Tod Mesirow, television producer of shows like Richard Hammond’s Crash Course and Overhaulin’, visited the master of science fiction, Sir Arthur C Clarke, at his home in Sri Lanka in 1995 to interview the legendary author for a programme called Sightings. Mesirow writes in the Los Angeles Review of Books that while his crew was still setting up their cameras and lightning gear, Clarke excitedly demonstrated how his personal computer mimics HAL 9000, probably the writer’s most famous character.
A transcript of the interview between Mesirow and Clarke also appears in the latest issue of Los Angeles Review of Books. The first question Mesirow asks Clarke is why he found science fiction so appealing when he started writing in the 1930s. According to Clarke he found the genre fascinating because it appeals to people “with, you know, imagination”. Clarke also shared with Mesirow his view that rather than predict, science fiction extrapolates. “It just says, ‘What if?’ not what will be?”
Clarke passed away on 18 March 2008, apparently from respiratory failure, and thousands attended his funeral in Colombo four days later.
I HAD THE PLEASURE of visiting Arthur C. Clarke in his home in Sri Lanka in 1995 in my role as one of the directors of the Paramount Television syndicated series Sightings. The interview was for the story “Sci-Fi Prophets.” He lived in the capitol city Colombo, in a large stately house that he told me used to belong to The Vicar. He was warm, welcoming, and possessed a certain childlike glee. In one of those moments not captured on videotape, while the crew were setting up lights, he said to me, “Listen to this, you must listen,” with a pure, Christmas Eve’s level of anticipatory delight. He pressed several keys on his computer, shutting it down, which caused the unmistakable voice of HAL to say, “My mind is going, I can feel it.” Looking at me with pure joy he said, “Now listen to this,” and turned on the computer. As it did, we heard HAL again — “I’m a HAL 9000 computer, fully operational and ready to serve.” The creator of HAL enchanted by the steps being made for fiction to become fact.
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Image courtesy Astrobiology Magazine