thank you all for coming tonight. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> we would like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback. twitter.com/booktv. >> next come in a tribute to author christopher hitchens who died on december 2011. the event, hosted by vanity fair, includes mr. hitchens family, friends, and colleagues, including ian mcewan, peter navasky, salman rushdie, carolblue, and martyn amos. the tribute takes place at the great hall of the cooper union in new york city. this is a little under two

hours. >> welcome to you all. i am graydon carter. for more than 20 years, had the 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 whit, a charmer, and above all, a bit of a scali wagged. i think we can also agree that he was the ideal of the public intellectual. when he wrote, he wrote for his readers, they felt they knew him and they felt that he knew them. christopher was a man of ferocious appetite. what he consumed was a true miller -- he constantly in fact,

and right up until the end, he wrote fast, frequently without benefit of a second draft or even corrections. he would be hard-pressed to find a writer today that could match the volume of exquisitely crafted columns, dispatches and books that he produced over four decades. he was an editor stream and he was a readers stream. despite the sorrows of today's gathering, there was much in not regards to christopher's corag bravery. not in just the illness that ane took them, but his current and t words and thoughts. he didn't mind landing outside because it cocoon of conventionalid wisdom. four stations we will celebrate his elevatedvf but inclusive sense of humor,e f and for that legendary memory that held up even under the most

liquid of late-night conditions. we will pay tribute to the people he left behind, particularly his wife, carol, and his three children, alexander, soviet, and antonio. to celebrate christopher's monumental legacy, the hundreds of thousands of words that he put on paper, we have speakers who are blessed in knowing him, both in friendship and in hise i work.ildren. of life that he was the master of. asp i would like to introduce thehe first of these speakers, james the fenton.n. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause]r >> book with the dead one from a. >> would they have us howling order rave order to be strangled like some ancient slave?

none of my dead friends were emperors with such exorbitant tastes. none of them were it is a vengeful to have their friendsno waste away in sorrow disfigured and defaced. i think the deadwood one us to weep for what they have lost. ad-end i think that our luck ine continuing his what would hurt them most. the time would find him fid t generous, and self engrossed. time would find him generous as they used to be. what else would they want fromao us? but an honored place in our memory, a hollowed chair,room privilege and, celebrity. thus the dead might cease to grieve, and we might make amends, and there might beo m packed between dead friends and living friends.betwn dead and

what are dead friends would want from us are such living friends. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] they could be would e from such living friends. [applause] >> ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i want to get you in the mood for scions. [laughter] >> every time i left christopher and carol's place late and a drunk i

would say what do i deserve to be his friend? i was interviewed on cnn who said on the one hand he aspires skepticism and rational thought to but at the same time of bullying whinney contrarian as if that was a bad thing. [laughter] christopher was a beacon of knowledge in the world that threatens to extinguish light. for what it is not what we wanted to be. universe does not care about our assistance or welfare the realization only has the meaning of what we give it to, the courageous defense

of the simple proposition skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle one can use. i used to say i want to be an intellectual. that was troubling to witness the mind so capable relishing, exploring, soaking up with this worth knowing. was ready to incorporate a playful excitement of a child in a candy store. the delicious possibilities of existence of satisfaction that integrity can bring especially when confronting powered with knowledge as with the full recognition of a successful outcome is slim superstition hatred power and money will wind.

but his unadulterated joy of human experience, irony, humor, th ey quit the cuban knowledge, to set him apart. i n and his example and ask the question all the way change the word, what would christopher do? [laughter] last time i saw him the subject of nothing, want him mechanics comment capital punishment, religious fanaticism and intellectual laziness and nonsense that encompasses popular norway's he was not a scientist and fascinated by science. because of the hideous it

generates to recognize the universe is far more imaginatively than we are eager to learn from the universe and the world's greatest writers. somebody came to the door and delivered the manuscript. i said i of his personal physicist. [laughter] i can think of no greater honor. he helped me understand my own work. a remarkable discovery distinct balance sheet -- galaxies are receding faster from us all the time. this is not our galaxy. why? because we live in our galaxy. [laughter] just to check if you are awake. with the poetic symmetry a

false picture of what we had 100 years ago. there are 400 galaxies that if 13 billion years old. as a result the argument i adopted that nothingness headed straight towards us as fast as it could be. why is there something rather than nothing? way to. not for long. [laughter] that idea did not terrify him. knowledge is not for comfort to the sole but enhancing awareness to be alive. christopher has his own cosmetic legacy. not merged with the cosmos but on the asteroid belt

belt, between mars and jupiter three times the distance has a small asteroid about the size of manhattan. discovered 2002 named his chance 5710 o one and named after christopher long after our civilization has died christopher is astrid will quietly eight orbit the sun until gravitational force kick saddam four bit and heads to the sun and ending its life with a brilliant flame carbide's christopher ended his. before leaving his company for the last time in a poetic accident that makes life enjoyable. the newspaper at his kitchen table about the effort to to make sure people at yale

preserve the catholic upbringing in college. was describing the temptations they wrote to expose to hichens, a coed dorms and a beer bong. [laughter] such students are likely to stray. [laughter] i reflected what a remarkable tribute. [laughter] to be so culturally ubiquitous to mentioned as one thing but sandwiched between nietzsche and pierpont is an honor barry few bus could achieve at the most appropriate way to be remembered. i will leave it at that. [applause]

>> i am victor navasky i have been asked to read because i have the honor of initiating christopher's coming to this country to join the nation i a proposed to his editor in of the first international editors exchange were that we would move their and christopher would move here. and that arrangement could be extended and if they would live in each other's houses and stay on the same payroll and that is what happened then christopher defected and other rest is history. [laughter] i was going to read a beautiful review but it occurred to me it would not do him justice if we stuck

do the script. i will tell you why i was going to read the a lawyer review but he pointed out the special achievement to be a pessimist to force our attention on human personality while bought surrendering are ceasing to protest the end statement. that was christopher at his most christopher ness. >> reading and article it actually began why a margaret thatcher famously

spain tim. [laughter] it is called he who got slapped lessons maggie taught me by christopher hichens. make up my mind in the first 10 seconds and rarely change it. so quoted late -- margaret thatcher on the day resignation. i would be happy to think that within minutes of being introduced she last meet across the box with their rolled up parliamentary order paper. in the course of exchange of a bit -- exchange views nashua still leader of the opposition and pandering to the racist and her party influenced by the fact we were meeting in the rose

period room i made the mistake of bowling as to acknowledge her she took swift advantage by saying go lower. like the british electorate to now shaking itself more than a decade later, i look back upon that spanking to decoded significance. thank you. [laughter] [applause] >> i and then the shorts literary editor of the atlantic. i will read from one of christopher's last pieces of the magazine a review of letters between develop and monica jones that even the

most trying will lead could have even the most impossible man. [laughter] giving or again the a weir moment of pleasure by saying as he reported to monica i persuade words to the poetry and not to bully them the critic could not have approached near the to the larkin of his guest. is an inescapable how poetry it pulls me contained in to existence this is especially acute. he removed himself forever a city that belfast is a

close -- close second. he brooded violently and i fully on a lack of privacy. the decline standards at the university serves wenches and sherry parties to be manipulative of the women and the imminence of death. many of larkin expeditions to a church used to the cemetery bore memorial zero despite repudiation of the mortality and with the to my it turns out he had taken monica along as a companion. we might agree to find it hard to a with good stead average sunday's scroll as

the other half of a passionless relationship larkin noticed that can joined couple on an ancient stone, than live. without forcing or bullying the language can still find the almost instinct and true what will survive of us is love. [applause] >> hello. 9:00 a.m. might go mcginnis and i will read from christophers s.a. entitled. [inaudible] i have not been able to discover if there is the precise equivalent to for the expression killing time.

he later added a footnote to one published, i should have looked further. [laughter] for the term precisely in that way it was christopher. is a breezy expression considering time is killing us by a contemplating contemplating-- contemplating the to forbid it noted is for crow win one tye eight -- monty python had competition, one contestant teams a matter go group was cut off abruptly upon the

opening. one can readily appreciate the difficulty but if i was asked to summarize, i should reply that his is the work that exposes and clarify is. greasy what actuates of the hypocrite with the transparency except shakespeare or george eliot. this is the time it is not the product of cynicism. to be perceptive and innocent is the achievement for of thank you. [applause] >>

>> i am christophers editor at to "vanity fair" this is from the 3par series of the limits of self improvement. [laughter] i noticed that touch of decline but one puts these down to the requirement of seniority. the stomach use the chap in a position the blasts of refreshment never heard anybody. balking business is overrated i mastered the art when i was small. what are taxis war? smoking is a vice but 1/2 still have a hobby. when my friends said they would pay good money to stop looking at me in my shape five agreed to rehabilitation.

there is a micro economy dedicated to the proposition of a makeover are that there are no second acts. to drop down from 185 pounds to approve the tone, and hence the round and shoulder posture and give thought to the hair and further questions. [laughter] more and business and the right places. wheeze less sharpen tailoring, less than boos intake can make this mile that looks like a mixed nuts zero ll's scary to children. [laughter] [applause]

>> my name is michael this is from his final article one charles dickens. for but terming it is it not? seductive the manner in which the over punctuated sentence give sway with the capacity to the one central critical point* where christopher puts on assault with every do haying want to your trout could he was is true and fashion that the like me and ways that do not. beloved the jt's of a birthday celebration reminding people they were

once unborn and now watch. we should do more of that. the man who'd generated the hallmark birthday industry with his less imposing and more sentimental scenes took it agreed hissed birthday ever to make it the near ramadan of obligatory celebration and now darkening our december. [laughter] imagine the power that dickens had by a few brilliant strokes of the then he beside-- restored a popular festival in common defense -- defense and the men who were responsible for the misery. for the first time the

downtrodden english could to see a celebrity on their side. we have pervaded reports sometimes from the author himself the speeches he made all across the nation. just as we have the ku cards from the evening 1869 staging the murderer, it is clear dickens add a demagogue power that could be dangerous to others. it is also clear a heroine of his own character he was going on in the per sources. remain in shears stubborn existence of so many people

of who was disregarded. you go through the list of characters. all with a life to the many kept going. with a sense of humor of the absurd. dickens could mine the huge resource to become the conductor like nobody since shakespeare. always remembering to keep the child and feel. [applause] >> >> i will read the first two

paragraphs and the last paragraph of a peace he wrote to for the nation. more arrests dain van arrested but it comes off a ladder vocation and knowing what is coming i cherished a two modest ambitions. the first was to attend the viggo meeting those from the human rights movement and the disarmament movements of the west attempt to establish a common term name.

second comment to be the first writer of history to compose an article from prague to mention joseph or his creator but it was thwarted by the former pro you attend the meeting and a statement of a foreign minister but who is now into also balky at. i knock on the door. led by a man with iris so close together he could get by with a monaco. [laughter] -- monaco with his underlings and a video camera at my request he

inquires politely what law has been infringe and what respect it is on the helsinki accord? if they made telephoned the embassy? is denied. instead officials refused to say what charge or because they are treated in this fashion. at dusk small groups gathered to play guitar and pass the bottle of wine. the police did not know what to do. the orders from the top and moscow not as direct or

claire as they used to be. it is inhabited those who revert in their sleep at the thought of going back. [applause] >> >> i am christopher buckley from the book hitch 22

through xiii through xv. this is from the paperback edition another element of my memoir, of the stupendous importance of love, friendship, solidarity is from more recent experience. i cannot hope to convey the full embrace but offer a crum of accounts so if there's anybody known to benefit from a letter or visit to, do not to postpone the rating for the may gain of it. the difference made will be more than you have calculated.

because of my life is combating superstition. when it can france the dread on which it feeds. our culture regards it as normal for the godly to admonish those who are expiring. and edifice of fabricated deathbed conversions the highly questionable assumption though i could have chosen end to take offense my convictions, what and then sold to and non sequitur i was grateful for the heavy attention i received.

it gave my a atheism a new lease on life. [laughter] and helped me to keep old been a long to pay to say it would not be true at any time. with extending a prayer breakfast on what was designated addis parade four hichens day i have spent much of the last year as an experimental subject for clinical trials and protocols genomic based and shrinking the eric -- area of darkness that cancer holds dominion. my name is not this interested but many

experiments that the result is too far in the future to help me. i cite the horace mann in june 10 until you have done something for humanity you should be ashamed to die. this is the modern and slight response to his challenge but the eruption of death is to express more concrete the with the belief of the centrality of science and reason. not all of my use are vindicated. i write to that person may want to do death in the active not the passive and

look it in the eye. should the best efforts be and unfeeling looking at stage iv piss-off jiggy of cancer harvests victimless. the terminal process does not allow much for activity or a composed farewell or stoic departure. this is why i am grateful to have a lucid interval to fill it with the same elements of french japan to love and literature and the dialectic that i hope the book is the animated. i was not born to do any of the things i was sent down here but i was born to die

and this is to assimilate them narrative to the conclusion. christopher hichens. , jr. teetwenty, 2011. washington d.c. [applause] >> i and james reading from the last paragraph proof that much wetter create criticism is self descriptive. if it is true then it is by

a no means a st.. but it could be asserted even by the atheist but take the christian virtues to show how it could be lived without by 80. it may be hope to that time deals kindly with those who live for lang bridge. the time with the strange excuse would pardon kipling all of those have been largely vindicated said he may not seek a pardon but what the illustrates with the pondered of truth, the view does not count to not

what you think but how you think while principals have a way of the enduring a few individuals that maintained allegiance. [applause] >> reading from the hichens peace he had written during the war we met to extend our experiences we became friends.

not more than efforts it may not be exotic. it is hesitating on its own version of balkanization for an inkling of what could lie ahead with more than one culture. because it has chosen to new defend its determination multi-cultural fruitful cohabitation not since has europe or so much today's anti-antithesis with the zero fanatics. in sarajevo goes under then

all who were here for such things have lost something precious. we never knew the value while they still had it to. [applause] >> my name is leslie. i have chosen one of his t.a.r.p. political commentaries on our leaders. from 2004. ronald reagan alarms the soviet counterparts to say surely they unite against innovation. ronald reagan alarmed other constituencies by a speaking frequently broke in the oval office re again said unto separate occasions he had

insisted personally at the liberation of the nazi death camp. there was more to him than that. apartheid south africa stood behind us in every war we have ever fought when leadership was on the other side, our big and allowed alexander haig to greenlight the invasion and fired him and then ran away when the barracks were bombed then accused of scuttling. selanne have the weapons and lying about it all that he had not sold him would fit on a small truck taken that

to the ill they go were lied about at and modestly let the underlings maintain he was too dense to understand the connection between two impeachable prime's. [applause] >> >> this is fun visit to a small planet. north korea is a famines state. you can see people picking up rice and corn they are exhausted been a few thank you restaurants you can read the chipyong gang times through the soup or t. collor coffee. gristle is served as duck.

i tried it dogs do that least tasted spicy they would not tell me the breed. [laughter] but then a appetite was diminished by the realization i had not seen a domestic animal the whole time i was there. and that beyond a restaurant don't ask for a dog bad. [laughter] nobody knows how many north koreans are dying some estimates high but the face beams down contentedly and the 58 year-old looks to be as ever as his subjects applaud him. kim jong-il made head of the party and army but the

office of the presidency is eternal a held by his departed dad who died july 8, 1994 kim is dead. long live the kemper crow the only state in the world with the dead president. [laughter] what is the right term for this? [laughter] roommate appropriate so many have died with grass in their mouth. [applause] last time i saw christopher is that a hospital in washington and we talked

about of ryder we both like this is a scathing review on the biography of edwina by somebody called delaware morgen beginning with a quote looking up we see the point* that they at our eyes with a dishcloth. he has just gone off to india outside the manner the little dog licks her hand as if he sympathizes and understands. the next is from the bark of

free. >> at half past nine edwina s body was brought and then others were asked to come to the house everybody was waiting. bollenbach one naval discipline the dog ran out to greet the mistress and that was the worst. from the very first page of the book from the very last truth is stranger than fiction dame morgan devised the buyer graphic style that

is wholly differential. this could be more erred suited to these magazines of resolute women who sacrifice part of themselves from powerful men and as dame janet said of herself. by washington accounts the critical difference to keep the archipelago british. this approach can be hilariously fatal. thank you. [applause] >> sean penn. the vietnam syndrome. how many times can one

pretend it to be interviewed the parents of bright yellow skin, cleft palate, a pretzel wins and the terrible expressions on the faces of the parents who believe this horror can skip one generation. just enough knowledge for agony and remorse but not enough for a healing process. no answer is the inescapable question. when will it stop? arraigned from house started to fall 40 years ago. added school full of children who make signing bridge who could not sit still or move or could not see or hear i took a tour of the workshops and then asked

if five like to say a few words through an interpreter. i like a captive audience but i did not trust myself to say thain and the children looked as though they could be my seniors. i a swear taking photos as also taking photographs that cannot be printed and this magazine because they would place in your sleep as they did mine. as t.s. eliot asks what forgiveness? that is easy. that question just does not come up. the world barely eight assimilated and the term genocide claimed only in the 1940's before the government

added mass destruction comment we may know the words distinction to my friend and who wrote to cool head did end warm hearted pros at that time even in a picture magazine there were not enough photographs of the crimes of his words had to suffice which makes me proud to be the same profession. some points being naturally scrupulous he could only speculate reports of women giving birth to monsters the most unreported because of those nonexistent procedures we've known now and no better a population of

84 million vietnamese there are as many as 1 million cases of agent orange. the monstrous births are the hardest to look at the weaver carousels to watch real monsters of henry kissinger and robert mcnamara who give the orders as they posture to cash in with their more. but forget it. forget if you can the. [applause] >> i am salmon rushdie from

god is not a great what is called a slight digression of the pig or why have been hates ham. [laughter] i want to read it in part because christopher appreciated my story of virgin a day when i first arrived to boarding school i bought a ham sandwich and a ticket and lightning failed to strike to prove that god did not exist. [laughter] the oldest and most tenacious is the fear that hasley merged as one of the ways by which the jews could be distinguished. muslim see nothing ironic

real horror is manifest all over the islamic world with the prohibition of animal farm a useful fable of which children are deprived. some of those orders are so stupid they fail to notice the vote and dictatorial role played by the p.i.g.s.. crammed together the p.i.g.s. 10 to act as a swine's. [laughter] breezy and nasty fights. it is not unknown to eat their own excrement and young. when dead tendency to run loose is painful to the fastidious i. but also left to their own devices will keep themselves

clean will bring up families and engage in social interaction with other big spurt go they display many signs of intelligence and it is calculated between brain waves and body waves is almost as high with them as dolphins down to say it is easy to said bias the devil or the pig? and then commanded to avoid it altogether otherwise intelligent mammals affect the belief that have been hates hamburger hope to have guessed that the fine beast is a close cousin and shares a great deal of our dna and

welcome transplants from p.i.g.s. to humans proofread try hard we could have recent events is of cloning to have a hybrid but the big man is the most likely outcome. [laughter] children and left unmolested by rabbis art imams are drawn to the baby p.i.g.s. and firefighters do not like to east -- peat roast pork. roasted him than was long pig burn never had the relevance experience for it to taste very much like a big. the attitude was one of reverence as discussed the team of pig flesh was

special and ritualistic. of the confusion between the sacred and can thain is all religions. look at the pig, the taste, the dieing hills and intelligence are reminiscent of the human. fear is from a night time sacrifice and cannibalism that the whole wheat text do more than a hint nothing from homosexuality to adultery is made punishable unless they exact the punishment have a repressed desire to participate. and "king lear" the police man has a hot need to use her for the various events he applies the lash. ancient stupidity is upon us.

sell its in europe demand the three little pigs and miss piggy and to many the up to piglet other characters are removed. jihad have not read enough to know the infinite the renewable delight of the care of the pig but there will be trouble when they get that far. a statue of those wild boar england has been threatened with mindless islamic vandalism. the trivial fetish shows a religion and faith and superstition distort the whole picture of the world. thank you. [applause] >> the last e-mail

christopher wrote me said he may have accomplished a few things but the most accomplished was being my baby sitter. he later entrusted me with readinaboy antonia. about a subject of three heare to my own heart even though a colony in object of daily u.s. intervention of what is called the internal affairs etfs using force to secure the rights of the haitian people. withdrawing of the soul from

harlan county the defense department counted on a public opinion to resent entanglements and counted on one subliminal racism. the kind to organize demonstrations for the cameras the slogan not another somalians enchanted. then rising in the senate because was not worth s singled american life. depended on spokespeople to be scrupulous enough to say one shot and we are out of there. low-cost of the largest military machine. confronted of a haitian army the empire backed off. the rule of thumb when the military calls for intervention and shows its strength they should be

distrusted the one they tell you how difficult and complicated they must be distrusted even more. thank you. [applause] >> . . from the triangulation chapter it is told contemplating a run for a high office he summoned the donors of his state of louisiana and enlightened them and those of you that come with

me now will receive a big piece of the pie. those that commit yourself later will receive a smaller piece of the pie and those of you that don't come at all will have received only good government. a touch for modern taste perhapl the essence of american politics this consists of thedistill manipulation of populism sme successful in the hardiest allegiance of the crowd it can prent itself present itself as most in touch with popular concerns and canc alsoerns anticipate the opinionn and should be the leastapp apparently eletes test. it's no great distance from aite robust cry of every man to the

incipit inclusiveness of putting people first. but the smarter elite managers have learned in the interlude that salt measurable pledges have to be distinguished by a reserve had that earmarks then for the bank rulers and backers. they've also learned that it can be prudent to promised the voters too much. unless, that is, the voters should decide that they don't deserve or expect anything. on december 10th, 1998, the majority counsel at the house judiciary committee to david shivers delivered one of the most remarkable speeches ever heard in the precincts. the chicago law and order democrat mr. shepard's represented the old style big city blue-collar which in the age of democrats alike it had been a priority for mr. clinton

in the sunbelt dixiecrats to discard. the spirit of an earlier time of the time before smoking materials have been banned from the white house from his delivery after walking his herders through the traditional prosecutors review of an incorrigible perk his address could be used in any civics class in the nation after soliciting in the civics class is. mr. schiff herds paused and said the president then is under oath and of the 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 aide and now he's lied under oath of the congress of the united states. there is no one left to lie to. pour sap, if not as i watched this alone on the screen at the miami airport on with wheezing

you'll did he walk into town? so since you're and annihilating and free from distressing sexual graphics was his forensic presentation that when it was over congressman john conyers of the democratic caucus bigot from the chair to complement him for his efforts and that was that. mr. conyers went back to saying as he said on the first the the only person entitled to in front it was mrs. clinton. eight days later the democratic leadership was telling the whole house that in impeachment shouldn't be discussed while the president and the commander in chief was engaged in the task of bombing iraq. [applause]

i'm going to read a passage from hedge 22 called a short foot note. there was a time i could ever again to outperform all the most hardened but now i drank relatively carefully. about half past midday decent flood of mr. walker's to store this cut the perrier water and ideal delivery system and no ice. at lunch to have a bottle of red wine not always but nevertheless. in fact the desk to retreat the evening meal nil after dinner drinks most especially nothing sweet and never any brandy. nightcaps depend how well the day went but as before, no mixing, no messing around with a vodka. making rules about the drinking he can be defined as an alcoholic as martin once said to me.

of course watching the clock for the start time is probably a bad find but here are some simple pieces of advice. don't drink on an empty stomach. the main point is the enhancement of food. don't drink if you have booze it is a chunk cure. a drink when you are in a good mood. sheep blues is a false economy. these can be the happiest glasses alone that you ever drink. [laughter] if you take refuge say you can't properly remember last night if you really don't remember that is an even worse sign. these are boring and not designed as the great and the green to the enlightening company. to the single malt scotch in the countries it will easily be available.

never drive a car if you have a job. it's easier for a woman than for a man i don't know why this is. don't ever be responsible for it. [applause] >> i'm going to be reading on the arab spurring. this is from the first page of the preface from 2001 arguably to read the names of the dedication page belong to the street vendor and the egyptian restaurant tour and libyan husband and father plebeian martyrs' were not trying to take light like muhammed. the desire rather than in the lives on the higher level than that treated as an inconvenience by a moment oligarchy. they didn't make the claims about how homicidal actions would earn them a place in the

gross fantasy of the afterlife. they didn't wish to inspire yelling mobs on the sea of hysteria but the life affirming death to the living def in life the harbingers of the arab spurring code to galvanize their fellow subjects yet to make him aspire citizens. the tides will wind and waves will recede. the landscape will turn brown and dusty again but nothing can expel from the mind the example. once again and his demonstrated that people do not love their chains or their jailers and the aspiration for civilized life that universal eligibility to be noble soul in paris shibley phrases it is proper and common

to all. thank you. [applause] my name is steve wasserman. i'm proud to say, of 32 years to christopher, publisher of his first works here in the united states and for the last seven years had the honor to represent him in literary matters and i've taken that it from the introduction he wrote to his first volume called press the anne gurley prepared for the worst. new been once wrote or said she tried to let posthumously. she did not mean that she wanted to speak from beyond the grave, the common fantasy. but that seemed to communicate as if she were already dead.

never mind that ambition is impossible achievement and reminded it sounds house wants from honest to say nothing of rubber got. when i read it i still thought to write as if editors, publishers, colleagues, peers, friends, relatives, factions, reviewers and consumers indeed not be consulted. to write is a supply and demand, time and place. called no man lucky until he is dead. but there have been moments of rare satisfaction and the often random and fragmented life of the radical freelance scribbler. religions and states and classis and tribes and nations do not have to work or argue for their adherence and subjects. they more or less inherit them against this they have always

been speakers and writers that embody einstein's in junction to remember your humanity and forget the rest. it would be immodest to claim membership in the sorority but i hope not to have done anything outrageous. despite the appeal dixie year that such principles are fashionable is always the idea of secular some kallur to arianism, internationalism and solidarity that stand in the need of a reaffirmation. i feel relatively confident that neither did demand for or the supply for liver become exhausted. we are not likely to reach a time when the need of such things as curiosity, irony, in debunking, disputation and elegy will become set aside for the present we must resolve to essays again. [applause]

>> one of the great pleasures of knowing christopher was having him disagree with you, his contrary which a word she disavowed was and join us and gave rise to one of the most accident bookshop exchanges there ever was. mr. hitchens, thank you so much from a young country in. i tried to bring my son but he plaine refuses. [laughter] we agreed on the most important things like gloria of what else but we disagree on others, opera and kurdish for example as you well know he sent christopher off to be waterboarded to see if

the practice was in the torture and christopher concluded that it was. i once invited him to be my guest for a testament and on another occasion the performance he threatened to report to the international criminal courts at the hague and even if he never went that far. [laughter] so she was right on many issues he once wrote the four most overrated things in the world champagne, lobster, and will sex and pick next. [laughter] three out of four, christopher. [laughter] another matter on which i find myself in complete alignment is that of the passing of marbles

and this is from the 2009 "vanity fair" article and he is illegitimate younger brother even more famously once remarked that the 1 billion the world which may be absolutely right. i was considering this the other day as i stood on top of the temple with a dedicated director of the restoration service and watched the workshop that lady low around me. it doesn't appear how absolutely heart stopping these people were but did you know for example that the forms if viewed from the sky are a perfect triangle of the temple on the island and the temple of poseidon at the cape. did you appreciate that each makes a very slight inward inclined so but if upwards into

space it would eventually stifel themselves to give her at this point in the imperium? the brightness is located at some place between the duty of science and the science of duty. the damage done by the past and present occupations cannot be put right but there is one of dissipation that can be done. the ambassador to the ottoman empire said a wrecking crew to the turkish occupied the territory of greece where its salt of approximately half of the adornment and carried away. as with all things greek, there were three elements to the most lavish and beautiful sculptural treasury and human history. under the direction of the artistic genius, the temple had massive pyramids dedicated in

poseidon get the sun and the moon and then of the 92 panels depicting a succession of the mythical bottles. the most intricate element was carved which showed the gods, humans and animals that made the procession. there were 192 featured which happens to be the exact numbers of the city's heros that fill up the battle. experts differ on precisely what stories being told but it's quite clearly carved as a merit except with half of the cast of detail in london well below the cost and 1816 with $2.2 million in today's currency to pay off his debt. the original scheme for the home

in which case they might never have been seen again. i'm proud to tell you i've managed to persuade his name and his honor the people that the intelligence squared to host a debate on the subject of the return. it wouldn't be the same without him but i should still arguments from his book and share the platform that only when things go with a hitch to do they go without a hitch. [applause] the

>> we won't know what he might have written, but i come with my projection of what i think pitch may have done if it was a little longer. as many of you know, he talks his religion god is not a great not a around the comfortable bookstores of the coastal cities of the north, but across the bible belt and challenged cleric said every time he went to to enter debate with him and i think even he was astonished by the enthusiasm with which people greeted the eloquent arguments for secular humanism. he ended god is not great in the last chapter with of the lines

above all, we are in need of a renewed enlightenment. he didn't really expand on this the introductions of the reportable atheist which was written some while after he had been on the road with god is not great is just a hint of what was on his mind. all acs can't live for long just being against something. they have to speak for what makes life worth living. in a couple conversations i have i felt that this was stirring in his mind, just what this renewal could be dreamed to be in the form of a book. so she says there could be no serious ethical positions based on denial or refusal to look at the fact squarely in the face. but this is not -- this doesn't mean that we should steer into the abyss all the time.

only religion of the enough has required us to do that. believing them as this religious objection concedes that human life is actually worth living one can combat once pessimism by stoicism in the by the refusal of delusion the scene with any of the following. there are the duties of science and the extraordinary marvels of nature. there's the constellation and the irony of the velocity. there are the intimate splendors of literature and poetry, excluding keen of the aspects of those found. there's the grand resource of the arms and music and architecture again, not excluding those elements that aspire to the sublime. in order for these pursuits, any one of them to assault a lifetime that may be found the sense of significance that doesn't depend on any invitation

of the supernatural. indeed, nobody armed in the culture and literature and philosophy is likely to be anything but board in the second by ghost stories, tales, brutalism experiences or bubbling from the beyond. one can appreciate and treasure the symmetry and grandeur of the ancient greek parthenon for example without meeting any share in athina with the imperatives of the and realism just as one a listen to mozart without any nostalgia per the monachism and the condolences. the concept of culture indeed may partly consistent discriminating between these things religion asks us to the opposite and preserved the provisions. it is very often argue that

religion must have some sort of alliance since it occurs so strongly tall times and in all places. many insist that religion is so much a part of our human or animal nature that is actually in a radical. this, for what it is worth is my own view. we are unlikely to cease making god or inventing them to please them for as long as we are afraid of death or of the dark and for as long as we persist in the self-centered mess that could be a lengthy stretch of time. our river, it is just as certain that we shall continue to cast a skeptical and ironic i on what we ourselves have invented. if religion is in eighteen's, then so is our doubt and are content for our own weakness. [applause]

i'm francis collins and it's an honor to be part of the remembrance. writing to a fellow author in '89, and want to mislead declared one must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing at. in this instance the rifle as the grand piano of the states' rights but it is odd indeed in a wave of only hitch could have arranged but i am the one that has been called to five-year this gun. among the literary giants ibm estrange comrade indeed come a physicians scientist, a geneticist, privileged to have flooded the human genome project

and now the return of the national institutes of health and perhaps most ironic of all a follower of jesus christ. the debates about whether science and faith could be compatible first brought pitcher and me to give her and as you could imagine we didn't exactly agree. but the emergence of a diabolically dividing cluster of malignant cells in christophers esophagus brought us together in different ways. i think of the man of words and letters but another language where the words are exxon, the letters are dna based might have something to offer in the search for a personalized therapeutic. so we embarked on the grand adventure some of which he's written about in his series of essays on the topic of cancer. the long and complex novel that

was his cancer dna gm reviewed a few secrets that provided hope on the high-tech rescue. the pioneers in the frontier do not always experience the ultimate benefits themselves. we still have much to learn. christopher helps us learned. along the way we became friends sharing conversations about life, death, lincoln, reverend martin luther king jr. and many other topics. as it says in proverbs 27 or 17. i'm not sure whether it would please pitch are bugs the hell out of him to know that are jousting alternately strengthened my faith. he knew i was ready for him and

graciously accepted that gift from me and many others even though he was sure. no doubt now he knows the answer to whether there is more to the spirit than neurotransmitters. i hope he was surprised by the answer. i hope to hear him tell about it some day because he will tell it really well. after a hitch's death, i visited carroll in their home, dupont circle and washington. for the walls seemed to be echoing his words. i had the urge to sit and call upon the memories and the spirit to create some reflections of hitch. i frankly expected some time in a minor key to reflect our sense of mourning that we shared that evening but that isn't what happened to read as best as i could recall and with what i hope will be your forgiveness

for my self-taught musical skills, this is what hitch had to say. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ [applause] >> i am christopher's father in law and this is from letters to

a country and in a previous letter christopher refers to a collection of arguments written in 1908 by cambridge academic. it's a collection, and this is a good example. quote, time is not right, he writes. the principal of the time is that people shouldn't do at the present moment what they think at that moment, because the moment which they think right has not yet arrived. the title of the collection is called microcosmic shelia and that sets the stage for the opening line in his letter. i'm so glad that you like a microcosm of shelia. it is a delight in itself of

course but all i keep it finally as a reminder that many questions are actually quite simple. there's a small paradox. the jobs of intellectuals is to combat over simplification and reductionism and to say it's more complicated than that. at least that's part of the job however, you must notice how often certain complexities are introduced as a means. here it becomes necessary disposed of on necessary assumptions, proclaim that actually things are less complicated than they appear, and very often in my experience the extraneous or the relevant complexities are inserted when a matter of principle is at issue.

my best illustration would be the case of my friends. you would think perhaps when he in 1989 his fellow authors would have rushed to his defense. year was an open site for murder accompanied by offer iraq of a bounty and writer of fiction who wasn't even at citizen a theocracy but he would have been astonished to see the amount of hanging back that went on. it's been offensive for the feelings not to be considered was he not asking for trouble? surely he knew what he was doing and so forth. a senior statesman often of both law and order in the

anti-terrorist schools took refuge after in a similar formulations. in public debate with those debris about the blasphemous and profane and the article i would say let's get one thing out of the way. may i assume you are opposed without reservation of salary figure. it's educational to see often this assurance would be withheld or offered in a qualified form. in those cases, i would refuse to believe any further so i was a reductionist in that instance and proud of my symbol mine tignes.

estimate i am alexander. kristopher was my father. he was also in many ways my inspiration. i'm going to read because the beans to people of my generation and it it epitomizes one of the things he offered his friends, family and friends which is showing us not what to think but how to tinker. now that it's time to launch this paper boat into the tide i thought i would write a closing letter by way of beginning. while the book has and what its editors i've been on other fronts as you know and this is straightforward floated into my mind how do i respond and i see my efforts abused or misrepresented in the public?

the brief answer is i would -- of the right to expect lenience and i don't believe the officers that say they don't believe in reviews or notices however it does reading the notices from some earlier reviews and notices that there is only in the early usually in standard form of the words that says, and this is in quotation marks, the previous targets include bill clinton now turns. of course as you guessed this is dispiriting. for one thing it bores to see my profession reduced to recycling. nobody even never have the originality to say hitchens who criticized mother teresa for her devotion in haiti. this is the surreptitious way in

which the views are marginalized or pattern iced to death. however it was in to the city that prompted me to write. we happen to be in the course of a single month between may and june of to tell someone and i will give you one of those things that haven't. i was invited to give evidence for the opposing side of the hearings on mother teresa. it was an astounding opportunity to play the devil's of immelt oral sense. [laughter] the church be hit with more care than my liberal critics. a bible, tape recorder, a deacon and father exercising deposition while producing all of my findings and opinion. i will tell you about at another time. the point is the record is not the monopoly of the

fundamentalist thank you. [applause] >> my name is peter hitchens. i'm going to read the words my brother read at a number father's funeral in north on county. it's the fourth chapter. whatever things are true, what sort of things are honest, what sort of things are just, what sort of things are pure, what sort of things are lovely, what things are a good report? would there be any virtue and if there be any praise, sync on these things not.

[applause] >> how low. i was going to read some poems but i think i'm going to scale back so a quick excerpt of christopher's words, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends pataki would have started and i'm sorry i can't make for great after that. this is from pitch 22 to read a map of a world that didn't show eutopia wouldn't be worth consulting. i used to a door that phrase but now reflect more of on the shipwreck to which the quest has led but i hope that i believe that my advancing age hasn't

shamed high youth. isaac chollet seen more prisons broken open, more people than territory liberated and more broken and sensors flattened since i let go of the idea or the plan of a radiant future. so simple, ordinary propositions of the open society especially when contrasted nor all i require. i began this narrative by siding on the and the advisability of being born in the first place, the view from which he quickly waltzed to plan b. make the most camorra's dorothy parker elsewhere freest, you might as well who live. he wrote dance for the figure is

easy to the tune is catching and will not stop. fans until the stars come down from the rafters. dance, dance until you drop. in my better moments i prefer the lyrical stoicism of my friend and ally richard dawkins who never loses his sense of wonder what unlikelihood of having briefly made it on a planet where the crude extinction has helped sway and the chance of being conceived live alone delivered so in -- infinitesimal. thank you. [applause]

hi pam martin as a pitch always called me. i used to call him and might year hitch. the salient striking thing about christopher is how widely he was loved not just by us family and friends but you and long struggles to think of a public intellectual with the following half as passionate. i wonder why this is fine because there's several elements that reach for the central london. first very handsome. [laughter] in the phrase he used to use and some in man has the right to be

and we were both very fond of the self description and the leader where he says halfway through i wonder if during the course of these notes i stress the ascending quality of my striking perhaps a brittle good looks. his good looks were not brittle. they researched full of frenzied and my daughter was once in the kitchen age five and she says looks like a hitch and the man on the screen was the handsome actor sam neill. i also think that we his voice was very important, a perfect voice without any manner is some i can't seem to get to purge my in a place of.

laughter cut one and as i told him he used to say on the phone when he landed and when we did charlie rose the other night when we remembered him, and others, charlie i.t. was surprised and a bit alarmed to learn a hitch often referred to himself in the third person said this is not a habit with kuala loveless mental health and so he was one of the scene of people i ever known model is a rational were prudent but penetrating these. he knew who he was and was also a self mythologize her.

when he took up the cause he told the i'm such a good friend to these people that when i arrive it says on the head line in the morning post hitch rising. i said what does it say when you leave? he said hit flies out. a very early on in our early twenties i said does that dow like to hitch and he said she loves the pitch and wants to marry the hitch. another time he said, he's always coming up with phrases like this, he says whenever injustice more oppression he

will flash. [laughter] >> i've got several stories where he comes up and he didn't like this one. he said it was anticlimactic and very fond of this story and it seems to crystallize something for what is perhaps the heart of the charisma he and i were having driven that are from where we were staying in search of the most violent possible film on the island but this was the idea was to take a bottle of whiskey and nothing could top that. we were reduced to wesley snipes. [laughter] and charging towards the cinema

i said no one has recognized the hitch for at least ten minutes and usually he is every few, ten or 20 yards stopped by someone and has a long and from the conversation with them and if you ever signed books with him he would have a long friendly conversation with everyone. anyway i said ten minutes must have gone by and he said longer. [laughter] much, much longer at least 15 minutes. and he said i get more and more passed off the longer it goes on. he said i keep thinking what can they feel or care or no if they don't recognize the hitch when

the? after we left there was a tune elderly party on a hydrant perched and as we were entering the cinema he said to you love us or heat us? what he wanted to the command was america, americans. he didn't mean he and his wife and hitch said i beg your pardon? she said to you love us or do you eight us? he said it depends on how you behave and he went straight into the cinema. he curls up with him for about half an hour but slightly misleading what he did is only appraised of the american behavior or cover with reality and given his sort of judicious of racial but he wasn't like that and we wouldn't have loved him so much if he had been.

there are plenty of people who are like that. it was more a think that he was born by phrase country and that what he was was an all-pro contrarian, he contradicted himself as if christopher phill the only person he argued with was the hitch. [laughter] so we see in times supporting rauf nadir, bush, cheney in 2004 to collusion in the impeachment people in iraq of course and what people i don't see what i think sense that he suffers very much from the isolation brought on itself.

he says i am living in a world of pain this is tour three weeks after and he suffers very much about iraq. he didn't talk about it but you watch him watching when the suppressed excitement he showed and the misery during the civil war period in 2005 he was like houdini but every now and then he would shackle himself so dramatically that had he escaped it would have been all the more amazing, and that was why he was loved. she made intellectual hermetic with his argument with itself.

one of his favorite phrases was what could be more agreeable. he would say while he and others settled down for 16 or 17 hours of food, drink, tobacco and conversation and i just want to ask who could be more agreeable than the hitch and to end only wishful note what could be more infinitely agreeable when he imagine what would do if the pitch had landed and was on his way to join us here. thank you. [applause]

in 2000 for a man wrote to kristopher complaining about a column in his words a bullshit column written for the nation. kristopher received the note and called and left a message on the answering machine. for some reason the man then wrote to me to complain about christopher's message. [laughter] which is as follows. christopher hitchens calling you here. i get a lot of letters from uncultured idiots. [laughter] as i daresay you can imagine and i normally toss of them but i'm obliged to keep a list of letters that might be menacing or by people footer on stable or in critical condition could one way i decide this is resorts to a four-letter words and then sign and themselves and you have

made the cut. [laughter] i hope this is our last contact. [laughter] but might not be. goodbye. [laughter] indeed a good buy. thank you to the speakers. frances and alex, to all of you, to carroll and the kids and to our friend christopher for everything he gave us ps christopher into carroll's answering machine says you have reached hitchens and the blue, you know what to do. goodbye and thank you and as christopher would say nay you all strive

for a long stretch of the 20th century, this was the most scientific innovation institute in the world. we'd like to think that it all happened right here within this building. >> is it fair to think of bell labs as silicon valley? >> i think so. it did not happen here. it did all happened there. it just happened there a little bit before it happened there. i think that some of the things that you see now in the valley, i think they are the kind of freedoms given, engineers and researchers -- the small teams tackling problems within a larger system that could help support them with advice and

money and all sorts of other things. i think a lot of that does go back to that kind of formula, the near-term thinking and long-term thinking, as john said in the introduction. >> to understand the sense of all of the things that came out of bell labs in those glorious years, john mentioned those things in the museum, the transistor and the adder. rattle off some of the things that grew out of that period >> sure. bell labs began in 1925 is the research and development wing of the telephone company. a lot of my book is really focused on those postwar years, which really began in 1947 with the invention of the transistor. bill shepley came up with the

transistor, after that, a lot happened very quickly in quick succession. in 1954, there was a silicon valley solar panel. there were digital communications theories looking at coding and channel capacity. communications satellites were originally designed and began at bell labs. it wasn't echoed satellite, which was a passive satellite thomas sokol, and a massive to medications satellite. the munich operating system and the new language came out at bell labs, and they charged coupling device, which is a fundamental unit for digital photography and art cell phones. a lot of the temperature wages and semiconductors came out of bell labs, which are still essential to fiber optic

traditions as well. it was a pretty big risk. >> how did that happen to come out of the name? what is the significance of the name? how did it lead to the trail of all of those things you just described >> sure. a little bit of history would probably help. bell labs actually was formed after the phone company had been around for 45 years. at&t was a monopoly. they controlled 80 to 90% of the telephone service in the united states. they were a vertically integrated company. they owned one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, western electric, as well. in the early years, the beginning of the 20th century, western electric had its own engineering department and at&t had its own parent department.

there was a lot of competitiveness between the 22 of them. ideas would come out of bell labs -- ideas and development. they would be transferred to western electric and then manufacturing part of the company, and eventually they would be deployed by at&t, which controlled the longest lines as about 23 parts or whole of the operating telephone companies. >> some of the problems -- you write a lot about it being a problem with environment. i want to spend some time talking about that. give us some sense of the early problems they had to contend with it. >> everything. the early phones use batteries. there were no winners, there were no hangups. the amount of details that went into designing operator headsets for these women who were at

switchboards, teams of people would work on these problems for years. teams of chemists as i talked about in the book. other teams would work on the installation between the shooting and the cables. there was a level of detail and amount of work that was tremendous. the problems kept proliferating. >> was it the first time when science was deployed to solve those sorts of problems? >> it was. i mean, there was a very small research department at the beginning, and again, bell labs was not a huge group of people. there was about 10 to 15% working in basic research and applied research. the vast majority were working in development. they were looking at near-term, most of them are engineers and they were in the research