Hitchen's is Gone

I see at various Internet sites he is now being Canonized.

Personally, he didn't appeal to me, did not care for him, or at least what he said. Still, sorry to read of how he went, not a pretty way to exit.

Some of the obits do mention that he tended to be an asshole, but that is not a deal killer for me.

He is one of the top five that I would have listed under the heading "people you would like to share a meal or some drinks with"

Writer, philosopher, gadfly, and Slate contributor Chrisopher Hitchens died on Thursday of complications from esophageal cancer. While drinking and smoking may have contributed to his untimely passing, Hitchens didn’t regret either habit: “Writing is what’s important to me, and anything that helps me do that—or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation—is worth it to me.”

The last time I saw him, about a week before his diagnosis of esophageal cancer, was at a book party (at the same home), where a small group of us were smoking and talking by candlelight under a tree. It was one of those magical times when you want to freeze time and preserve the moment. (Though I quit smoking 28 years ago, I still find smokers to be the most interesting people at a party and often join in solidarity.) I have no idea what we were discussing, but I do remember that Hitchens declined to share a pink, gold-filtered Nat Sherman he wanted to try, saying he’d inhale the whole thing in a single drag. He did.

Hitchens always appeared to me as a popularizer rather than a great or original thinker, at least in the field of religion.