THE golden record

Wow, it's been a long time! We've been busy, busy, busy getting ready for the opening of our store (more on that soon) and sadly, Smarts & Crafts isn't the only thing we've neglected (grocery shopping, anyone???) Anyway, I've had the idea to post about The Golden Record for a while now, and wouldn't you know it, those badass brainiacs over at Coudal Partners beat me to the punch. But I'm glad they did, because they found a great site that I somehow missed in my lame attempts at research.

Quick background: In 1977 NASA sent two Voyager spacecraft out into deep space. On those ships were 2 Golden Records chock full of information about our little green planet, the idea being that perhaps an alien life form might find the Voyagers, pop the records on their Hi-Fis and maybe come check us out. The discs include all kinds Earth-related ephemera: pictures, maps, diagrams, and an even an interstellar greeting from our very own President Jimmy Carter. Anyway, most interesting to me was that they also included audio recordings from Earth. Lots of them. Songs, languages, the sound of a mother kissing her baby, a heartbeat, nature noises...I just find the whole things so beautiful and wacky and optimistic and lovely. To get a nice sampling of what our extraterrestrial friends might find on the record click here.