UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK - Oct. 2015

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

http://faulknersociety.wordpress.com/20 ... ads-panel/

( extract)


After Morrow was acquired by NewsCorp and merged within HarperCollins, Michael joined Lisa Queen, Morrow’s former Editor-in-Chief, at her literary agency, formed in 2005. His first sale as an agent was My New Orleans by Rosemary James. Where Lisa Queen primarily represents celebrity authors, among them Elvis Costello, Heidi Klum,† Soledad OíBrien, Pete Sampras, and Tiger Woods, Michael has focused on narrative nonfiction, literary fiction, and quirky visual books.

http://www.queenliterary.com/
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

Aha!

http://www.elviscostello.com/news/elvis ... husband/66

25.08.2010

(extract)

OWH: But you have been working on a book for some time. Surely when your editor hears a line like, “She woke up and called him “Charlie” by mistake and then in shame began to cry” he kicks the cat and says, “He’s putting what should be his book into his songs!”

EC: This will all be explained in my forthcoming pamphlet.



Incidentally , Googling Elvis and Lisa Queen, mentioned earlier as Elvis' literary agent, gets this

http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lo ... %3Bs%3Dall

Agent: Lisa Queen. Agency: Queen Literary Agency (from most recently reported .... Elvis Costello's memoir, riffing from some of his song through "intimate ...

That's what you get in summary ; otherwise -

The page you requested is available only to paying members of Publishers Marketplace

Is anyone here such a person?
MOJO
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by MOJO »

Forthcoming pamphlet.... classic. I hope it's a quirky one and easy to read. I have an attention span the size of a pea.
Neil.
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by Neil. »

I wonder if this is going to be just an amplified version of Elvis's sleevenotes?

Also, Elvis's cryptic style of writing about his own life and work might not read well across hundreds of pages - he writes far better about other people's music, where he doesn't have to be defensive.

I think the indirectness of his lyrics often makes them fascinating, but as a prose style it could be trying over the length of a book.
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wardo68
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by wardo68 »

He also need a proofreader. And I happen to be available!
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

This still seems to be a ongoing project, going by these comments -

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment ... d=10859366

Jan 17, 2013


He's also had an autobiography he's been working on for years
and sounds in no hurry to finish. His live work and family commitments - he has young twin sons with wife, jazz star Diana Krall, who is frequently away on tour too - means that, no, everyday he can't write the book.

"It's not a formal biography ... and if people are buying it to find the secret identity of someone in a song of mine they will probably be disappointed."

"For someone whose cultural significance is negligible and who has sold a handful of records through the years, there's already an amazing amount of words wasted analysing every little detail and that is true of everybody now. So why would you argue with that account? I am just not in the business of arguing with my own past or refighting battles with record companies or old girlfriends or ex-band members. I don't care about any of that.

"I feel that the only thing that would be of lasting value would be the account of things that nobody else knows
. I am not really interested in a round of applause or a lap of honour for what I have done because I don't really think it matters that much."
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

Catching up on news after my holidays I see this intriguing item from last week -

http://braininajar.net/2013/05/17/elvis-and-me/


Elvis and Me


17 May 2013 1 Comment

by nancybercaw

in Brain in a Jar


(extract)

I really love this: Publisher’s Weekly has announced the sale of BIAJ to Fingerprint Press in India. As if that wasn’t cool enough, my sale followed the sale of Elvis Costello’s memoir to Holland.


Image



That teeny tiny image references a Sabila Kahn , described here -

http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Sabila-Khan/1215714664


Sabila Khan, associate manager of subsidiary rights for Penguin Group USA in New York,
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

More info on Elvis' 'memoir' (photo of part of a PDF for a London book fair)

Image
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verbal gymnastics
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by verbal gymnastics »

Well that description gives it all away doesn't it? :lol:
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
sweetest punch
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by sweetest punch »

Next year is Elvis's 60th birthday.
This is problably a good occasion to release a memoir.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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krm
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by krm »

Biographies are a lucrative business! When music sales decline.......
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/music ... -1-2949793

Elvis tells the Scotsman -


I’m also working long term on a book of my own,” says Costello. “It’s not fiction, but it’s not non-fiction either. I’m not writing an autobiography. Everyone knows that story, everyone’s an expert, so I can only tell people what they don’t know.”
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docinwestchester
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by docinwestchester »

johnfoyle wrote:http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/music ... -1-2949793

Elvis tells the Scotsman -


I’m also working long term on a book of my own,” says Costello. “It’s not fiction, but it’s not non-fiction either. I’m not writing an autobiography. Everyone knows that story, everyone’s an expert, so I can only tell people what they don’t know.”
Sounds a bit like the Bruce Thomas book.
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verbal gymnastics
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by verbal gymnastics »

It'll be called "I Pod"
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.offthetracks.co.nz/wising-up ... the-roots/


October 8, 2013 by Simon Sweetman

(extract)


The other big piece of work for Costello is his memoir.

“It’s been something that I wasn’t interested in for a while and then I got very interested – I realised that there are things I can say that no one else knows. So it won’t be an autobiography as such, a full and complete timeline that treads over so many of the stories already told; it will be about what I can say that no one else knows, that people have only guessed at. And like I said with the songwriting, the same is true with this memoir, the death of my father certainly gave me reason to take stock”, he laughs very softly. “I guess I’m of an age where it’s natural now to start to look back”.

And it’s interesting, I suggest, that his two most recent collaborators are newly published authors, with recent memoirs from Questlove and Burt Bacharach.

“Yes, that’s true! And they’re great books, have you read ‘em?”

I tell him I have. Costello of course even contributed to Bacharach’s book.

“Yes, it’s been interesting seeing how memoir has changed, this idea of bringing in other voices to help tell the story, to shape the memories and ideas and I like that; it was a great pleasure of course to contribute to Burt’s book and I loved reading Quest’s. Both are very interesting books. Both do it well where they share the narrative across more than one voice. I liked that”.

He hasn’t got a date for his yet – but it will arrive “sometime next year”.
sheeptotheslaughter
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by sheeptotheslaughter »

sweetest punch wrote:Next year is Elvis's 60th birthday.
This is problably a good occasion to release a memoir.

Isn't that a frightening thought Elvis is 60 next year
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verbal gymnastics
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by verbal gymnastics »

I hope I'm invited to his party (even though I didn't invite him to mine).
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
sulky lad
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by sulky lad »

VG wrote
I hope I'm invited to his party (even though I didn't invite him to mine).
.he'd have loved the atmosphere and the crazy dancing but I'm not sure how he'd have got on with the bassist ! :lol:
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.paste.com/issues/week-118/ar ... ium=social


Elvis Costello
Has an Itchy Trigger


By Bonnie Stiernberg

Nov. 13

(extract)


Now that Wise Up Ghost is out in the wild, Costello has (of course) focused his attention on a handful of new projects, this time venturing into different media.

“I’m writing, but not songs. Not at all,” he says. “I’ve been working on a sort of book for a while. I have to put it to the side now and again when I’m doing other things because obviously when you do it, you want to give it the full attention. But recently that’s become sort of my full-time job. And then I’m working on some new compositions with Burt Bacharach. We wrote an album together, about 15 years ago I suppose it is now, and it’s going to hopefully be the basis of a musical, and in order to do that, we’re using existing songs. There are some things in the story that won’t be accompanied by music, and it would be too contrived to just make it everything in this original album, make the story thread through all those songs, so in order to have the characters speak to each other, you need some new songs. So we might write as many as six new songs.”

So, okay, maybe he is writing some songs. But back to that book for a second—is it a musical appreciation, like Questlove’s? An autobiography? I still don’t really know for certain because, as you might imagine, the man who famously said “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” (although he wasn’t the first to do so; that’d be Martin Mull) has a few opinions about people who write about books, too.

“I guess what it’s about is it’s what isn’t in every other account of…” He pauses. “You know, there’s emphasis in the wrong place in nearly everything that’s written about anybody that’s in public life. There’s just a list of things. Literally any idiot can do that and call themselves an author. It takes a little bit of insight to interpret your research. You can have a lot of facts and they won’t mean anything, you know? People can do very complicated musical analysis of your songs, but if you check their credentials, you’ll actually find that they’re quite mediocre songwriters. The so-called criticism of the work is not really from an informed point of view. They couldn’t have actually written one of the songs that I’ve written. I write albums for anybody to hear in any frame of mind. I don’t have a mental picture of who the audience is. I do have a mental picture of who the audience isn’t. I don’t write for fetishists or obsessives. Because it’s not actually clever workings or something as perceived by somebody who didn’t do it. It’s not always the insight that they believe it to be.”

“Have you ever read any literary criticism?” he asks. “Have you ever read how seethingly horrible so much of it is and how unpleasant the tone of it is? If you want to see some grandiose, egotistical nonsense, take a little walk in the realm of academia. Then you’ll find out. It makes the insanity of rock stars seem like just a little childish tantrum.”

Then, perhaps realizing he has changed the subject, he circles back to what the book’s about—what it’s all about, really.

“I sort of was trying to avoid all that neurosis and tell something personal but joyful,” he says. “Because there’s obviously things that I can tell you about, how I got to certain songs, love of certain types of music, or how a song that I maybe heard 40 years ago made me feel and then where it lead to and why I love certain things. And as Quest told a lot of in his book as well, the strange perspective of a child who grows up in not just a musical household, but a professional musical household. You see this sort of strange alchemy or mischief of going from the most mundane thing imaginable to a sort of magical transformation. And of course it doesn’t happen all the time; we don’t get great things happening like a sacrament every time we go onstage. You just go to work, and you try your best to make it magical for you and therefore magical to the audience.”
sweetest punch
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal, due late 2014

Post by sweetest punch »

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/2 ... p+Stories)

2014 Book Preview: Lena Dunham, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King and 20 Other Hot Authors

In addition to the book from the "Girls" creator that nabbed a $3.7 million advance, this year will see titles from James Ellroy, B.J. Novak, Chelsea Handler and John Cleese's long-awaited memoir.

Settle into an easy chair and get ready to crack a good book. An early peek at 2014's hottest book offerings finds novels by Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and James Ellroy on tap.

Plus, this year will see high-profile memoirs from ABC's Robin Roberts, comedian John Cleese and singer Elvis Costello as well. Sometime later this year (a date has not yet been announced), Lena Dunham's book of essays Not That Kind of Girl is likely to roll into bookstores.

Most publishers haven't announced full slates for 2014 yet, but from what's known, here's twenty-three books due in the next year that The Hollywood Reporter is keeping an eye on:

(...)

Memoirs

Elvis Costello (Penguin, Fall)
The attraction of this story is obvious: The life of the creative -- and sometimes controversial -- music genius who made "Alison," "Accidents Will Happen," and "My Aim is True."
(...)
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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Jack of All Parades
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal, due late 2014

Post by Jack of All Parades »

"But the pen that I write with won't tell the truth
'Cause the moments that I can't recall
Are the moments that you treasure
Better take another measure for measure"

This should be tremendous 'fun'-am eagerly awaiting the publication :wink:
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis signs two book deal, due late 2014

Post by johnfoyle »

From a pdf for the London Book Fair - the latest on Elvis's 'memoir'.

Image
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis 'memoir' now due March 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

From the latest Private Eye -

Image
scielle
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Re: Elvis 'memoir' now due March 2015

Post by scielle »

http://www.accessatlanta.com/weblogs/at ... n-atlanta/
His vast network of musical friends might soon find themselves mentioned in Costello's upcoming autobiography, though they needn’t worry about him mentioning drunken nights or embarrassing stories. Costello, as usual, is interested in getting at the music that fuels the stories.

“It’s not an everything-I-did kind of biography. I have no interest in that," Costello said. "It's much more about the way I hear and the way I’ve heard music. So many lines are drawn between things by experience. I just found that that’s a more unusual tale to tell. With the other stuff, you're arguing with an account of yourself that already exists out there, so why bother?"
johnfoyle
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Re: Elvis 'memoir' now due March 2015

Post by johnfoyle »

I nicked this ( I presume) mocked up book cover from f/book & posted it on a EC f/book fan page, with the suggestion that it might be a suitable cover for Elvis's book.

Image

Maybe we should make suggestions for a title. I'd go with 'I Try To Be Amused' ? It's a lyric, it's a statement of intent, it's a description of , perhaps, delighting in annoying people - it has it all !
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