Stephen Hawking: "Live" in Concert

In April of 2007, famed physicist Stephen Hawking experienced weightless in a zero-gravity environment aboard an aircraft designed by British tycoon Sir Richard Branson. So he explained to a packed audience of some four thousand plus in Pasadena's new (and architecturally dreadful) convention center, this was a special thrill for someone living with a disability as he does.

Although it might seem churlish to focus on his disability in offering a review of last night's talk on whether or not we should pursue further manned space flights, two factors make it almost inescapable. First was the extremely general and bland nature of the talk. His basic line was that space-race of the 1960s was a spectacular moment that captured the public imagination and inspired many young people to become scientists. To reap the same kind of off-shoot benefits that came from that project, what we need now are further manned missions deep into space and he then proceeded to elaborate what likely targets of those missions might be (the moon, Mars, etc.). Fair enough; but, also sufficiently pedestrian stuff that it could have been found in—and indeed sounded quite a bit like—programs announced early in the first term of George W. Bush. So, the talk simply didn't seem to be saying all that much.

Secondly, the presentation last night made Hawking body into the stuff of theatrical spectacle. After a series of introductions, he was wheeled down the center of this cavernous "ballroom"-cum-airplane-hangar to nothing less than the theme from 2001! Taking a cue from that film's soundtrack, we were then treated to Strauss' Blue Danube waltz as his wheelchair was pushed up a snaking ramp onto the stage. When finally placed in position near the podium, Hawking sat motionless (as he did for the entirety of the event) and the audience sat in hushed silence with the image of his tiny, contorted frame projected on the Jumbotron above his head.

Minutes passed and nothing happened.

Hawking's attendant returned and fiddled with some wires on his wheelchair. Still nothing.

Finally, what seemed like ten minutes of awkward silence, a faint mechanical voice trickled out of the public address system: "Can you hear me?" This address brought an appreciative, revealed ovation from the crowd and we proceeded to hear the brief, general talk from this great scientist who, nonetheless, remained unmoving - - even as if sleeping - - through the event. Apparently, so a subsequent speaker explained, Hawking's wheelchair is fitted with both a computer screen with a flashing cursor and an infrared sensor, which is able to detect tiny motions of his right cheek. So, by moving his cheek, he is able to pick out characters and form sentences. Thus, when he gives a speech, he is "releasing" these pre-programmed passages line by line to be read out by the voice synthesizer.



It is hard not to marvel at this discrepancy between the man's tortured body and his active, brilliant mind. But, it was also hard for Old Ken not to be reminded of Clifford Chatterley in D.H. Lawrence's famous novel. Blown to pieces in World War I, Sir Clifford returns to the English Midlands where he prowls his baronial keep in a motorized wheel-chair. Frustrated in his artistic efforts as a novelist, Clifford regains his shattered masculinity through an embrace of industrial progress and scientific improvement of the local collieries.

What's the implied by the analogy? Not that there is some strong correlation between the embrace of science and the torment of the human body, I hope? No, but perhaps that, despite best intentions, it was hard for this listener at least not to collapse the content of the speech and the motionless, seemingly-absent speaker "speaking" into one another.