>> well, you have seen say to you, not a republican or democrat. at the question have a third party. was that something that is in our future? >> is. in our future is a long time, and we have had. it's a very powerful. tomatoes in american history. your question is will we have that again? the answer is absolutely yes. for all i know we could have won this year. there are people trying to organize that. we will see whether they succeed . with the libertarians are on in most of all states. ..

he got one half of 1%. so i think there is ground for third parties to compete, but it's not as fertile as a lot of people they. >> divided states of america come to slash a 2004 presidential election has gotten more/burner last slash and burn? >> we tend to get nastier as the rules were lined. i'm afraid because of the influence of super pack that this year will be the nastiest year ever on television. we've certainly seen that in the primaries. between 85% to 90% of the absurd than 90. the candidates don't bother to air the family spots anymore,

surrounded by this vast and kids and dog and cat. they just go ahead and dispense with those. they put on slashing attacks on their opponents. why? because they were. we found that decades ago when they're even better at it. it had a lot of this. >> everybody says they hate them. >> to hate them but they watch them. they chuckle at them and because they focus intently did sort the messages. messages reabsorb influence how we vote within the context of our partisan identification. >> the center for politics has put up this book, the year of oracle, and how it won the white house. talk about the 2008 election first presidential election. >> the year of a bomb and the 2008 election was a best-selling book. people were interested to find out as much as they could about this on the scene. this deal knew relatively little when they took control. and it was the most exceptional election when you look at the identity of the elect to rate

and the groups turned on to politics. i'm here to university. i've been to many election cycles, never, never have student dennis acted and has involved as they were in 2008. i now see in 2012. if obama is counting again on a massive youth turned down, they could be disappointed. so there are elements to 2008 will be studying that election. 100 years, 200 years, 500 years from now. >> why is this serious cause of who god? >> best postelection analysis would put out quickly to help professors fill a need with their spring courses before we can get the full postelection book out. it's a little order to the entrée that comes later. >> host: finally, this is the most recent book edited by larr

sabato here at the university of virginia. "pendulum swing" once again, dr. sabatino, if people want to follow you and your work, what is your website? >> guest: center for politics.org. center for politics.org. click on a crystal ball and order a free newsletter. >> host: you were watching booktv on c-span 2 at the university of virginia in charlotte bill -- charlottesville. >> max, tribute to arthur

christopher hitchens who died in 2011. posted by "vanity fair" magazine includes family, friends and colleagues including ian mcewan, salman rushdie, victor navasky, sean penn, peter hitchens, carol blue, graydon carter and martin amis. the attribute takes place at the home of the union in new york city. this is a little under two hours. >> welcome to you all. i'm graydon carter and for more than 20 years i had a very good fortune of being christopher's editor and friend. i think we can all agree that in addition to being a brilliant journalist, christopher was a boy at, a charmer and above all a bit of a scaly leg. i think we can also agree that he was the beau ideal of the public intellectual gave when he

wrote, he refers readers. they felt they knew him and they felt that he knew them. christopher with a man a ferocious appetite, scotch, cigarette and talk. but he had to equal what he consumed was the true america latina man. christopher dawson, constantly in fact and read it to the end he wrote fast, frequently without benefit of a second draft or even corrections. he'd be hard-pressed to find a writer today who could not the volume of exquisitely crafted columns, dispatches and books that he produced over four decades. he was an editor strain and he was a readers stream. despite the sorrow surrounding today's gathering, there's much to celebrate. there is for instance chris for

his bravery, not in just facing illness that took him, but his courage and words and thought. he did and i am landing outside the cozy cocoon of conventional liberal wisdom and the most notable is curious pro-war stance before the invasion of iraq. we will celebrate his elevated but occlusive sense of humor and for the legendary memory that how that even under the most liquid of late-night conditions. will pay tribute to the people he left behind, particularly his wife, carol and her three children, alexander, sophia and antonio. to celebrate christopher's monumental legacy, and hundreds and thousands of words he put on paper theater speakers who are close to knowing him, both in friendship and in his work, two aspects of life that he was a master of. i would like to introduce the first of these speakers, james

fenton. james. [applause] >> what with the dead walk for mass watching from their cave? what they have us forever howling? would they have us brave or disfigure ourselves or beast wrangled like some ancient emperors slave? none of my dead friends were emperors with such exorbitant cases and none of them were so vengeful as to have their friends waste quite away in sorrow, disfigured and defaced. ii think the dead put upon us to weep for what they have lost. i think that our luck in continuing as that would affect them most in time and find them

generously self engrossed in time would find them generous as they used to be an honored place in our memory, a favorite line, a hollow chaired, privileged and celebrity and that's the dead might cease to create and we might make amends and there might be a pack between dead friends and living friends. what are dead friends or more for mass would be such living friends. [applause] >> whenever life gets you down, ms. sprout and themes seem hard or tough and people are, obnoxious or dark and you feel you can't quite matter.

♪ just remember that she set me on a planet that's evolving, revolving at 900 miles an hour. ♪ >> i just wanted to get you in the mood for some science. every time i left crystal and carol's place, usually late at night and i was drunk, i would stop outside of marvel and tell myself i'm christopher hitchens friend, what did i do to deserve that? shortly after his death i was interviewed by an annoying interview on cnn will introduce him by saying i'm the one hand he inspired the videos of skepticism free inquiry and rational thought and many, but at the same time has been called a bully in line cynical contrary and she said that as a sore back pain. [laughter] christopher was a beacon of

knowledge at threatens to extinguish both. if the courage to accept the world for just what it is and not what we would like it to be. for me that is the highest praise i can give to anyone. christopher understood the universe doesn't care about her existence or welfare and epitomize the realization that lives only have the meaning we give them. this came through the credo that god is light, the courageous defense of the simple proposition that skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that human a guy can use to a nobler existence. whenever i spent an evening i came away saying when i grow up i want to be an intellectual. it's humbling to witness close-up of mine so capable of surrounding any subject, relishing, exploring, critically soaking up everything with knowing. he was ever ready to incorporate the lifetime of intellectual exploration along with the playful and curious excitement of a candy kid in a candy store.

he had a profound satisfaction of exploration and integrity can bring, especially when confronting power with knowledge, even as he bravely continue to do so with the full recognition that the possibility of the successful outcome in any such outcome was slim, and stupidity, prejudice, superstition power and money will generally win. ya mess, it was as unadulterated joy of the human experience company for irony and humor are combined as full banquet of human knowledge that sets apart. i remain guided by example and often find myself asking up a question that drives so many people in other contexts although i change one word and ask myself, what would christopher do? the last time i saw him come our discussions range of her subjects that include nothingness, quantum mechanics,

obscenity that is capital punishment, not just the government of fanaticism of the middle east, laziness of not send it encompasses the theological noise and our popular culture. christopher was in a scientist and it may surprise you he's fascinated by science. not really because it was impact on human affairs but more important because of the remarkable ideas it generates. he recognized the universe is more imaginative than we are a new secret to learn from the universe as he was on the world's greatest writers. on the last heirs with him. someone came to the door in answer to for christopher and the person who delivered the manuscript asbestos manager or h.r. i said no. i'm his personal physicists. i can think of no greater honor. for questions and reflections extended understanding and patience of my own work.

i described a remarkable discovery to distant galaxies are receding from us is faster over time. first pictures the galaxy. it's not our galaxy. why a? i want to see if you're awake. we live in our galaxy. and the far future we will be allowed in a seemingly dark, empty and eternal static universe, leading likely future observers of the kind of poetic symmetry to arrive at precisely the false picture of our universe we had a hundred years ago before the great discovery of the 400 billion galaxies of 13.7 billion years old. in return as a result he pointed out to be an argument i adopted in a lifeboat for which he was writing the forward before it became too well. nothingness is headed straight towards us as fast as it can be. someone asked an annoying religious question meant to stymie those of us who see no need for god, why is there something rather than nothing. we can shut them up by saying,

just wait. there won't be for long. [laughter] that idea didn't terrify him. he relates knowledge is not gain for comforting soul, but for enhancing awareness of being alive. christopher now has his own cosmic legacy and i don't mean some new age sense in which he is merged with the cosmos. bad in the asteroid but you can look at the next picture. between mars and jupiter, almost three times the distance between the sun and the earth with a small asteroid about 10 kilometers in diameter about the size of manhattan, discovered in 2002 at the observatory, it was named hitchens five, seven, 901. ch 275 the short and after his christopher. died in the forgotten, christopher's will continue quietly orbiting "the sun" until the gravitational perturbation

kick set of circular orbit and heads towards the sun and in its life with brilliant flame, much as christopher and it is. speaking of cosmic legacy is, before they can accompany the last time i saw him in one of the poetic accident remix by so unexpectedly enjoyable, i was reading the newspaper and a piece about an emerging effort to ensure that young people at elite institutions like el preserve their catholic upbringing while in college. when describing the temptations to depart from piety, the author wrote, exposed to nietzsche, hitchins coed dorms and pong, such students are likely to stray. i reflect on what a remarkable tribute is simple represented. to be so culturally ubiquitous it's one thing. but to be see much between nietzsche and pierpont is an honor very few of us can achieve

in perhaps the most weight we would want to be remembered slowly but that. [applause] >> hi, i am so glad i think the reason i've been asked to read from christopher first was because i had the honor of initiating christopher's coming to this country to join the nation and i proposed to have been added or bruce page that we have the first international editors exchange in history and the editor at the nation would move over there and christopher would move over here and if all four of us like the arrangement could be extended from three months to six months and they

would live in each other's houses. david and their respective payroll so would have no green cards to worry about. and that is what happened and christopher then be factored in the is history. so i was going to read from chris -- a brilliant review chris wrote about the vocally a exhibit, but it occurred to me -- it was that the mac, but it would be doing quest for justice if we start to the script, so i'm going to reprint something else. having said that, let me tell you why he was going to read from the poorly reviewed because there was one sending finnair, which can say he pointed out that it was a special achievement to be a radical pessimist to enforce our attention on the base of the ghastly aspects of human personality while not surrendering to them or ceasing to protest their official statement. that to me was christopher

addison as christopher ness. instead, what i want to read he was two paragraphs. were told to keep her readings to three minutes. i'm going to read you two paragraphs of an article he wrote extensively about rhodesia, but it actually began with his talented wife margaret thatcher, the occasion when margaret thatcher famously him. so here we are. the article is called, heat who got slapped lesson maggie taught me by christopher hitchens. i made up my mind about people in the first times i can't than i very rarely change it. that's a quote. so "the new york times" quoted margaret thatcher and say on the day of her resignation. i would be happy to think that the statement was truthful sense within minutes of first being

introduced to me, thatcher lashed me across the bad eggs with a road of parliamentary order paper. it happened in the course of an exchange of views about rhodesia in the late fall of 1977, when she was still leader of the opposition and was pandering to the races in her party and elect, when she was still leader of the opposition and was pandering to the racist than her party and elect, when she was still leader of the opposition and was pandering to the racist than her party and elect we were meeting in still leader of the opposition and was pandering to the racist than her party and elect we were meeting and the roseberry room of the house of lords, i made the mistake of bowing as if to acknowledge some point differs and she took swift advantage of my past chair by streaking bowed low art and plying the document above mentioned. but the british elect or it now shaking after more than a decade of thatcher who are, i asked him what that was fully upon not thinking in the hope of decoding is significant. thank you.

[applause] >> and then shores, libertarian and national editor at the atlantic. i'm going to be reading from one of christopher's last and finest pieces of the magazine. a review of the volume of letters between philip larkin and monica jones, a book that christopher said shows the civilizing effect even the most trying woman can exert on even the most impossible man. dj at night gave larkin a rare moments of unmixed pleasure by saying as larkin proudly reported to monica, that i persuade words into the poetry and don't bully them. a critic could not have approached more nearly to the core of larkin's gift. it is inescapable that we should

wonder how and why poetry manages to trains at the trust existence into magical cooled and the contrast in larkin's case is an especially cute one. having quit l. fast, he removed himself forever to hole, a city in which an amenity randolph asked a pretty close second. here he bruited violently and even spitefully on his lack of prey they see, the success of his happier friends, and the thing conquest, the decline in standards at the university he served come in the general bloodiness of pub lunches and academic sherry parties, different beneath the awareness of womenfolk and the petrifying eminence of death. many of larkin's expeditions to churches were in fact an excuse

to visit cemeteries or memorials in spite of his repudiation of the fantasy of immortality and with anne arundel tim, it turns idea taken monica along as a companion. we might agree to find heartening that in consequence of the dead, average middle straws the other half of them almost passionless relationship, philip larkin should notice the awkwardly conjoint couple on an ancient stone coffin length and without forcing, let alone rolling the language, still be able to find are almost instincts, almost true. what will survive the bus? is low.

[applause] >> hello, i'm max mcguinness and i'm going to read from christopher's 2004 essay on martha stewart come and tell the cutest year in paris. i have not been able to discover where there exists a precise french equivalent for the common anglo-american code killing time. he was on a footnote. i should have looked further. put a layer employs the term in precisely that way in his prose pope, note how long and if ever it was christopher. it's a very craft and breathe the exception when you ponder for a moment, considering the time after all it's killing us.

marcel coulis was the man who i contemplated in a way that transcended the moment attempted to interpenetrate the two forbidding alternatives. from the monty python gang acted out its sunrise prove to competition, one of the contestant teams, a magical group was cut off abruptly by the master of ceremonies before it got beyond the opening days of suave ways. one can readily appreciate the difficulty. yet if i were asked to summarize the achievement, i should reply that his is the worker axons that exposes and clarifies the springs of human motivation. through his eyes, we see what actuates the dnc and the other end the granby and a hypocrite and that was there, with the transparency unexampled except shakespeare or george eliot.

and disability even alarming is not pure knowingness. it is not in other words the product to cynicism. to be so perceptive and yet so innocent, that and a phrase is the achievement. thank you. [applause] >> i am a bell, christopher's editor at "vanity fair" and this is from his three-part series on the limits of self-improvement. i've noticed a touch of decline here and there, but one put a few things down to anno domini and the acquirement of seniority. a bit of a stomach is a chappy position in society at a cost of her in my view never hurt anybody. this walking business is

overrated. i mastered the art of doing that when i was quite small. and in any case, water taxis horror. spoke in a i will admit, but one has to have a hobby. nonetheless, when my friends at this magazine formed up and said they would pay good money to stop having to look at me in my current shape, i agree to a course of rehabilitation. there now exists a whole micro-economy dedicated to the proposition that a makeover is feasible or in other words to disprove scott fitzgerald system that there are no second acts in american lives. object is, to drop down from the current 185 pounds to improve the tone of the skin and muscles, to be his last, to enhance the hunched and round shouldered posture, to give thought to be haired for

question. [laughter] more emphasis on the right places unless i'm the one. to sharpen up the tailoring, to lessen the booze intake and to make a smile which currently looks at a handful of mixed not a little less scary to children. [laughter] >> my name is michael bell: this is from christopher's final article to "vanity fair." it is on charles dickens. charming is that not, sadat tv than come in the manner in which that somewhat over punctuated the touring sentence suddenly gives way and yields the deposit of freshness and gentleness and capacity. it is all that to emphasize the

one central and critical point that taken solutions wishes to enjoin on assault. whatever you do, hang on to your childhood. he was true to the senate passion, both in ways that delayed me in ways that do not. he loved the idea of a birthday celebration, being lavish about it, reminding people that they were one son born are now launched. this is bighearted we might all do a bit more of it. it would help me to forgive just a little man who helped generate the former birthday industry entry with some of his less imposing, mostly sentimental proceedings in a christmas carol took the greatest part they ever told and how to make it into the near ramadan of protracted obligatory celebration now darkening our december.

[laughter] but imagine the power that dickens had a few brilliant strokes of the pen, he revived and restored a popular festival and made it into social solidarity, the common defense again for ground rent about movies and the men who had been responsible for the misery of the hungry sortie. for the first time, the downtrodden english people were able to see a celebrity, a man of wealth and fame was on their side. we have verbatim reports, sometimes the monitors from the out themselves that the speeches he made enthusiastic crowds in the halls the nation, just as we have the q. cards for the electrifying evening in 1869, when he staged the murder of nancy by both sides. so it is clear dickens have a

sort of demagoguery power that could have been dangerous another's hands. it's also quite clear that a counter model visit and are a hair when mike knell on his own carrot there. no, he was trying a much wider and deeper sources of persons d. the main one was the sheer stubborn existence of so many people on the system had disregarded. to begin thinking about it you start to with draw yourself the pathetic droves of the crossing sweeper, mr. korver, amy torres, mr., all of them with a life to the end many of them kept going back poetics of a lawyer, only to a certain unique sense of humor in the observed. dickens is able to name this huge resource of london life,

becoming its conduct during chronicle or, like nobody since shakespeare himself. and always remembering that he noted in the last stages of the old curiosity shop to keep the child in view. [applause] >> i'm tom stockard. i am going to read the first two paragraphs in the last paragraph of aps the piece christopher wrote for the nation. christopher was much more often arresting been arrested, but this is a peace that comes off one of the latter occasions. it was in prague. and here he has, knowing what was coming as he seems so often to do. a bit before the revolution.

i cherished only two modest ambitions for my visit to this capital full of the mummified god. the first was to be allowed to attend a legal meeting at which men and women from the human rights to and from that used and disarmament movements in the west to be attend team to establish a common terrain. the second is to be the first writer in auburn history to compose an article from product that did not mention joseph k. was equally imperishable creator. the latter ambition was repeatedly thwarted by the farmer. you attend the meeting and a private apartment and introductory statements made by a man who was once foreign minister perdue is now a nonperson and checked stalk him.

there's a knock on the door into the apartment and uniformed in plainclothes police. led by a man with eyes so close together that he could comfortably get by with a monopole. [laughter] while one of his underlings sweeps the room with a video camera, heat issues parent tree instructions. at my request, the former foreign minister acquires politely. if we may know what law has been in fringed and in what respect islamic culture means the helsinki accords. he further inquires on behalf of his four envious that they may telephone there and sees. neither requests is exactly tonight. instead, police officials simply refuses to say on what charge or for what cause the foreigners are being treated in this

fashion. at dusk on the charles bridge, small groups of them gathering data statues to play guitars and pass the forbidden 1968 psalms and the police don't quite know what to do about it. the orders from the top and from moscow on what his director is clear as they used to be. still looms above the city from the hill, but it is inhabited by pygmies who were fished out of the basket of history into one per in their sleep at the thought of going back to it. thank you. [applause]

>> i'm christopher about lee and my taxes today is from hitch 22, pages ask i. i. these are the final paragraphs from the practice that christopher wrote for the paperback edition to his memoir. another element of my memoir, the stupendous importance of love, friendship and solidarity has been made immensely more vivid to me by recent takes aryans. i can't hope to convey the full

effect of the embraces, but i can perhaps offer a crumb of counsel. if there's anybody know to you who might fit from a letter or visit, do not on any account postponed the writing or the making of it. the difference made will almost certainly be more than you have calculated. the cause of my life has been that of combating superstition, which among other things means confronting the drive upon which it feeds. for some inexplicable reason, our culture regards it as normal, even credible for the godly to admonished those who they believe to be expiring. a whole tawdry and assess a fabricated deathbed conversions

invoiced devotional literature on this highly questionable assumption. though i could have chosen to take offense about being skillfully vital to chess and my conviction when a star mess, whether then sold and what an unfettered tour, too. i was actually grateful for the heavy attention i received from the faithful. it gave me bp of them, if you like, a new lease on life. last night it also helps me keep open a long debate to which i am proud to have contributed a little, to say that this debate would outlast me would have been true at any time. instead of attending prayer breakfasts in my own honor and what was actually designated on the web as pray for hitchens day, i've spent much of the past

year registering myself as the next or mental subject for various clinical trials and protocols, namely genome-based and aimed at enlarging human knowledge and shrinking the area of darkness and terror, where cancer holds dominion. my aim here is obviously not quite disinterested, but many of the experiments are at a stage where any result will be too far in the future to be of help to me. in this book i cite porous men's injunction. until you have done something for humanity, you should be ashamed to die. so this is a modest and slight response to his challenge to be sure, but my own. the eruption of death in the melee has enabled me to express a more concretely my attempt and

belief in the centrality of science and reason. not all my views have been vindicated, even to me. i see that i write here in this book that i personally want to do that in the active and not the past event to look in the eye and be doing something that comes for me. i cannot quite sustain the strong tenets of the land of what i now know. should the best efforts of my friends be unavailing. i possess a clear idea of how stage for esophageal cancer harvested six tons. the terminal process doesn't allow for much in the way of that to the or even a composed farewell, let alone stoic aristocratic archers. this is why i am so grateful to

have had already a lucid interval of some lame into it so that at the same same elements of friendship and love of literature and the dialectic with which i hope some of this book is also animated. i wasn't born to do any of the things i said down here. but i was born to die and this coda must be my attempt to assimilate the narrative to this conclusion. christopher hitchens, washington d.c., january 20, 2011. [applause]

>> i am james webb and i are reading from the last paragraph of white old masters, proof racing that much literary criticism is self-described days. if it is true that the steel ceylon, then what we have in the person of george orwell is by no means a saint mentioned mention baby is and anthony pohl. at best he could be asserted come even by an atheist admire that he took some of the supposedly christian virtues and showed how they could be lived without piety or religious beliefs. it may also be hoped that to adapt the words on the deck could be a common time itself just kindly with those who lived by and for language.

i'll add it to time with this strange excuse would even party and keep playing nsv is. orwell's views have been largely vindicated by time, so he need not seek any pardon on that story. but what he illustrates by his command to language as a partner truth is that views do not really count, that it matters not which you think, but how you saying i'm the politics are relatively unimportant what principles have a way of enduring has to do few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them. [applause] >> and peter schneider from berlin, reading from the hitchens piece. he had written that in 92,

during the war in 93 and spring, we meant in 96 so we were not meeting up at time, but exchanging our experiences we became friends. for now, all these are not more than outskirts to show an affirming play, but they may not he merely to exotic. post-communist europe is hesitating on the brink of its own version in yugoslavia gives an inkling of what could lie ahead for more than one reason to say nothing more than one culture. bosnia met to us because it has chosen to defend not just its own self-determination, but the

values that multicultural, longer fault unfruitful cohabitation. not since an alicea has europe to its antithesis, which also stands as a perfect tribute to the senegal conclusion between the warring finales. if sarajevo goes under, then all who care for such things will have lost something precious and will curse themselves because they never knew its value, but they still have it. [applause] >> and leslie. i have chosen one of christopher's tart political commentaries on our leaders. this is from slate in 2004.

ronald reagan is to alarm his soviet counterparts by saying that surely they must unite against an invasion from mars. ronald reagan used to alarm other constituents these by speaking freely about end times foreshadowed in the bible. in the oval office, ronald reagan told its auctioneer on two separate occasions that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the death camp. there is more than right into that. he announced that apartheid south africa had stood this in every war we've ever fought. when south african leadership had been on the other side in the most recent world war. reagan allowed alexander hayes to greenlight the israeli invasion of lebanon in 1982, fired him when that went too far in you two mayhem in beirut and then ran away from lebanon

altogether when the marine barracks were bombed. then unbelievably accused tip o'neill and the democrats of scuttling. reagan sold heavy weapons to the iranian mullahs and lied about it. saying all the weapons he had saying all the weapons he had and hadn't traded for hostages in any and hadn't traded for hostages in any case without the same set on a small truck. reagan then diverted the profits of the criminal trade to an illegal war in nicaragua and might unceasingly about that, too. reagan modestly let his underlings maintain that he was too dense to understand connection between two impeachable crimes. [applause] >> i am thomas mallon and this is from visit to a small planet, and essayist christopher is that we published in "vanity fair" early in 2001. north korea is a famine state.

in the fields you can see people picking up loose grains of rice and kernels of corn, gleaming every scrap. they look pinched and exhausted. in a few dingy restaurants in the city and even in the few modern hotels, you can read the pyongyang times through the soup or the tee or the coffee. morsels of inexplicable fact or gristle or served as dark. one evening i gave in and try to pull the dogs do, which at least tasted hearty and spicy. they wouldn't tell me the breed. [laughter] but done some math take her seat diminished by the realization that i hadn't seen a domestic animal, not even the merest cat in the whole time i was there. and if pyongyang restaurant don't ever ask for doggy bag. [laughter] nobody knows how many north koreans have died or are dying

in the sand and pretend that mr. forney groups run as high as 3 million in the period from 1995 to 1998 alone, but the rotund face of kendall found still being stuck contentedly from every wall in the 58 wrote some access should be as other, even as his slanderous subjects are mustered to applaud him. kim jong il instantly has been made head of the party into the army, but the office of the presidency is still eternally held by his adored and departed dad, who died on july 8, 199482. kim is dead. long live the kim. this makes north korea the only state in the world at the dead president. [laughter] what would be the right term for this? and nick rocker c.? a fan attack receive? and autocracy? a model of perceived? anyway, grimly appropriate for a morbid system, so many of whose

children have died with christ in their mouths. [applause] >> name is patrick cobain. the last time i saw christopher was in the hospital in washington that we largely taught about gg woodhouse, a writer we both had hired and lives. this is a scathing review written 20 years ago of a biography of edwina minn@. by someone called dan janet han quote woodhouse and then from the boat. looking up we perceived our sensitive bomb made dabbing underwrites at the dishcloth.

sorry you are troubled in answer to our concerns, but he's just come off to india, leaving her standing tightlipped to enjoy died the moonlight outside the old manner. in their little daughters khaleda and her hand as if he understood and sympathized. the next is turned janet morgan's biography. at half past nine that evening edwina's body was brought to broad lands. commander northcutt asked to come to the house if they wished. everyone was there lined up waiting. what were they to do? he felt back. autopsy ordered as a car turn into the drive. edwina stock ran up to greet her mistress. that was the worst of all. this is christopher now. from the very first page of this

book, ernest is larger in life, to the very last commit truth is stranger than fiction, the cliché is entirely sovereign. jonas marker used to dominate that revolved us perhaps mr. vocation and devising a biographic style that is part bureaucratic, part gossipy and wholly deferential. this could be more happily suited to a certain john of ladies magazines come over one weeks of resolute when in the secret sorrows to sacrifice part of themselves for passionate attraction to powerful men as david pinero and is said to have done with kathy weinberger. by one washington account making the critical difference in keeping the falklands are competitive british.

apply biography, let alone history, this approach can be hilariously fatal. [applause] >> sean penn, this is from the vietnam syndrome. i tend to prevent to interview a child with parents of bright yellow skin, cleft palate, deafness, pretzel blends unknowing hence in the terrible expressions on the faces of the parent who believes that this horror can sometimes skip a generation? there's just enough knowledge for agony of remorse. another is, but not for any healing process. no answer above all is the inescapable question.

when will it stop? a ring from how began falling about 40 years ago onto how many unborn generations. at a school full of children who made sign language to one another order couldn't sit still or move much at all, or who couldn't see or couldn't hear, i took the tour of the workshops such as fishnet weeping or car repair work hard and was then asked if i would like to say a few words through an interpreter to the assembly. i quite like a captive audience, but i didn't trust myself to say if thing. several of the children in the front row were so shocking that they would do so they could be many seniors. i swear to you the gym that way of taking photos as one of the few rivals in the philip jones griffiths also took photographs that simply cannot be printed in

this magazine because they would poison your sleep as they have poisoned mind. after such knowledge as t.s. eliot asked, what forgiveness? that easy. the question of forgiveness just as in. the world is very assimilated to the new term genocide which was coined only in the 1940s before the united states government added the fresh of ecocide, or mass distraction of the web of nature that connects human and animal life. i think we may all the words distinction to my friend orville schell, who wrote an earful essay of coolheaded warmhearted pros they'll book magazine in march 1971. at that time, even in a picture magazine, there aren't enough photographs of the crime, so his mordant words had a device which makes me feeling proud to be in

the same profession. at some point come to be naturally scrupulous about the evidence you could only speculate as they been reports of women giving birth to monsters, most occurrences are not reported because of nonexistent procedures of compelling statistics. but we know now or at least we know better out of a population of perhaps 84 million feet and knees, his self produced several million during the war, there is many as one late cases of agent orange affliction still on the books. of these come in the hardest to look at are the monstrous birth. we agree to forgive ourselves for this and to watch real monsters such as robert mcnamara and henry kissinger, who calmly give the orders and instructions as they posture on chat shows and passion with their memoirs. but hey, forget it.

forget it if you can. [applause] >> i'm salman rushdie. i'm going to read a little from god is not great. a part of a chat or christopher called a short digression or why have been hate ham. but i ought to read it because christopher always appreciated my story of my last of virginity when i first arrived and body handstand much indicated and lightning failed to strike, thus

proving to me once and for all that god did not exist. the most tenacious of all fetishes is that he cheered that even here of the has emerged in judea and for centuries as one of the ways of the other being circumcision by which jews could be distinguished. muslims see nothing ironic of the adoption of this uniquely jewish to lou. real horror of the pork is manifest all over the islamic world. one would be of the continued prohibition of george orwell's animal farm, one of the most charming useful fables of modern times, of the reader which muslim muslim school children are deprived. i approve some of the solemn prohibition orders written by your education ministries, which are so that they fail to notice the evil and to tour the role played by the pigs in the story itself.

krantz together in status, takes time to ask why initially. as it were, as noisy and nasty fights. it is not unknown for them to eat their own young and even their own excrement, while their tendency to random and was gallantry is often painful to the more fastidious eye. but it is often noticed that takes left of their own devices and granted sufficient space to keep themselves very clean, bring up families that engage in social interaction with other pigs. the creatures also display many signs of intelligent than it's been calculated the crucial ratio between brain weight and body weight is almost as high but then that's it isn't often. but the who for trotter became assignments i have listened to the fearful and i daresay it is easy to surmise which came first, the devil with the. it would be merely boring to

wonder how the designer of all things concede such a versatile creature then commanded his hired man will creation to avoid it altogether or risk his eternal displeasure. but many otherwise intelligent mammals affect the belief that have been hates him. i hope you have now guessed by now what we know in any case that find uses one of her fairly close cousin features a great deal of our dna have lately been welcome transplants of skin heart of an kidneys from pigs to humans. if we try hard, the new.tomorrow could corrupt recent advances in cloning and create a hybrid that the man is widely feared as the most probable outcome. to press a little further, one may note the children last by rabbis and demands are very drawn to pigs, especially baby ones and firefighters in general do not like to be roast pork or

crackling, the barbaric vernacular word for roasted cumin in new guinea and elsewhere was long. i have never had the relevant to a strategic experience myself, but it seems that we do, if eaten, tastes very much like eggs. tram pigs. ..

shakespeare puts it in cavalier. the policeman has a need to use the last for which he applies the last. today, ancient stupidity is upon us again. europe is demanding that the three little pigs and miss piggy, winnie the pooh stiglitz, and other traditional pets and piglets be removed from the innocent folks of children. they have probably not read enough to know that the empress of landings and the earl of emsworth are infinitely renewable delight in the splendid pages. but there will be trouble when they get that far. an old statue of a wild boar in

a region in middle england has already been threatened with mindless islamic vandalism. in microcosm, this apparently trivial fetish shows how religion and faith and superstition distort our whole picture of the world. [applause] [applause] >> my name is olivia wilde. the last e-mail that christopher romey said that he had a few significant things in life. one of the most significant was be my babysitter. he was a wonderful babysitter. he later entrusted me with the beautiful antonia. i'm going to read a piece from the boston review about a

subject close to my heart, haiti. even though he is a semi- colony of united states and via a client military, the object of u.s. military intervention, there is tremendous squeamishness about the idea of using force to secure the rights of the haitian people. and turning pale before a single tugboat in an october 1993, and withdrawing a large navy vessel with a touching name harlan county, without a shot being fired, the defense department counted on to public opinion born with entanglement. it also counted on a certain degree of subliminal racism. the prepared slogan, not another somalia was chanted. before long, robert toll had dole had risen in the senate to say with maximum contentiousness that the congress and president was not worth the single of american lives.

he had been scriptless not to say that one shot and we are out of there. the low cost of defying the world's largest military machine. confronted with a haitian army of 7500 men, the empire backtalk. a rule of thumb is turning out to be that when the military political parents call for intervention and show the strength, he must be destructive to the usual reasons. but when they take a difficult and complicated everything is, it must be destructive even more. they do. [applause] [applause] >> i am douglas brinkley and i will be reading from one of the three biographies that christopher hitchens did. they are all very searing. this one is no one left to lie to about you about bill clinton. the other was when on mother theresa and henry kissinger and

carol blue, working with 12, have been able to reissue them. all three of them are out of print. but now all three of the biographical trilogy is available. this is from the triangulation chapter in the clinton book. it is told that contemplating a run for high office, he summoned the big ones and donors of his great state of louisiana. and enlightened in us, those of you come with me now will receive a big piece of the pie. those of you who delay and commit yourselves later, you will receive a smaller piece of the pie. those of you who don't come in at all, you will receive only good government. [laughter] a touch earthly and serbian, for modern tastes perhaps, but there is no doubt that they had a primal understanding of the essence of american politics. this essence was distilled and consists of a manipulation of populism by elitism.

the elite is most successful, which can claim the heartiest legions of the fickle crowd and can present itself as most in touch with popular concerns. and it can also anticipate the tides and pulses of opinions, it can in short, be the least apparently elitist. it is no great distance from qb long's robust cry of every man a king to the insipid inclusiveness of putting people first. but the smarter lead managers have learned in the interlude that solid, measurable pledges have to be distinguished by a reserve tag that earmarks them for the bankroller's and backers. they have also learned that it can be prudent -- imprudent to promised voters too much, and last, that is, the voters should decide that they don't deserve or expect anything. on december 10, 1998, the

majority counsel of the house judiciary committee, david shippers, delivered one of the most remarkable speeches ever heard in the precincts. a law and order democrat from chicago, mr. shippers represented the old style, big city, sensibility, which in the age of democrats like, it had been a priority for mr. clinton and the sum bought dixiecrat. the spirit of an earlier time, a time before smoking materials had been banned from the white house. after pedantically walking his hearers three prosecutors review of it in portable perch, his address could be used in any civics class in the nation if there still was such a thing as civics classes. esther schippers pawson said,

the president then has lied under oath in a civil disposition, lied under oath in a criminal grand jury, he lied to the people, he lied to the cabinet, he lied to his top aides and now he has lied under oath of the congress of the united states. there is no one left to lie to you. poor sap, i thought as i watched this on the screen in the miami airport. on what meal did he ride into town? [laughter] so sincere and so annihilating and so free from distressing sexual graphics, which is forensic presentation, when it was over, congressman john connors of the democratic congress, need leave from the chair to complement complement mr. shippers from his efforts. that was that. mr. connors went back to saying as he said from the first, that the only person entitled to be

confronted by the lie was mrs. clinton. eight days later the democratic leadership was telling the whole house that impeachment should not be discussed while the president and commander in chief were engaged in the weighty task of bombing iraq. [applause] [applause] i'm going to read a passage on the great and the green. there was a time when i could reckon to out perform outperform all of the most hardened imbibers. but now tranquility is careful to at half past mid-day, mr. walker tried to carry his water, and ideal delivery system and no eyes. at luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine, not always more, but never less. in fact the desk and ready to

repeat the treatment of the evening meal. no after dinner drinks, most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. nightcaps patel depend on how well the day went. no messing around here and eight ginger or brought to bear. making was about thinking can be the son of an alcoholic, as martin amos once accusingly said to me. of course, watching the clock for the start time is probably a bad sign, but here are some pieces of advice for the young. don't drink on an empty stomach. the main point of a profession is the enhancement of food. don't drink if you have the flu. it is a junk here. drink when you are in a good mood. cheap booze is a false economy. it is not true that you shouldn't drink alone. these can be the happiest classes you ever drank. [laughter] hangovers are another bad sign. you should not expect to be

believed if you take refuge in saying that you cannot member last night. if you really don't remember, that is an even more signed. avoid all narcotics. these make you more boring rather than less, as are the great and the grain to enlighten company. be careful with single not scotch that. it is much worse. never take a drop of alcohol when you are driving. don't ever be responsible for it. [applause] [applause] >> i'm going to be reading christopher on the arab spring. this is from the first page of his preface of the 2001 article. the three names on the dedication page belong to a

tunisian street vendor and an egyptian restaurant tour, and a lesbian house husband and father. the tunisian, egyptian and libyan martyrs were not trying to take lives like mohamed atta. they desired that they would live, they did not make sorted in both claims about how homicidal actions would earn them a place in a gross fantasy of kernel after lap. they did not wish to inspire hoarse yelling mobs tossing coffins on a sea of hysteria. and preferring a life affirming death, to a living death in life. of the arab spring, they hope to galvanize their subjects and make them aspire to be citizens. tides will end, weeds will receive. the landscape will return dusty

and brown again. but nothing can expel from the arab mind example and it's pretty up to here. once again, it is demonstrated that people do not love their chains were their jailers. and that the aspirations for a civilized life -- that universal eligibility to be noble. it is proper and common to all. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> my name is steve. i can't say that i am a comrade of 32 years to christopher. a publisher of his first works here in the united states. for the last seven years, i've had the honor to represent him in literary matters. i've taken a bit from the introduction he wrote to his

first volume of essays called prepare for the worst. maybe mortimer wrote that she tried to write posthumously. she did not mean that she wanted to speak from beyond the grave. a common enough fantasy. but the team to communicate as if she were already dead. never mind that that ambition is automatically impossible in achievement, and nevermind that it sounds at once rather modest and egotistic, to say nothing about rather being gone. when i read it, so that gosh, to write as if publishers, colleagues, reviewers, and consumers indeed not be consulted. to write is a supply and demand. time and place.

call no man lucky until he is dead. but there have been moments of rare satisfaction in the offing random and fragmented life of the radical freelance scribbler could religion and state in class and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their inheritance and subjects. the more or less inherit them. against this unearned patrimony from there have always been speakers and writers who embodied einstein's injunctions to remember your humanity and forget the rest. it would be a modest -- immodest to obtain anything in this story, but i hope i have not done anything too outrageous. despite the idiotic snare that principles are fashionable, is always the ideal of secularism, libertarianism, and internationalism and solidarity that stand in need of reaffirmation. i feel relatively confident that neither the demand for nor the

supply of the well will ever become exhausted. we are not likely to reach a time when the need of such things is curious in irony, debunking, disputation and elegy will become satisfied, for the present we must result in sa -- sa, and sa again. >> hello, i am stephen fry. one of the great pleasures of knowing customer was having him disagree with you. he gave rights to perhaps one of the most excellent off the bookshelf exchanges there ever was oh, mr. hitchens, thank you so much for letters to a young contrary in.

i tried to bring my son up as a contrary in, but he plain refuses. [laughter] [laughter] we agreed on the most important things, but we disagreed on others. as you all know, he was sent to be water boarded to see if the practice was a torture. christopher contributed that it was. i once invited him to be my guest for a match at the cricket ground. he threatened to deport me to the international criminal court, he even maintained that went sour. so he was like many, many issues. he once greeted the four most overrated things in the world as champagne, lobster, anal sex and

picnics. [laughter] [laughter] three out of four there. [laughter] [laughter] another matter in which i find myself in complete line with christopher is that of the marbles. not the elegant marbles, he refused to call him those come of this is from the 2009 "vanity fair" article. the even more famously illegitimate others, once remarked that the parliament that it is the one building in the world which may be accessed as absolutely right. i was considering this or the other day as i stood on top of the temple, with the dedicated director of the acropolis restoration service and watched the workshop that lead below and

around me. bellamy blast on too long about how heart stopping it was, but did you know, for example, that the parthenon, it viewed from the sky, is a perfect triangle and the temple of poseidon, a cheap simian? did you appreciate know that it makes a slight were inclined so that if you look at it upwards into space, they would stable themselves together is a symmetrical point in the imperial. the brightness is located somewhere between the beauty of science in the science of beauty. the damage done by the ages to the building and bypass empires and occupations cannot all be put right. but there is one desecration and dissipation and decapitation that can at least be partially undone. early in the 19th century, ambassador to the empire, and

lord elgin, sent a wrecking crew to the turkish occupied territory of greece where it sort off approximately half of the parthenon and carried away. as in all things greek, there were three elements to this the most lavish and beautiful sculptural treasure in human history. under the direction of the artistic genius, the temple had two massive pediments decorated with poseidon and the gods of the sun and moon. it had a series of panels and meant it is depicting historical battles. the most intricate element is the part that shows the gods of humans and animals that mate is the annual procession. there were 192 western wars -- the equestrian warriors which happens to be the number of the

cities here is that fell up the battle. precisely what story is being told here? at the free is quite clearly a continue to narrative? having sold well eore by the british government in $181,642.2 million, in today's currency, to pay off his many debts. his original scheme would be to use the sculptures to decorated rooms in scotland, in which case they meant never having seen again. i'm proud to be able to tell you that i have associated with christopher. it won't be the same without him, but i will shamelessly steal arguments from his book, and i know that i on previous

occasions, things went without a hitch. [applause] [applause] we don't know what keeps would've said if he would have lived longer, or mozart for that matter, but i come with my production of what christopher would've done if he would've stayed around. he took his place around the comfortable bookstores of those are figures of the north, but across the bible belt.

even he was astonished by the enthusiasm with which people greeted eloquent arguments for secular humanism. now, he ended god is not great in the very last chapter with the lines, above all, we are in need of a very new to enlightenment. he did not expand. the introduction to the portable atheist, which was written sometime after god is not great, it is just a hint of what was on his mind. all atheists can't live for long being against something. they have to speak for what makes life worth living. in the topic of conversations that i have with him, just what

this renewal could be dreamed to be in the form of a book. so he said there could be no serious ethical position based on denial or a refusal to look at the facts squarely in the face. this is not meaning that we must search of the abyss all the time, any religion has required us to do that. leaving then, as this religious objection implicitly concedes come of it human likeness is actually worth living, one can combat once natural pessimism by stoicism and the refusal of illusion, one embellishing the seed with any of the following. there are the beauties of science and extraordinary mounds of nature. there is the consolation and irony of philosophy. the infamous splendors of literature and poetry, not

excluding the liturgical and devotion are aspects of those such as found in john, or george herbert. there was the grand music and architecture, not excluding those elements that aspire to the sublime. in all of these pursuits, any one of them enough to absorb a lifetime, they may be found in a sense of awe and magnificence. it does not depend on any limitation of the supernatural. indeed, nobody on by us in the culture of literature and culture is likely to be anything but board, like ghost stories, ufo tales, spiritual experiences, or babblings from the beyond. one can appreciate and treasure the symmetry and printer of the ancient greek and non-without needing any share in the calls of athena or the imperatives of

athenian imperialism. just as one may listen to mozart without any idea of feudalism, the whole concept of these may partially consistent as terminating between these things, religion asks us to do the opposite and preserve the ancient dread of prohibition. it is very often argued that religion must have some sort of potency and relevancy since it occurs so strongly at all times and in all places. many insist that religion is so much a part of our human or animal nature that it is actually an irrevocable. this, for what it's worth, is my own viewer. we are unlikely to cease gardens or inventing ceremonies to please them, for as long as we are afraid of death or the dark, and for as long as we persist in

self-centeredness, that could be an empty stretch of time. however, it is just as certain that we shall continue to cast a skeptical and ironic and even witty i on what we, ourselves, have invented. if religion is innate in us, so is our government and our contempt for our own weakness. [applause] [applause] >> by m. francis collins. i'm honored to be part of this remembrance. writing to a fellow author in 1889, anton chekhov declared that one must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it. in this instance, the loaded

rifle is where you see stage right. but it is odd indeed in a way that only is could have arranged that i am the one who has been called to fire the gun. but first, some other ironies. amongst the literary giants assembled here, i am a strange comrade, indeed. a physician scientists a geneticist, in charge of the genome project, and now the director of the organization of institutes of health, and most ironic of all, a follower of jesus christ. debates about whether science and faith could be compatible first brought hitch and me together, and as you can imagine, we didn't exactly agree. but the emergence of a diabolically dividing cluster of cells burst together in a

different way. i suggested in another language, where the letters might have something to offer in the search for a personal therapeutic experience. and so we embarked on a grand adventure together, some of which is written about brilliantly in his powerful series of essays on topic about cancer. the long and complex novel, revealed a few secrets that provided hope of a high-tech rescue. the pioneers in the frontier do not always experience the ultimate benefits themselves we still have much to learn. christopher helped us learn. along the way, hitch and i became friends. sharing conversations about life, death, science, chesterton, lincoln, reverend martin luther king jr., and many

other topics. our occasional jousting about fate was invigorating. as it says in proverbs, chapter seven verse 17, iron sharpens iron. so a man sharpen the countenance of his friend. i'm not sure whether it would please hitch or bugged the hell out of him to know that our jousting ultimately strengthened my faith. each knew that i was praying for him and graciously accepted the gift for me and others even though he was quite sure that neil deity was listening. no doubt he now knows the answer to whether there was more to the spirit then nuclear ties neurotransmitters. i hope he was surprised by the answer. i would like to hear him tell about it someday, because he will tell it really well. after hitch step, i visited carol and antonio in their home in dupont circle in washington.

the laws seem to be ugly in his words from the many times we had met there. before the party, i had the urge to call upon the memories and the spirit to create some reflections of hitch. i think we expected something in a minor key to reflect our sense of mourning that we share that evening. but that is not what happened. as best as i can recall, and what i hope will be your forgiveness for my self-taught musical skills, this is what hitch had to say.

[music playing] [music playing] [music playing] [music playing] [music playing] [music playing]

[applause] [applause] >> i am at wind blew, christopher's father in law. and this is from a letter from area and contrarian but in a previous letter, christopher refers to a collection of arguments written in 1908 by a cambridge academic. it is a collection, and this is a good example. time is not right. the principle of on right time is that people should not do at the present moment what they think right at that moment because the moment at which they

think right has not yet arrived. the title of the collection is called microcosmic delia after democrat. that is the opening line in in his letter. i am so glad that you like the micro cosmo phelia. i could buy me as a reminder that many questions are quite simple. there is a job here. the job to combat oversimplification or reductionism and say well, actually it is more obligated than that. elise that is part of the job. however, you must have noted how often certain complexities.

here it becomes necessary to private greed is celebrated disposed of on necessary assumptions, proclaims that things are less complicated than they appear, and often in my experience, the extraneous or in relevant complexities are inserted when a matter of elementary justice or principle is at issue. my best illustration here would be the case of my dear friend salaman rushdie. you would think, perhaps, when he was assaulted by a bureaucratic [inaudible] in 1989, his fellow authors would've rushed to his defense. here was an open incitement for murder, accompanied by the author of a bounty and directed at a writer of fiction who wasn't even a citizen of said

bureaucracy. but you would've been a astonished to see the amount of muttering and hanging back that went on. had his novel than offensive or the feelings of pious muslims not to be considered, was he not asking for trouble? surely he knew what he was doing, and so forth. several senior western statement often of the law and order and anti-terrorism school took refuge in similar invasive formulations. and public debate with those who worried about the profane elements in the novel, or who said this did, let's get one thing out of the way. may i assume that you are opposed without reservation to the murder for pay of a literary figure?

it was educational to see how often this assurance would be withheld or offered in a qualified form. in those cases, i would refuse to debate any further, so i was a reductionist in that instance and proud of my simplemindedness. [applause] [applause] i am alexander. christopher was my father. he was in many ways my inspiration. i'm going to read a letter from his book as well, because it means as much to my generation as any other. also, one of the things he offered his friends, and family, which was showing us know what to think, but how to think. this is from the book.

now that it is time to launch this paper book on trend boat into the tide, about we write your closing letter by way of beginning. the book has editors and printers, i have been occupied on several other fronts. as you know. as a straight question floated into my mind of yours come whoever's on when i efforts our views on the public prints? the brief answer is that i was becoming newer without becoming indifferent. i have no right to expect leniency in return. and i don't believe those answers. however, it does tire me to read time and again reviews and notices that are based on clippings from earlier reviews and notices. there is always an earlier paragraph, usually within standard form of words, that says -- and this is in quotation marks -- the previous targets

were princess diana and bill clinton and mother teresa, and now it turns to us. of course, as you guessed, this is dispiriting. for one thing, it forced me to see my supposedly fresh and reduced to recycling. nobody even has originality to say, you criticized mother teresa for her warm endorsement. this is the surreptitious way in which views are marginalized or patronized. however, it wasn't so picky that prompted me to write. let me tell you what happened to me in the course of a single month between may and june and 2001 and i will give you one of the things that happened. i was invited to give evidence for the opposing side in the hearings on mother teresa's impending incarceration. it was a astounding opportunity to play the devils advocate.

and i must say that the church behaved with more scruple carried by my critics. a tape recorder, a deacon, and a father, at her deposition where i was encouraged present my findings. i will tell you about that another time. the point is, that the record is now not the monopoly of the fundamentalists. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> my name is peter hitchens. i am going to read words that my brother read at her father's funeral in her home county of hampshire almost 25 years ago. they are the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of paul's epistle to the libyans. finally, brethren, what other things are true, what other

things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any grudge here and if there be any praise, think on these things. [applause] [applause] hello, i was going to read some poems, but i think i'm going to scale back for just a quick excerpt of christopher's words. ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends. that is how he would have started. i am sorry i can't make the grade after that.

this is from hitch 22. the massive world it did not show utopia, said oscar wilde, would not be worth consulting. i used to adore that phrase, but now it reflects more upon the shipwreck and prison islands to which the clubhouse lead. but i hope and i believe that my advancing age has not changed my youth. i have actually seen more prisms broken open, more people in territory liberated, and more to do is broken and sensors clouted since i let go of the idea, or at any rate, the plan of a radiant future. those simple, ordinary propositions of the open society, especially when contrasted with the simplifications of that society's sworn enemies, it was all i required.

i began this highly selective narrative by citing on the on advisability of being born in the first place. a view from which he quickly walked to plan b. make the most of the dance, or as dorothy parker elsewhere praised it, you might as well live. he wrote dance, dance for the figure in the tune is capturing and will not stop. dance until the stars come down from the rafters, dance, dance, dance until you drop. in my better moments, i preferred the lyrical stoicism of my friend and ally, richard dawkins, who never loses his sense of wonder at the sheer unlikelihood of having briefly made it on a planet where extinction has helped sway and the chances of being conceived, let alone safely delivered, it

sows in september mall. thank you. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> by m. martin amis or little keith, as hitch always called me. i used to call him my dear hitch. the most salient and striking thing about christopher is how widely he was loved, not just by us and friends, but by you. one struggles to think of a

public intellectual with a following heart that is passionate. i wonder why this is. there are several elements in it before i reach for the central one. first, very handsome. [laughter] in a phrase he used to use, handsomer than a man has the right to be. [laughter] he was very fond of the self-description in the leader where he says, i wonder during the course of these tragic notes i have sufficiently stressed the sending quality of my striking somewhat brutal good luck. [laughter] and hitch wasn't -- his good looks were full of frenzy. and my middle daughter, fernanda was once in the kitchen, age

five. and she said, it looks like hitch. and the man on the screen was a handsome actor, sam neill. i also think that his voice was very important. a perfect voice without any mannerism or any terms of pompous inclination that i can't seem to get in my own life. [laughter] as i said, all intervening as contributed as i told him, to the charisma of hitch. he is to stay on the phone, when he landed it, when we did charlie rose the other night, with when he remembered him, charley was surprised and a bit of alarmed to learn that use the

third person, [inaudible] in most cases. so that hitch was one of the famous people that i've ever known. not always rational and by no means always prudent, but he was penetrating the same. he knew who he was. he was also and apologize there. when he took up a cause and petitioned, he would say i am such a good friend to this group of people that when i arrive, it says in the headline in the morning post, hitch rising. and i said what does it say when you leave and he says it says hitch flies out. [laughter] very early on in our early 20s, i said, does she like

hitch? and he said she wants to marry hits. another time he said, martin, you are always coming out phrases like this. he said whenever it is injustice or oppression, the pen of the hitch will flash when it is scattered. [laughter] i have several stories were hitch comes out with a great lie. and he didn't write this when he said it was anti-climatic, but i'm very fond of the story. it seems to crystallize something and lead us to what was the heart of the charisma of the hitch. he and i were in southampton and long island having driven up far from where we were staying. in search of the more violent

possible film on the island. this was her idea of happiness was to take a bottle of whiskey into the film night. we were pathetically reduced to this night and trudging rather grimly. i said, no one has recognized hitch. for at least 10 minutes. and usually, it is every few, 10 or 20 yards. he is stopped by someone. ben gets along and finally conversation. he would have a long and friendly conversation with everyone in his queue when he was signing books. i said 10 minutes must've gone by, and he said, longer. [laughter] he said much longer.

[laughter] at least 15 minutes. [laughter] and he said, i get more and more pissed off that the longer it goes on. he said i keep thinking what can we feel? what can they care? what can they know if they don't recognize the hitch? [laughter] as we approached the cinema, there was an elderly party rather awkwardly perched on the sergeant -- hydrant. as we were entering the cinema, he said do you love us or do hate us? what he meant was america and americans. he didn't mean him and his wife. hitch said, i beg your pardon? he said do you love us or do you hate us. and he said it is dependent upon

how you behave. and then we went straight into the cinema. i thought that was very good. also, slightly receding as it what hitch did was calmly appraised american behavior or whatever -- whenever reality presented them with. and then he gave it his judicious appraisal, but he wasn't like that. we wouldn't have loved him so much that he would've been like that. it was more, i think -- he was bored by the phrase contrary -- contrarian. as he said himself, the only person with arguing with was the hitch. >> so we see him in knots with supporting ralph nader, bush and cheney in 2004, the pollution in

the impeachment of bill clinton. what people i don't see but i think senses that he suffered very much from those isolations that he brought on himself. after the clinton business, i rang him up. i had seen him on television not looking well. i said how are you? and he said i am living in a world of pain. this is two or three weeks after he was broken. he suffered very much, but he didn't talk about it. you watch him watching the news and when the boat -- when the first democratic election took place in a rack, he had a suppressed excitement that he showed.

there was misery during the civil war. in 2005 and 2006. he was like a houdini where he was right most of the time, but every now and then he would be wrong and shackle himself so dramatically that had he escaped, or a partial escape, which would've been all the more amazing, and that was his -- it was why he was loved, i think. in eight, intellectual, dramatic. one of his favorite phrases was what could be more agreeable. he used to say it. it was one of his very english remarks. and he would say it while he, hi, and others, settle down 19 or 16 hours for food, drink, and conversation. and i just sort of asked, who could be more agreeable than the hitch?

to end on a wishful know, what could be more intimately agreeable? imagine what we do to your heart, if the hitch had landed on its way to join us here this evening. thank you. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] in 2004, amman ruppersberger column, a column in his words, the crisper has written for the nation. it included his address and telephone number. christopher received the note and called and left a message on the man's answering machine. for some reason, the man then wrote to me to complain about christopher's message.

which was the following. it's christopher calling you here, we get a lot of letters. as i daresay, you can imagine, the normally toss them. but i am obliged to keep a list of letters that might be menacing or from people who are unstable or in some clinical convention. one way i decide this, is it they resort to a four four letter words and then sign it themselves. and you just made the cut. [laughter] i hope this is our last contact. [laughter] but it might not be. goodbye. [laughter] [applause] indeed, goodbye. thank you to our speakers, to francis and alex and to all of you, to carol and the kids and to our dear friend christopher

for everything he gave to us. it's christopher and carol still say on their answering machine, you have reached hitchens and blue. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book that you'd like to see featured on "book tv"? send us an e-mail at "book tv" at c-span.org or tweet us at twitter.com/"book tv." here are some of the top-selling nonfiction titles at independent bookstores around the country according to indy bound. this reflects sales of may 9. topping the list is dripped by rachel matteau. she analyzes america's history of creating more and argues that the executive branch of

government is too powerful. second is anna quinlan's lots of candles plenty of cake. she recounts her 1100-mile hike across the pacific crest trail. the fourth book is imagine how creativity works. he has appeared on "book tv" to discuss his theories on creativity, and you can watch that online at booktv.org. former u.s. secretary of state, madeleine albright, has a new memoir. followed by unbroken, an olympic survivor's memoir from world war ii. next is the power of habit. mr. dodd made scientific discoveries that made explanations to forming and breaking good and bad habits. let's pretend this never happened by jenni lawson. in her memoir, ms. lawson counts her upbringing in rule texas,

high school years and marriage. in the presidents club, nancy gibbs and michael duffy examines how presidents from hoover to obama worked with and against each other during their times in the white house. at 10:00 p.m., citizen kane examines their lifestyles and habits of introverts. you can find more on these bestsellers by going to indiebound.org and clicking on indiebound bestsellers. >> "book tv" has over 150,000 twitter followers. follow us to get publishing news, author information and talk directly with authors during our live programming. twitter.com/booktv. >> next on "book tv", richard zacks recalls nursery in 1890s. as well as the home of an alternate economy marked by