Big Bang Moment Festival
May 15, 1977
Origins of the Big Bang Moment Festival
Dr. Roy Lisker
August, 2012
In the winter of 1977 I was living on the Lower East Side of New York City. It was a year for celebrations, not the least of which being the Bi-Centennial on July 4th.
I've always been fascinated by the problems of reinvesting our Universe with anthropomorphic friendliness.It was not so long ago that Religion reinterpreted everything around us as being in our image, (or God's image, which is the same thing). The triumph of Science, in the fullness of its arrogance and brutality, robbed the universe that surrounds us of all its charm, replacing it by some insipid catch-phrases such as "fascination with science", the "wonders of nature", the "thrill of discovery" and so on.
One cannot, alas!,reverse the clock: Science is here to stay. By and large this is a good thing. One must agree that losing your research grant because it was discovered that you'd manufactured false data, is not nearly so bad as being burned at the stake because you mixed up a few words of the Lord's Prayer.
Yet it occurred to me that it might be possible to bridge the gap between the sacred sanctimonious sermons of the Old Order of religion, and the drab dour dictums of the New Order of science, by designing a celebrations that turned the scenarios of science into festivals. This would then be doing a service to the general population, and at the same time to science education.
The natural place to begin was, of course, with the creation myths. All peoples have invented myths about the origins of the universe, and one finds many festivals, celebrations and parties organized around them.
The creation myth promoted by modern science is called the "Hot Big Bang", usually in conjunction with "Cosmic Inflation". It's only a myth after all: a scientific myth is just a myth with a bit of experimental evidence added to support it . Even though it is claimed that this cosmic explosion happened billions of years ago, the actual duration of the explosion is said to have taken no more than 10 to the -14 seconds.
Not much to go on, perhaps, but the possible basis all the same for whipping up a celebration named the Big Bang Moment Festival! The event might be preceded by 10 to the minus 14th seconds of silent prayer for the well-being of the universe, followed by chants, poems, mantras, songs, lectures, parties!! Everything that a good festival should have. The first, and to date only, Big Bang Moment Festival, was held on May 15, 1977, on the steps of the Hayden Planetarium and Museum of Natural History in New York City. A month before the event I had prepared:
(1) A poster that was put up all over Manhattan's Lower East Side by myself and enthusiastic volunteers
(2) A pamphlet explaining the history of the concept, including an imaginative reconstruction of a conversation with the physicist George Gamov, its principal architect.
These are presented below:
(1) 
Big Bang Moment Poster May 15, 1977
(2) 
Pamphlet Cover Front
Pamphlet Cover Back
Big Bang Moment Pamphlet (docx)
Big Bang Moment Pamphlet (pdf)
Finding sponsors for the festival was not so easy. After getting his phone number from a physicist colleague, I called up Isaac Asimov, then living in a hotel (around the 50's and 6th Avenue I recall). Asimov treated me like a weirdo trying to promote some crank theory about the Big Bang and soon hung up.
However I'd also been given the address of his hotel. A few days later I went there and called him up from the reception counter on the lobby. His immediate panicked response was to ask me how I'd gotten his address. Although he didn't treat me like a crank this time, he refused to endorse the event.
Before going to visit the director of the Hayden Planetarium, I wrote Asimov a letter in which I asked him for help in finding a foundation to support the expenses of a Big Bang Moment festival. I'd gathered that he was a world authority on foundations!
A letter came back in a few days, pleading with me to leave him in peace because he'd recently had a heart attack! Okay, so that was the end of that.
My next visit was with the director of the Hayden Planetarium. I don't recall his name, and can't seem to find it on the Internet. This man was a good deal younger than Asimov, just as uptight but with absolutely no sense of humor. When he read on my poster that I'd dated the Big Bang as "5 minutes and 32.0011679438132 seconds after 1 PM on May 15, in the year 15,285,133,714 BC" , he stared at me and cried "Why that's ridiculous! That's not science!!"
He refused to endorse the festival, nor to allow the Hayden Planetarium to be associated with the festival. Nor would he give me permission to hold the gathering on the steps of the Museum of Natural History, where the Planetarium is located. I made the decision to hold it there anyway.
Down around Canal Street I located a shop that manufactured buttons and balloons for street fairs. The buttons were green, the balloons multi-colored. On them, in large letters, were printed the words "Big Bang Moment, May 15, 1977".
Between noon and 1 PM about 20 people showed up for the event. A security guard stood on the steps watching us: apparently he had been posted there by the director of the Hayden Planetarium to see that we didn't use the occasion to mount a public disturbance; but he allowed us to do our thing.
I collected some money for the buttons and balloons then passed them around . Following a few words of introduction, a stopwatch was produced. The countdown was initiated: at the precisely split second after 1:05 the multitudes punctured their balloons with the points of their buttons, and cried:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UNIVERSE!
Some poems were recited, a guitar played, and a good time had by all.
There have been no further Big Bang Moment festivals since then. I am ready at any time to set one up. It appears that, when it comes to performance art, I am destined to have as many one-night-stands as Casanova.