A Farewell to Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens, the polarizing author and essayist, died on Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston due to complications of esophageal cancer. He was 62. I didn’t agree with everything he wrote about in his lifetime, but I admired his stand as an atheist in a world which places so much emphasis on religion.

I thought he was brilliant.

While I was looking through the web for things about Hitchens, I found this 45 minute or so video called Stephen Fry and Friends on the life, loves and hates of Christopher Hitchens. This is really a special piece, recorded shortly before his death, and says more than I can:

1984: Zappa lectures at the Palace of Fine Art in San Francisco

From YouTube:
Frank talks about his upcoming release, his opinion on the synclavier and how he uses it to compose music . He talks with Charles Amirkhanian about his music and there is a small read done by Calvin the editor of the Pink Section of the San Francisco Chronicle about a small puppet show play written by Frank called “Fransesco” from 39.03 mins.

Enjoy that? Here’s today’s Music Piece:

From the album Francesco Zappa here’s Frank on the Synclavier doing Opus 1, No.4, 2Nd Movement Allegro:

I started thinking about Old Greenbelt, MD, this morning…

… where we lived when we first came down to the mid-Atlantic area because I was then working for CSC. While the row townhouses in Old Greenbelt are not terrifically stylish, they are small and comfy and we really enjoyed living there. You are within walking distance to stores and movies and community theatre, and it’s a short drive to large supermarkets, malls and the DC subway.

We sold our townhouse when we went to Hagerstown and then to Shepherdstown.

This morning I woke up missing being in Old Greenbelt. Turns out that Elly misses being there to, so, tentatively, we are putting it on our househunting/retirement list and will be exploring the possibility.

Who knows?