Jen — I knew you’d be reading something cool.

Minda — What a delightful treat to have the author of one of my 161 books stop by! I picked up Geek Gap because digital preservation is the future of my field…and I’m concerned because archivists and techies don’t seem to be speaking the same language.

Marty — Did you know that Houdini’s father was a rabbi in Appleton, Wisconsin? I read about it in the Wisconsin Magazine of History.

I very boringly can only read one thing at a time; Bill Pfleging (my co-author on The Geek Gap) usually has six or seven going at once.

I’m currently reading Here, There and Everywhere, a wonderful memoir by Geoff Emerick, recording engineer for the Beatles. It’s not a book I usually would read…I like the Beatles and all, but I’m not so fascinated as to pick up every book about them. However, the book’s co-author is Howard Massey, a new friend and neighbor here in Woodstock, NY, and we did a book trade where he got a copy of our book and we got a copy of his. I’m glad we did! Even if you’re not a particular Beatle fan, if you know the music at all (which you must, if you’ve been living on Planet Earth) it’s a wondeful read and a great story, too.

A lot of it tells how some of those weird and wacky sounds of theirs, such as the alarm clock in “A Day in the Life” got there–that one was actually an accident. Page 161 is about how they created that monster piano chord that ends the song, and here’s the sixth sentence (I should mention that Mal Evans was the Beatles’ longtime roadie):

In prepartion for the session, Richard and various brown coats had been busy moving pianos from all over the building into Studio Two, so the array that awaited John, Paul, Ringo and Mal when they arrived was quite impressive: two Steinway grand pianos, another Steinway upright that was purposely kept a bit out of tune for a “honky-tonk” effect, and a blond wood spinet.

In the next sentence, he also mentions a Wurlitzer electric piano and a harmonium…six different keyboards guaranteed to fulfill Paul’s plan for “a big piano chord that goes on forever.” Geoff Emerick achieved the “forever” part by doing the reverse of a fade-out: starting the chord with the fade set to low and then slowly raising it to extend the sound as much as possible.

Thanks so much for reading The Geek Gap!