Not Even Gonna Get Started Yet

Or, how it's almost impossible not to

I was going to wait until after the 6th of January to enter into the known and unknown of 2025. Then I got an email yesterday from one of our book publishers asking if I’d let everyone know about a sale Amazon is having. If you’re a Kindle reader (or equivalent) and still want to pick up our book Why Everything That Doesn’t Matter, Matters So Much you can get it for $2.99. That’s correct, $2.99.

Just great. I didn’t know how to feel the feelings that my feelings were having. I was told by the marketing person that the “New Year, New You Kindle Deal” is a good thing—short promo for a couple of days only (it runs through this coming Monday, the 6th). But I also thought, hmmmm, this abundance economy thing is whacked—in just a half a year and some change, the book we worked so hard on has been down-valued to 16% of it’s original price. Maybe that’s a legit sale on some planet but it feels like a holiday dregs fire sale clearance here on earth.

I wish I wasn’t so sensitive. Truth is, I care far more about whether people read and enjoy what we’ve written than a reduced royalty rate for a few days.

I posted the graphics from the publisher on the socials. A kind, long-time supporter wrote that even though he has a physical book he just bought the Kindle version as a convenience (you know, because the price was so low). Then I received another note from an old friend in California. Nudged by the low price and some Amazon cards he received for Christmas, he was as merry as the proverbial mollusk to get himself a Kindle version of our book. And so the testimonies continue. Oh, and it’s back at #1 in one of the sales categories.

I guess I’m sensitive and know little to nothing about post-holiday marketing. Definitely true, since I wrote you last on December 20th and hadn’t planned to write again until after January 6th.

Let me think of some things I do know.

I love this Christmas present that Andi got me: The New Testament in Color—A Multiethnic Bible Commentary (edited by Esau McCaulley, Janette H. Ok,, Osvaldo Padilla, and Amy Peeler). The chapter titled “Turtle Island Biblical Interpretation” by T. Christopher Hoklotubbe (Choctow) and H. Daniel Zacharias (Cree-Anishinaabe) is so good! And you guessed it, a whopping 32% off on the Kindle version. Which would not do me any good anyway. If I read a physical book, it’s going to be marked up, notes in the margins, dog-eared, coffee stains—all that. Andi got me the doorstop version.

I’ve been entertaining myself with some physics thought experiments as of late. During the break I read Spooky Action at a Distance by George Musser, Of Sound Mind by Nina Kraus, The Sacred Universe by Thomas Berry, and The Jazz of Physics by Stephon Alexander. Each one contributed fresh ideas to my guilty pleasure: the intersection of music, general relativity/quantum physics, and theology.

Apart from the enjoyable mindtwist, the only fruit I have to show for it is an imaginary piano. I created the lowest note on my piano to stretch from Nashville to The Sea of Tranquility on the moon (1969 moon landing), which is roughly 234,000 miles. I was inspired by a photograph of my first known performance as a piano player.

The last bass note on a standard piano is A0, which sounds at 27.5 Hz, just a little higher than the lowest threshhold for human hearing (20 Hz).

Keeping the piano string fabrication normal (incrementally increasing each string in diameter and length) the new imaginary notes to the left of A0 would extend another 27.5 octaves down, to roughly Eb–27 in order to reach the moon.

Eb–27 would vibrate at the frequency of 0.143 microhertz. This means it would take nearly 2 million seconds (or 23 days) just for a single sound wave vibration to complete. This is gonna be a long concert. I hope you brought some snacks. Plus you won’t be able to hear anything which sort of defeats the purpose of a concert.

If you’re still reading, good for you, ‘cause here’s the takeaway:

The infrasonic sound of a piano string 238,900 miles long is, of course, unusable in any earthbound sense. But mathematically, acoustically, laws of the cosmos-wise, there’s nothing in the basic wave equation that prohibits it. It could exist, but is beyond our natural senses and ability to fabricate. We would need a first cause intervention in order for it to be perceived reality.

If you imagine a piano with octaves above the existing C8 (the last high note to the left), the opposite happens with string length and diameter. Even going as high as the note C17, the piano wire would be smaller than most bacteria. Now that I’ve got you jumping out of your skin with excitement, should you ever want to explore this further, read up on Mersenne’s Laws.

For a song that namechecks infrasonic and ultrasonic sound, listen to “One Small Pebble.”

Finally, I received my first newspaper review of the memoir, Roots & Rhythm: A Life in Music from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Roots & Rhythm: A Life in Music by Charlie Peacock (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.): Peacock (nee Ashworth) — a Grammy Award-winning producer for Switchfoot, The Civil Wars, The Lone Bellow and others, as well as an artist himself — offers a dense, detailed look at a long career, with an abundance of stories from the studio and the stage and encounters with the famous, infamous and equally fascinating unknowns.

Gary Graff, "From Cher to Taylor Swift to ‘Messiah' -- the music books you want to read right now,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 9, 2024

On the subject of Roots & Rhythm, I’ve been alerted by Eventbrite that the tickets for the book launch event at Parnassus Books are “Going Fast.” Would love to see you if you’re in the Nashville area February 4th at 6:30. I’ll be interviewed by my grown children Molly and Sam with special musical guests Scott Mulvahill and Ruby Amanfu. Click the Parnassus logo for tickets. Cost is for a seat and a signed book. Love, peace, and respect. Preorders avail now from all retailers, including:

AMAZON BARNES & NOBLE HEARTS & MINDS