Inspired by RadioLab, here is a question–if you were to gather things together for a space capsule, those “perfect” things to represent us, this human race, to send to the social scientists, artists, politicians, gossip columnists, et al of another planet, what would those things be? (And come on now, at least one of them has got to be a book…but which one?)

Perhaps (as I think about it more I may change my mind), I’d send the music of Mozart and Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Shakespeare is predictable but obligatory, don’t you think? A Thousand and One Arabian Nights? The Phantom Tollbooth or Peanuts comics? Guernica by Picasso? Every episode of RadioLab? Something to represent every culture in the world? Or just my own perspective? My mother’s art?

Or perhaps a recording of a child’s laugh, the taste of a tomato, the smell of coffee, the glare of sunlight off glass? Seeds or DNA? A woman’s pair of red dancing shoes and a veil? A box of crayons or a box of tools? Language CDs? A good internet connection?

I don’t know. What about you?