before this opportunity comes up again.
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What’s the criteria for getting to do a book for the series? I apologize if this is a question you’ve already fielded, but I have a few albums that I’d love to have the excuse to write about in book-length.
How many pitches will get the go-ahead to become books?
What would cause a tentative “yes” to become a definite “yes” or “no”?
Well great! In general I feel there is not enough attention paid to the merits of hairmetal these days. Also, Jack’s best scene has got to bewatching the World Series in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. “The game is rigged!”
Jack Nicholson’s best scene ever (except for the driving sequence in The Passenger)
Anonymous demands? Okay – I’d like some coffee and a side order of wheat toast. Whaddya mean you don’t do side orders or wheat toast – you make sandwiches, dontcha? Alright, I’ll make it as easy and simple for you as I possibly can …I’d like a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast. All you have to do is hold the lettuce, hold the butter, hold the mayonnaise – then, all you need to do is hold the chicken, and just bring me the wheat toast and a check for the chicken salad sandich and you haven’t broken any rules …
Sure why not. Give it a shot…
Is this our last chance to make anonymous demands? They have an impact, don’t they?
As Blur so memorably declared – woooo hoooo