RIP: Christopher Hitchens

I’m sorry to hear about the death of Christopher Hitchens. I was a big fan. He lived a few blocks from me and a few years ago, I ran into him. Here was my post from that experience.

The Hitch and I

So I was walking down Connecticut Avenue today, and I spotted a man in a bookstore who looked strangely familiar.

I went in and asked, “excuse me, sir, are you Christopher Hitchens?” The man said, coyly, “who wants to know?” I’m assuming that’s an answer generally given by correctly identified parties. Also, he had a British accent. Yep, it was Hitch. So I tried to mumble something clever about being with George Galloway’s office.

We chatted for a bit, as I did my best not to come off as Crazed Stalker Guy. Let’s face it: Even when I try to look threatening, it doesn’t come off too well. My coolness must have worked because as Hitchens was leaving the store, he asked if I was going uphill. I wasn’t but said yes anyway, and we chatted a little more.

I was I could say that we had some fancy highbrow conversation, but it wasn’t that impressive. I mentioned that I had just finished Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. He thanked me for reminding him that he had been asked to review the book. Those Brits, they have such good manners.

It turns out that we’re both fans of Steyn. Hitchens said that he’s impressed with the amount of writing Steyn does, which I could imagine most people saying of him. Funny, I thought all these guys knew each other, but Hitchens said he doesn’t recall ever meeting Steyn, although he said that Steyn claims that they had once met.

I told him that I liked Steyn’s book, but found it a bit alarmist. He said that in the case of Islamism, alarmism is justified. Then we reached his building, said our “good days” and that was it.

Posted by on December 16th, 2011 at 12:15 am


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