Analysis of 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.
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.
Scheme | AXBXCDXA XXEXXFX GXHIJXX X B KXKX GXLCHXX MKNOG PQP XHXKKX XXXEK X QR XXXR K XXXXJMXXX KDEXRX XXX D X FKCX DHIXXGM X XLJXEXX XEP XNXO |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1010101100010 01101101 10101110 01100001111 111110 011001101110 10011101 00110101010 010111001011 0101011 1011110 101110101 010010101 00101000101100 10001 1010101010010 11001 11100100 010101101 1010100 10001101 1001 101101110100111 10101 111101 1001010001 011001010 101011 101010110100 110101 111 01001010 0111110 01001 1110111 10001101110 1001100 101010 1010101 1101010 10011110110110 1111000111 1001110110 1010101010 01100100 11101 11110 101110 01 100110 100101010001001100110 101101101010011101 10011101010110001010 1010010100 1111111 1101101 11010100 100100110010 01111110110111 010111110101 01 01111111 101011111 01011 01011111101 010011 00011100 00101010 111010111 11001011 11101 10100101001001101011 11101111010001101110 1111010110010 10110100011111101101001 10110011 110101011 1111 11010 1110010101 111010110 111101 11001100110 1100010011111 10101111010 100100101 011110 011110 1101 110010111 1001101 01101 110010 111011 1111101 111101001 001011110 1001101101001 0111110100 1011010111 101101 1010010 0010110100 1010 10010110001010 01110 1011 111011011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 6,498 |
Words | 798 |
Sentences | 54 |
Stanzas | 26 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 7, 7, 1, 1, 4, 7, 5, 3, 6, 5, 1, 2, 4, 1, 9, 6, 3, 1, 1, 4, 7, 1, 7, 3, 4 |
Lines Amount | 108 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 121 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 31 |
About this poem
NASA's Voyager 1 left the solar system and was the first human-made object to enter interstellar space. President Jimmy Carter authorized the launch on September 5, 1977, along with the note attached to Voyager 1, which includes the message to any who receive it, "we are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours."
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Written on 2017
Submitted by Drone232 on August 27, 2022
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 4:00 min read
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"The Golden Record" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/134895/the-golden-record>.
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