[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Hello, everyone. Jad here from Radiolab. This is the Radiolab podcast. Something a little different this week. A while back, we did a program on the romance of space. And as a part of that program, I interviewed Ann Druyan, who is Carl Sagan's widow, about how they made the gold record that went aboard the Voyager space capsule. On that record was a kind of mix tape 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.

JAD: 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, but we put a few on the show that we broadcast and a couple we weren't able to include for time. So we're gonna play them for you now. Five space capsules, okay? From five different people, starting with chef Alice Waters.

HOST: Are they coming later?

ALICE WATERS: No, they're coming second seating. Yeah. 9:15.

ALICE WATERS: I'm Alice Waters, and I run Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California.

HOST: Who's the other one?

ALICE WATERS: The Rubinians. Six people.

ALICE WATERS: So 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 the food on the table.

ALICE WATERS: 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 scallions and little radishes scattered with mustard flowers at this moment in time. And maybe we could have some fish soup with fennel and some grilled toast.

ALICE WATERS: Well, we're drinking a little white wine to begin, and then probably we're gonna have some red wine with some cheese at the end. 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 about the 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. And it can be a beautiful experience.

JAD: All right, that was chef Alice Waters. Next up, and 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, piece of writing, maybe? A photograph? How would you want an alien to best see you? And us? Here's Philip Glass.

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 or not, we'll put it in the spaceship.

PHILIP GLASS: But I would also recommend strongly that we bring music in from other world traditions, whether it's from Africa, or whether it's a kind of a throat singing that you might hear in Siberia or in the Arctic, or wonderful flute playing that you might hear in South India. I was in India in 1966 or '67, and I was in a small village in the Himalayas called Kalimpong 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, ran out of the shop and said, "Oh, Mr. Glass, come with me. I want to show you a picture." And he had gotten ahold 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 the salt.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Mahatma Gandhi: There is an indefinable, mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it.]

PHILIP GLASS: And I saw the picture of this tiny little man, really, surrounded by thousands upon 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 societies change, how people that appear to be powerless and insignificant can bring about huge changes.

JAD: Okay, that was Philip Glass. Now for our third space capsule from author Michael Cunningham.

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 nocturne. 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—is the voice of our transcendent sorrows. It's remarkable to me that I could listen to Joni Mitchell at 15, before I quite knew what love was, and think, "Oh, yeah!" 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, the Bernard Herrmann 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 Bovery wanted to be swept away. Anna Karenina wanted to be swept away. Huck Finn did. And Hollywood at its best gives us 30-foot-tall people who actually feel equal to the passions that we harbor in our tiny little breasts.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Faye Dunaway: She's my daughter.]

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: Faye Dunaway in Chinatown saying to Jack Nicholson ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Faye Dunaway: My sister, my daughter!]

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: "She's my sister. She's my daughter."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Jack Nicholson: I said, I want the truth!]

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: "She's my sister. She's my daughter."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Faye Dunaway: She's my sister and my daughter!]

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: "Get it?"

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Faye Dunaway: Understand?]

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: "Or is it too tough for you?"

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Faye Dunaway: Or is it too tough for you?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the mountaintop.]

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: 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.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Martin Luther King, Jr.: And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.]

JAD: Okay, now for our last two capsules. These kind of got lost at space themselves. The audio is a bit crappy. In 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. Two space capsules from Margaret Cho, the comedian and author Neil Gaiman.

MARGARET CHO: My name is Margaret Cho. I am a stand-up comedian, I'm a fashion designer, an 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 & Isolde by Wagner, which is my favorite opera and should be heard by everyone in the universe.

MARGARET CHO: I think that my favorite sounds I would send are when a dog hears a siren, and then purses his dog lips and tries to replicate the siren. It's a 'Aooo!' And we almost never see the dogs on our planet make that O shape with their mouths. And I love that sound. I would put up a photograph of the first lesbian couple to be married, who've been over 50 years together and were married in Gavin Newsom's office secretly in San Francisco a couple of months ago.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: I now pronounce you spouses for life.]

MARGARET CHO: The image of these two women who have been fighting for acceptance and truth and equality for their entire lives, and finally getting it for a moment is just so spectacular and heartbreaking and heart exploding at the same time.

MARGARET CHO: 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. [laughs]

NEIL GAIMAN: My name's Neil Gaiman. I'm a writer of things and a storyteller. What would I like to send into space? What would I like to preserve?

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: All right, now you can open them. We'll gaze into the crystal.]

NEIL GAIMAN: The Wizard of Oz.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: What's this I see? A house with a picket fence.]

NEIL GAIMAN: The original Wizard of Oz.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: And a weather vane. And a ...]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: That's our farm!]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: [laughs] Yes.]

NEIL GAIMAN: Incredibly keen. 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 of Oz.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: Her name is Emily.]

NEIL GAIMAN: Ah, yes. The Munchkins.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: Follow the yellow brick road!]

NEIL GAIMAN: But there's a—there's a strangeness and a hope and oddness to that film. And some really cool songs.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Wizard of Oz: Follow the yellow brick road! Follow the yellow brick road! Follow the yellow brick road!]

NEIL GAIMAN: One thing I'd love to send the alien, 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.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: Hiya. Come in.]

NEIL GAIMAN: Which is the kind of comedy that ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: Just want to know why you think they're leaving, mate.]

NEIL GAIMAN: ... has no laugh track.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: Got to—I'm not—I'm not thinking of leaving. I am leaving.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: Sure.]

NEIL GAIMAN: Some people never quite notice that it's a comedy.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: It's nothing I've said or done.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: No, not at all. Definitely not.

NEIL GAIMAN: And I would love to send them that because ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what sort of a boss would you say I am? I'm a ...]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: Good boss. Yeah.]

NEIL GAIMAN: I'd love to see what the aliens make of it.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: Okay, David, listen to me, all right?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, The Office: No, you listen to me, Tim.]

NEIL GAIMAN: 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 Hassle," an 18-minute song about horrible urban grunge and death and prostitution and murder and stuff.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Lou Reed: [singing] Waltzing Matilda whipped out her wallet. The sexy boy is smiling dismay.]

NEIL GAIMAN: I'd love to send the aliens that as well and say, "Hey, we do this too." I like the idea of pointing out to them that we come in 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 of."

JAD: Well, that is it for the Radiolab podcast this week. These space capsules were made with the crew from back in the day. Alice Waters was produced by Jocelyn Gonzalez. Neil Gaiman was produced by Miyuki Orkiranta. 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 Jad Abumrad. Thanks for listening.]

 

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