I have an awful feeling that two writer/media figures/heroes of mine, Gore Vidal and Christopher Hitchens, might not make it to the end of the year. Hitchens in battling severe esophageal cancer and recently lost his voice. Gore Vidal has been yellowing for some time, hasn’t emerged recently, and hasn’t moved under his own power in public for years.
To superstitiously ward this off, here’s an excerpt from an conversation between Hitchens and Anderson Cooper. CNN is rarely a place that goes deep, but I really like Cooper calling bullshit on the concept of “closure” when it comes to someone’s death, and Hitchens agreeing:
Gore Vidal was a commentator on a 3-hour documentary about Abraham Lincoln aired on the History Channel. Here he compares the severe acts of Lincoln (shutting down presses, suspension of habeas corpus) to the same acts, much less necessary, by George W. Bush.
One year since Christopher Hitchens died of esophegeal cancer on December 15, 2011. A thoughtful interview with Anderson Cooper on life and death. Cooper, part of the Vanderbilt family, was orphaned at a young age.