Jonathan Scott (5)

Запишите диск, представляющий человечество с лучшей стороны. Вы включите туда 90 минут музыки, 12 минут речи, 120 изображений и диаграмм. У вас есть шесть недель. Да, и прежде чем начнете: не пользоваться компьютером, смартфоном, интернетом. Никаких мейлов, PDF, Google, цифровых файлов. Без Word’а. Разрешается писать бумажные письма, звонить по телефону, посещать библиотеки и книжные магазины. Допускаются слайды и курьеры. У вас шесть недель.

С этим вызовом столкнулись американские ученые, решившие в 1977 году послать «золотую пластинку» с двумя аппаратами «Вояджер», отправлявшимися за границы Солнечной системы. Что отобрать из тысячелетий цивилизации? Какие звуки и изображения живой и неживой природы? А что с копирайтом? Споры об их выборе не утихают уже полвека.… (mais)

The Voyager spacecraft were the first human artifacts to leave our solar system, and, barring unlikely accidents, they will be drifting around out there for a long, long time. Before the launch, a group of scientists and others, lead by Carl Sagan, got the idea to include a message for anyone who might, by unfathomable chance, find the spacecraft out there in the emptiness. So was born the golden record project, preserving a sample of the music, sounds, and sights of Earth for galactic posterity.

Jonathan Scott's book covers various aspects of the project: how it was conceived and carried out, the discussions behind the selections, the personalities involved and their relationships, influences from outside the project, and a bit of discussion of how the physical records were made and what the spacecraft accomplished. The author has an interest in astronomy but a passion for music (especially for writing about "unusual records"), and that makes him an interesting and entertaining person to bring us this story. His writing is breezy, informal, and fun, but his appreciation for this weird, wonderful, ridiculous, profound project, and for the people behind it, comes through very strongly.

Being the giant space nut that I am, I'd read a fair amount about this subject before, including Murmurs of Earth, which discusses the contents of the record in detail, with a complete set of the photographs and commentary from various people involved. (Scott draws very heavily on that book, unsurprisingly.) But I do feel like this volume gave me a greater appreciation for it all, and I come away feeling especially impressed by how anyone was able to pull something like this off in six short weeks, in an age when finding suitable materials and getting in touch with people about using them all had to be done via snail mail, landline telephone, and knowing someone who knows somebody who happens to be an expert on the musical genre you want to include, or who speaks the language you want to record.… (mais)

Into the Groove by Jonathan Scott is a detailed history of recorded sound, from the discoveries and experiments to the popularization and improvement of playback material.

This probably would have been more history than I would have wanted if it wasn't for the fact that Scott made it all so interesting. I learned far more than I expected, especially the time before records. Most people who came of age before the advent of CDs and all that has come after will remember their early experiences with records. Probably their parents' or sibling's albums. Both in my case, my dad's old 78s (mostly jazz and early swing) and 33s (swing and jazz again) while my sister had early rock and pop (Elvis, Sands, Haley, etc). Until I could use my allowance to buy my own, they bought records, mostly albums and a few 45s, for me. The first I bought with my own money was Revolver with my birthday money when I turned 8 in 1966. I never stopped buying them.

This book will both fill in any gaps you have (I had a lot) in the history of recording and playing back sound, as well as make you recall just how special it is to put an album on. He is absolutely right when he highlights how playing an album is different, and for many better, than just digitally pulling up a file.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in audio, from listening to the technical aspects. This is indeed a history, but one that is told in an engaging manner that keeps your interest piqued.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (mais)

In 1977 NASA launched Voyagers 1 and 2 to take a grand tour of outer planets, and when mission designers realized that the spacecrafts would then exit our solar system and journey forever in deep space, they optimistically decided to include on each a multimedia LP - a “Golden Record” - containing greetings, sights, sounds, and music of our planet as an intergalactic message in the unlikely event that alien beings encounter the probes. Jonathan Scott’s The Vinyl Frontier: The Story of the Voyager Golden Record provides the backstory of this unique project headed by astronomer Carl Sagan. At the heart of the Golden Record is the 90-minute playlist of music, an attempt to capture the soul of humanity, which seems to be the hook that lured Scott, a record collector and, in his youth, an avid creator of mixtapes, to write this book.

Scott tracked down many of those who worked on the project to get their recollections, stories, and anecdotes. The book provides insightful accounts of the selection process for the music and the images that are now hurtling through space. But he also relies heavily on a 1978 book, Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record by Sagan and other key members of the project team. Murmurs remains the definitive book on the subject, as it is quite comprehensive and very well illustrated, which makes The Vinyl Frontier often superfluous in recounting details of the project. Scott also spends a bit too much time on the courting relationship of Sagan and Ann Druyan, such that it feels like a layer of filler added in to pad out the book. But it is Scott’s passion for music and astronomy, his wry sense of humor, and sharp wit that combine to still make this a worthy retrospective and worthwhile reading for those interested in the subject.… (mais)