Oh MY lands– I just saw Chris Hitchens!

I was at Politics and Prose today. One of my former bosses, Peter,  invited me to a book reading/ signing by this NYT science journalist, Natalie Angier. We got there about 20 minutes early and he was quizzing the cashier about when the event would begin.

Meanwhile, who should I see about 3 feet away but Christopher Hitchens! Him of the Mother-Teresa-bashing, Iraq-war-supporting, religious-right hating fame! I was three feet away from his pasty-faced glory and I so badly wanted to go up to him and basically say “Chris! I loved your diatribe on Mother Teresa! Also: thanks for hating on Hannity! ” But I didn’t. I was too tongue-tied.

Turns out, however, that Peter lived in an apartment once inhabited by Hitchens, so he went up and had a brief chat with him. I just hung back and watched him, and internally shrieked, much in the way that Tom Cruise fans likely behave. Not that I adore Hitchens. He’s a pompous ass. But he’s an ass to some of the more abhorrent people out there, and that makes him just fine with me.

It’s times like these that I wish I owned a camera phone. In lieu of that, I present you with this video of him. He looks just as greasy in person, as he is on this video, but he’s so quintessentially English, what with the cool, composed humor. In his case, he’s greasy and breezy.

[youtube=[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkAPaEMwyKU]