Arthur C. Clarke Talks With The Onion

sootman writes "The Onion has an interview with Arthur C. Clarke in this week's issue. My favorite line: 'The asteroid [named after me] is number four thousand and something, and the International Astronomical Federation, which deals with these sorts of things and numbered it, apologized to me because number 2001 wasn't available, having been given to somebody named "A. Einstein."'" Reader ronys point out that Despite the source, the interview is not a spoof or satire."

Comments

Author's blog

[Anonymous Coward]

The interviewer's blog can be found here, for what it's worth.

Re:Isn't he getting old?

[iamplupp]

he was born december 16, 1917

The 2,200 Acre Thousand Year Old Oregonian Fungus

[blorg]

Incidentally, have you heard about the discovery of the largest living creature on Earth? Would you believe it's two or three miles across, and probably several thousand years old, and still growing? It's this fungus that's eating Oregon. It's a single creature. I'm not quite sure how that's determined.

I did a double take on this one too, but he seems to have his facts straight.

Re:gotta agree

[rsidd]

I almost wondered: did I miss a day of NASA releases where they casually announced that 'Oh, by the way... there's stuff growing on Mars'. I mean, I suppose it's possible that he was referring to debris that resembles decayed plant matter.

I think he's talking about these images.

Onion A.V. Club Interview Collection

[FilmJr]

This may well have already been mentioned but... The Onion A.V. Club (the serious side of the operation) published a collection of interviews similar to the Arthur Clarke one. Book is called THE TENACITY OF A COCKROACH and includes conversations with other pop culture movers & shakers like Harlan Ellison, Chuck Jones, and George Romero. Jr.

A few real Arthur C. Clarke Quotations

[stuffduff]

CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong.

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.