Eric Johnson Cliffs Of - Dover -flac-.epub

By: Anson T. Merriweather, Digital Artifacts Curator

Buried in a dusty corner of an obscure SoulSeek server, a file appeared with the paradoxical name: Eric Johnson - Cliffs Of Dover -FLAC-.epub . Eric Johnson Cliffs Of Dover -FLAC-.epub

But when I downloaded the 48MB file and forced Calibre to open it, I didn't find sheet music. I didn't find a biography of Eric Johnson. I found something far stranger. The file is an EPUB3, but stripped of all standard metadata. No author. No publisher. No cover image. The internal XHTML file, however, contains a single, scrolling block of hexadecimal code. By: Anson T

Whether that koan is a hacker’s joke, a fan’s tribute, or a secret transmission from the fingertips of a guitar genius is up to you. I didn't find a biography of Eric Johnson

To the uninitiated, this looks like a simple mistake. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is the gold standard for audiophiles—a perfect, bit-for-bit copy of a studio recording. EPUB is a format for e-books, digital pamphlets, and text reflow. One carries the sound of a 1957 Stratocaster through a Fender Twin Reverb. The other carries words .

Others believe the file is an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) created by Johnson himself, who is known to be a perfectionist obsessed with hidden layers. In a 1996 Guitar Player interview, Johnson said: "I hear music in the hum of my refrigerator. I hear counter-melodies in the sound of rain. If you listen closely enough, every silence contains an unwritten song."