Hitchens died late Thursday night after battling esophageal cancer. His weekly e-mails always read the same jaunty way: “Herewith. But there was no response from the Hitch. I befriended Christopher and his family in the fall of 2002 in the run up to that war. I came down to Washington from New York the night before to stay in his home so that we could set out early and get there at a leisurely place. It will include many of his columns for Vanity Fair, and will be released by Atlantic Books, which published his bestselling God Is Not Great, Hitch-22 and Arguably. In the pages of publications that once would have nothing to do with him—The New York Times (they didn’t like his anti-Zionism), The New Yorker (they didn’t like his strong opinions)—he was suddenly extolled for exciting copy as “The Contrarian,” “The Drinker,” The Partygoer.” The relentless comparisons to George Orwell made you wince, not because Hitchens didn’t deserve the extravagant praise—in many ways, he did—but because comparisons tend to diminish. READ MORE>> 
 
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 Hitchens’s Best ZingersChristopher Hitchens’s most valuable asset was his scathing wit. _______ 
 
 Andrew Sullivan's Greatest Hitchens Memories 
 
 Andrew remembers his dear friend and dedicates much of The Dish to celebrating the rich life of Christopher Hitchens, from the best tributes on the web, his favorite memory of him, his finest moments on TV, to an Auden poem Hitch once read to Andrew. I wondered how he would be able to read this book and write a review by the next morning. READ MORE 
 
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 David Corn, Washington bureau chief, Mother Jones 
 
 Here is how I came to hate Christopher Hitchens. Hate—as in envy. In the early 1980s, as a twentysomething trying to start a career as a crusading journalist, I was fortunate enough to share an office with Hitchens. What allowed him to live such a packed life was a trait that any of us would relish: He never forgot what he had ever read or learned. The phone would soon start ringing—with calls for Hitchens. We were both working at The Nation. He had come to it as part of an exchange program with the New Statesman, a British publication, and had elected to remain in the wonderful and wild New York City of the late disco era. I was an editorial grunt. The magazine was running short on workspace, and we were assigned a small, windowless office on a floor apart from the main offices. I’d tell the callers he was not yet available, and they would leave messages: “Tell him, that was a wonderful dinner last night.” Or, “Mick was so pleased to meet him.” Or, “We may all get together again this evening.” Within an hour or so, the nature of the messages would shift to cover plans for lunch that day: “Tell Christopher we’re all meeting at the Spanish place.” 
 
 About this time, Hitchens would saunter in. Did I mention this was in the days before computers? “Oh, yes, of course.” And as soon as she had departed, he’d open his desk, rummage through a drawer, and pull out an 800-page biography of the British prime minister. Instead of lunch, he delivered an extraordinary lecture on Tom Paine and constitutional law. But come the following day—after the calls about the previous night and the calls about the lunch to come had started—he’d trundle into the office, Pochoda would show up, and he’d hand her a 1,500-word essay. Read Slate’s complete collection of Christopher Hitchens' columns.
– There is no shortage of reflections on the life of Christopher Hitchens today, filled with memories and anecdotes that all seem to include the word "cocktail." Writing for Slate, David Corn recounts his "Hitchens tale," one that occurred some three decades ago while the two shared a tiny, windowless office at The Nation. It seems that Corn spent most of his day taking phone messages for Hitchens. In the morning, they'd be along the lines of "'Tell him, that was a wonderful dinner last night.' Or, 'Mick was so pleased to meet him.'" Then they'd shift to invitations for lunch, afternoon drinks, dinner, and an 11pm cocktail date, with Hitchens popping in just long enough to get those messages, then depart for said restaurant or watering hole. At some point, an editor would stop by to double-check that Hitchens would have, say, the review of a biography ready for her tomorrow. He'd say yes, then slip an 800-page book that clearly "had yet to be opened ... into his bag and say goodnight." What he somehow turned in the next day was—"you know the punch line—brilliant. Next, it was off to lunch." Corn writes that he learned many lessons from Hitchens, but "never how to function in quite this manner. What allowed him to live such a packed life was a trait that any of us would relish: He never forgot what he had ever read or learned." It's not a skill that could be taught, but watching Hitchens "practice his craft and thrust and parry with intellectuals almost as sharp as him was as valuable an experience as I could have imagined."