The Golden Record

Diagram of a diagram: if properly decoded,
                                                                                the first image which will appear
is a circle. Or, go backwards.
                                                                  The last image: a violin which, it seems,
can be read by music
                                                                  and is only the length of a sheet of paper
whatever a sheet of paper was
                                                                  in 1977. The year Jimmy Carter was elected.

—

The longest piece of music included is called,
in English, "Flowing Streams."  Played
on the guqin, it slurs like the
human voice. Think: scale and silence, think:
vibrations and overtones, think: alone
in a desert carrying a very old instrument
swelling in the heat.

—

Image number 98: taken from inside the exhibit.
                                                                                  Foreground: elephant bones.
Large black rectangle symbolizing
                                                                                  museum glass, a thick frame, perhaps
bullet-proof and pressurized and
                                                                                  temperature-controlled to prevent
further decay.

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Number 5: math         Number 8: math with colors         Number 105: a train with math

—

Jimmy Carter, remix:

We billion[s], we         likely, we
         rapidly hopeful                  messages. Construct
survives any                  attempt,                           profoundly
         live, profoundly                           good will.

—

Pictured: cotton picker, grape picker, supermarket.
                                                                                     Recall: touching all the fruit
         for ripeness. Recall:
                                                                                     colonial exploit, strategic
         control. Whole lives spent plucking
                                                                                     and spinning. The juice
         always so sweet against your teeth.

—

Pictured: the inside of a book on Newton.
                                                                                     Nothing about gravity.
         Nothing like the stillness
                                                                                     of the middle of a book
         cracked open like a locket.

—

Playback:

Images are made from signals. To render an image,
scan all 512 lines vertically and left to right.
8 milliseconds per line, 8 1/2 minutes per image.

—

Image number 17: Cell division magnified,
                                                               the lines clarifying, separating
their soft, rounded shapes.
                                                               These are most likely
human cells, most likely
                                                               benign.

—

Also in 1977, not pictured:
Apple Computers is incorporated; discovery of Legionnaire's disease; Elvis
Presley's last concert; Star Wars released in cinemas; U.S. park ranger Roy
Sullivan struck by lightning for the seventh time; snowfall in Miami for the
only time in recorded history—

—

Sounds from Earth: wild dog, tame dog.

—

Blues-gospel: "Dark was the night,
cold was the ground," a metaphor.

—

Greetings in 55 languages take 4 minutes and 14 seconds.
The time it takes to go to the end of the driveway, pick up
the newspaper, brush off leaves, go back inside and shut
the door.


The time it cakes to steep chamomile tea.

—

Picture number 108: some kind of snow truck
                                                                      attempting to cross
a deep ravine. Of course, it is also cold
                                                                      in space and inside clouds
and in the holds of airplanes and
                                                                      in the bottom of the ocean
but there isn't any snow out there.
                                                                     This mutable substance—its melts,
its landscape on the landscape.

—

On the bottom, a pulsar map and Uranium-238. That static like a TV
no one ever unplugs, like at airport security—the sound of the wand waved over
your raised arms like a blessing. Recall also Hiroshima:
                                                                      really big static. Definitely do not look at that picture. Or, picture it in the background
with a small dog in the foreground or
don't take a picture to begin with.

                                                                      Do not look back.
                                                                      Do not disseminate.
                                                                      Do not project into interstellar space.

—

As one track: volcano, earthquake, thunder

As one track: fire, speech

—

Of Beethoven's Fifth, only the first movement,
its opening a herald, the knock of fate. His three
other movements are left out, their systematic
fragmenting of the heroic theme.

—

The third to last picture:
                                                                      a sunset with birds. Flying
north, or perhaps
                                                                      south. Over the water, there is no
register of season, just
                                                                      the sun, paused, a split
yolk on the horizon.

—

As one track: the first tools

—

As one track: Morse code between
ships: recall: states of emergency, recall:
The Titanic, onset of cold shock and
cardiac arrest—ice again. Bad analogy. Try:
the bleating of sheep, their dips and pauses, the
fuzz between radio stations, lamps that clap
on and off                      on and off.

—

Jimmy Carter, in sequence:
                                                               The United States of America;
                                                                                                                              our message.

—

Pictured: The building that houses the United Nations
                                                        in daylight, then darkness.
When the sun hits
            it is whole and smooth like a new book.