Who are we? We are our stories.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Ode to Christopher Hitchens

 "... a whiff of well-hung grouse                        ... lying face down in his own bullshit".

Christopher Hitchens has esophageal cancer and his prognosis is not good. As he puts it:
        "I’m dying. Everybody is, but the process has suddenly accelerated on me."

I've read his essays for years, I have one of his books, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, and his new book, Hitch-22: A Memoir is on my short list. Some people are of the opinion that Hitchens's philosophy has moved from the left to the right. I think not. I think he is by nature a contrarian gadfly. He's a label shifter that forces people to think. From the London Review of Books:
"Hitchens’s strong, almost gamey opinions produce a whiff of well-hung grouse in the reactions he provokes, and it tends to linger in the house. Stefan Collini, for the opposition, imagines Hitchens ‘as twilight gathers and the fields fall silent, lying face down in his own bullshit’."

I salute you Christopher
I salute your life
How you played the dice
Your words will live in us
Timelessly insane
Explosive, fresh and wise
Some will just forget
Some will close their eyes
Some will turn the tide

(IAMX might have waited until he was dead to plant him.)


*beep*  "Anyone with news of fame or money is welcome to leave their number after the tone."  *beep*. 

3 comments:

Old Toad said...

I know you're not a great fan of Charlie Rose but he's done several interesting interviews with Mr. Hitchens. Here's a link to the last one I watched on my very small Toadly TV set:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11168

Gunnar Berg said...

Thanks.

Mr.Rose has a tendency to believe that because someone is high in the business world they are wise and are interesting interviews. They seldom are either.

Anonymous said...

i used to really enjoy the debates between CH and Dinesh D'Souza. I know that might sound weird coming from me, but I did.

mw