Radiolab - Space Capsules

Episode Date: November 20, 2007

How would you describe life on Earth to an alien? In 1977, the Voyager spacecraft launched into space. And with it, went the Golden Record-- a sort time capsule, a collection of sounds and images that would describe life on Earth to whomever or whatever might find it.

I should quite You're listening to Radio Lab. The podcast from New York Public Radio. Public Radio. WN.N.Y.C. And NPR. Hello everyone. Chad here from Radio Lab.

This is the Radio Lab podcast. Something a little different this week. A while back, we did a program on the Romance of Space. And as part of that program, I interviewed Androion, who is Carl. Sagan's widow about how they made the gold record that went aboard the Voyager space capsule. And on that record was a kind of mixtape of the human experience. All of these different sounds, music, natural sounds, heartbeats, all kinds of different sounds which represent life on Earth so that it would go on this record, go into a capsule,

get shot into space, and one day billions of years from now be discovered by some alien life form, who would then play the record, and then know about us. That's the idea. And we thought, what a cool, somewhat naive, but amazing idea. And it got us thinking, what would we do if we could put stuff on that record? So then we began to ask people around us and eventually tracked down some writers, chefs, artists, different kinds of folks who are out there in the public eye and ask them, what would you put on the record? We got a bunch of answers back. We put a few on the show that we broadcast, and in a couple we weren't able to include for time, so we're going to play them for you now.

Five space capsules, okay, from five different people, starting with Chef Alice Waters. When are they coming? No, they're coming. Second Senior. Yeah, 915. I'm Alice Waters, and I run Chez Panis restaurant in Berkeley, California. What's the other one? The Rubinians. When I thought about this, the first thing that came to my mind was a table, because that's a place where people come together to eat.

Everyone has to eat. And normally people of all cultures have gathered around a table of sorts. Maybe not a table that had chairs all around. maybe a fabric that was laid out on the floor. It's a place where we communicate to each other. I absolutely imagine food on the table. We're in a moment of spring here at the restaurant. So we're serving the first peas.

Certainly would have a salad made with all these little young shoots of scalyards. and some little radishes, scattered with mustard flowers, at this moment in time. And maybe we could have some fish soup with fennel. And some grilled toasts. But we're drinking a little white wine to begin. And then probably we're going to have some red wine with some cheese at the end.

I want the... I want the experience of being connected and sitting at that table. I love to talk at the table. It's not simply about the food. I mean, yes, I think the food should be delicious. But it's really about communicating, sharing that moment in time. My vision is really about opening people's senses. and educating their senses

so that they can experience this world in the fullest possible way. Food is a way of doing that. It's an everyday experience that engages your sense of smell and your touch and taste. It can be a beautiful experience. All right, that was chef Alice Waters. Next up, this you may remember from the space show.

we played a part of it. Composer Philip Glass, as you listen, think about what you would put onto that capsule. A song, a piece of writing maybe, a photograph. How would you want an alien to best see you and us? Here's Philip Glass. This is Philip Glass speaking. The reason I've chosen Bach is that he had the ability to do two things at once. One was to deal concretely with the language of music. Almost you can say grammar of music. At the same time, while he was doing that, let's say, with one part of his brain, he was able to create music that we empathize with.

He takes you by the hand, as it were, and walks you into states of being that you didn't even know existed. Bach goes out in the spaceship. Whether anybody can hear it and that, we'll put it in this station. But I would also recommend strongly that we bring music in from other world traditions, whether it's from Africa, or whether it's kind of a throat singing that you might hear in Siberia or in the Arctic or a wonderful flute flying that you might hear in South India. I was in India in 1960, 6 or 67, and I was in a small village in the Himalayas called Kalimple.

on the border of Bhutan and Tibet. And a friend of mine, a rug dealer, I had been in his shop numerous times to look at his rugs. Ranel of the shop and said, oh, Mr. Glass, come with me, I want to show you a picture. And he had gotten a hold of a film clip of Gandhi. It was a march he took in the 30s called the... It was known as the Salt March.

The English had put a tax on the use of salt. Thousands and thousands of people joined him. And they walked into the sea, and they took their garments put them into the water and harvested this all. There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it.

And I saw the picture of this tiny little man, really, surrounded by thousands of and thousands of people leading this march, and it was so moving. I think what you'd have to do is get that piece of footage. it articulates in this very simple act how society's change how people that appear to be powerless and insignificant can bring about huge changes

Okay, that was Philip Glass now for our third space capsule from author Michael Cunningham My name is Michael Cunningham And I wrote the novel The Hours If it were up to me There are a few things that I would absolutely send into space I would send a Chopin nocturn.

I am always envious of music. Every minute I'm trying to commit a sentence to paper, what I'm thinking is, oh, if only this could be music. My favorite love song is probably Joni Mitchell's Blue. Joni Mitchell is the voice of our transcendent sorrows. It's remarkable to me that I could listen to Johnny Mitchell at 15

before I quite knew what love was and think, and I can listen to her at 50 as a scarred veteran of the love wars and think, oh yeah. One of the things I would send that I find that I listen to over and over again, Bernard Herman's soundtrack from Vertigo. I think great Hollywood music is stirring to us because we want to be swept away. It's particular to our species. Emma Bovary wanted to be swept away.

Anna Kareninny wanted to be swept away. Huck Finn did. And Hollywood, at its best, gives us 35. foot tall people who actually feel equal to the passions that we harbor in our tiny little breasts. She's my daughter. Faye Dunaway in Chinatown saying to Jack Nicholson. My sister, my daughter. She's my sister.

She's my daughter. I said I want the truth. She's my sister. She's my daughter. You need my sister and my daughter. Get it? Understand. Or is it too tough for you?

or it's too tough, were you? We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top. I couldn't tell you when I first heard that speech by Martin Luther King. It has always seemed to me one of the more remarkable human instances of faith and love and belief in the face of the worst that can happen. And I've seen the promised land.

I may not get there with you, but I want you to know the night that we promised land. Okay, now for our last two capsules, these kind of got lost at space themselves. The audio's a bit crappy. Any case, just imagine you're an alien, you're out there in the ether, and you bump into this capsule, you open it up, find the record, you pop it open, you understand English, and this is what you hear. is what you hear. Two space capsules from Margaret Cho, the comedian, and author Neil Gaiman. My name is Margaret Cho. I am a stand-up comedian. I'm a fashion designer and author, a political activist, I'm a filmmaker, I sing, and I'm a political commentator on television shows where I get in fights with other pundits. Well, let's see. I would send some people who are eternally

beautiful and perfect to me, like Elvis Costello. and Bjork, who's also somewhat of an alien, and Tristan and Isold by Wagner, which is my favorite opera, and should be heard by everyone in the universe. I think that my favorite sounds, I would sense are when a dog hears a siren, and then purses his dog lips and tries to replicate the siren. It's a... And we almost never see the dogs on our planet make that O shape with their mouths. I love that sound.

I would put up a photograph of the first lesbian couple to be married, who had been over 50 years together, and we're married in Gavin Newsom's office secretly in San Francisco just a couple of months ago. I now pronounce you spouses for life, the image of these two of men who have been fighting. for acceptance and truth and equality for their entire lives and finally getting it for a moment. It's just so spectacular and heart-breaking and heart exploding at the same time.

Let's see. Mandarin oranges canned in heavy syrup. I love them. They're delicious. I mean they are dangerous. They're not fresh. They are an aberration of nature. They don't taste like that in nature. But they're so tender and delicate and tart and almost like a kiss. I would never ever want any alien to be deprived of the joy of a geisha canned Mandarin orange in heavy syrup. My name is Neil Gaiman.

a writer of things and a storyteller. What would I like to send into space? What would I like to preserve? All right, now you can open them. We'll gaze into the crystal. The Wizard of Oz. What's this I see? A house with a picket fence.

The original Wizard of Oz. That's our farm. It's an incredibly peculiar movie. And I think I like that. I like the idea that an alien race could try and figure out what we were like by watching the Wizard. Her name is Emma.

Yes, the munchkins. There's a, there's a strangeness and a hope and an oddness to that film. And some really cool songs. Follow the yellow brick road. Follow the yellow brick road. Follow the yellow brick road. The one thing I'd love to send the aliens just because I love the idea of thousands upon thousands of brilliant alien social scientists trying to decode it is the English television series The Office.

Hiya, come in. Which is the kind of comedy that... Just want to know why you think they're leaving, mate. Has no laugh track. I've got to tell you, I'm not thinking of leaving, I am leaving. Sure, sure. Some people never quite notice that it's a comedy. It's nothing I've said or didn't.

No, no, not at all. Definitely not. And I would love to send them that because... I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what sort of a boss would you say I am? I'm a... Good boss. I'd love to see what the aliens make of it. Okay, David, listen to me, all right?

No, when are you listening to me? I like depressing art sometimes. I mean, I like the range, the whole chromatic range of art. I'd love to send Lou Reed's Street Hassel, sort of 18-minute song about horrible urban grunge and death and prostitution and murder and stuff. I'd love to send the aliens that as well. It's like, hey, we do this too.

I like the idea of pointing out to them that we come an awful lot of flavors. I was thinking perhaps I'd send them the Arabian Nights, the complete, giant 2,000-page Arabian Nights, just because there are so many stories. It would give them a very skewed view of the world as this place that's based in and around 11th century Baghdad, but that may not be a bad thing. The joy of books is there is nothing that encapsulates humanity. You'd want to send them Shakespeare. I think if I had to send just one line, it would be we are such stuff as dreams are made on. Well, that is it

for the Radio Lab podcast this week. These space capsules were made with the crew from back of the day. Alice Waters was produced by Jocelyn Gonzalez. Neil Gaiman was produced by Muki or Uranta, Margaret Cho, produced by Trent Wolby. Who else should I Thank Lulu Miller, our current producer, Ellen Horne, our executive producer, and of course, our funders, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the National Science Foundation. I'm Chad Abumrod. Thanks for listening.