Hitchens was never going to be a conventional journalist. But he didn’t just want to raise hell; he wanted to smell its stink firsthand.

Simon Schama remembers his friend Christopher Hitchens.

It started with Andrew Sullivan asking Hitchens to to write a letter to the Immigration Services sponsoring me to finally become a permanent resident of the United States.

Christopher Hitchens emailed:

Safely in the US mail. I managed to say that your faith had allowed you to extend a warm hand to so many of your fellow men, and then remolded that bit to make it sound a touch less close to the heart’s desire.    

Brunch? Sunday? Smooch Hitch

Andrew Sullivan responded:

lol. many many many thanks. an honor. brunch sounds great. we tend not to be conscious till around noon, tho. xx a 

Hitchens replied:

Dearest Andrew I always think of Sunday lunch as beginning at about 2.30 (“a lavish and ruminative feast”, as Waugh says about elevenses). Want to come here?

Christopher Hitchens, 1949 - 2011

vanityfair:

Without a doubt, this is our favorite freewheeling photograph of the late, great Christopher Hitchens, whose passing we can barely comprehend. So we turn to the words of Graydon Carter, who writes of this image in his touching memoriam:

“I once sent him out on a mission to break the most niggling laws still on the books in New York City. One such decree forbade riding a bicycle with your feet off the pedals. The photograph that ran with the column, of Christopher sailing a small bike through Central Park with his legs in the air, looked like something out of the Moscow Circus.”

Photograph by Christian Witkin.

(via latimes)