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.

—

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.