Current Universe of Christopher Hitchens
Don’t look at me as if I’m dumb, either. I’m a member of the most elite one percent of the English quality. Handle with care. Contents under pressure.1
Chrisopher Hitchens, the Cynical Ex-Hipster
Look at them.
They walk around with an air of superiority and the Urban Outfitters T-shirts to match. It’s that sort of insipid cultural weakness that has allowed them to inch their way through life. They are apologists to popular culture! I should be justified in throttling them with their white belts.
Only Galileo at the court of the Holy Office in Siena had to endure as much tautological arrogance that I bear witness to every day as I walk through the hordes to get a simple vodka tonic. And even then he never had to watch people with such bad dental hygiene. I mean, really. The Romans were at least able to fashion a simple dentifrice out of lamb urine now and again. Of course this all goes back before the Holy Empire when the Etruscans still believed in an all-seeing noble class as opposed to religious invective. But I digress.
Christopher Hitchens in a World of Christopher Hitchenses
Christopher Hitchens #1: I’d like to start off this week’s episode of “The Hitchens Group” with a quote by Hitchens #7524 in reference to Iraq; “There will be no war—there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.” My question is: How much would you have to eat to vomit enough at this sort of delusional claptrap?
Christopher Hitchens #2: Well, Kahleed Alzawi wrote in his newest book that there are three different distinctions in the history of leftist dictatorial pandering—
Christopher Hitchens #3: Oh please, listen to you insufferable, solipsistic, demonstrative cretins blather on with historical invective like you were Will Durant opening an art gallery.
Christopher Hitchens #4: You’d think they could depend on the stench of bourbon alone to dialectically overpower their foes.
Christopher Hitchens #1: Is that right? Well, you may dally about with a trenchant witticism now and again, but otherwise you seem to be randomly perusing the thesaurus for obscure prolixity.
Christophjer Hitchens #4: And you seem to be perusing the destitute for fashion tips.
Christopher Hitchens #3: Really, must you both subject us to these tirades of opprobrium?
Christopher Hitchens #2: Well, even Kipling at his height once wrote about the scourge on the nonplussed by the vain. Though to be fair, he was directing it at the call for isolationism in Britain surrounding the Great War. And his views changed substantially after the Battle of Loos when his son died and he said, “If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied.” And it is because of this that I must object to the classification of his poetry as pure imperialist prose.
Christopher Hitchens #1: What rambling nonsense!
Christopher Hitchens #3: Need I point out that your speech has the substantial content of a Twizzler. If you want to discuss the merits of British poetry around the turn of the century, we can dignify the discourse with what the Andalusians referred to as “morisco,” or the pulling of faces. It’s quite a fascinating idea and I remember discovering it on a trip around Spain five years ago—
Christopher Hitchens #1: KIPLING IS PURE RUBBISH! And by rubbish I mean the qualification of language at a level below what is normally reserved for illiterate sailors. The reason goes back to cultural norms initiated by the dominant males in every subculture. There were originally three types of discourse among tribe members in the Indian Subcontinent; one, the cultural platitudes…[other Hitchenses slowly nod off].
Christopher Hitchens as a Children’s Book Reviewer
If you want your children to subsist on a diet of sanctimonious tripe for their entire youthful existence, then The Little Engine That Could may be the perfect literary bouillabaisse for them to choke on. Overflowing with the patronizing language of sub-pathetic individualism, the book describes a locomotive attempting a previously unaccomplished ascent. If our knowledge of the hill’s difficulty is a priori, then why has a train rail been constructed along such a monumental topography? The presumptive logical dissonance is too much to handle. In the end the train makes it to the top with all of the glad-handing self-satisfaction of Bill Clinton after raping an intern.2
Christopher Hitchens as 1980s Professional Wrestler
Now. If you’ve all been listening you’ve just heard the boasts of one Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake and how he so eloquently details how I will be “crushed.” Up until now, I have resisted all urges to assume the mantle of generalship and to describe how I personally will fight him, but I can no longer hold my anger back. There are a number of reasons for this. First, he makes the claim that he will be cutting my hair at the end of the match as some form of ritualistic dominance. Not so. Instead I portend a future outcome where I, the more magnanimous of soothsayers in this arena tonight, will instead take it upon myself to appropriate his time and countenance by rambling on, thus draining his will and his perspicacity. Then, maybe through the use of a full nelson or flying-elbow bone-crusher, I will accomplish the feat I came here to do with time to spare.
Christopher Hitchens as a Stand-Up Comedian in Branson, Mo.
Christopher Hitchens: Don’t know if you folks know this or not, but I’ve had a problem with spirits for some time. I can’t understand how I didn’t see the portending signs. Oh, that’s right, I happened to have been indulging in those same alcoholic beverages during the same period of recollection and thus was unable to gauge my alcoholism.3
Audience Member #1: Get off the stage!
Christopher Hitchens: Slag off. This audience seems to have their manners left behind at the nearest Wal-Mart.
Audience Member #1: Hey, you a man or what?
Christopher Hitchens: Fuck off.
Audience Member #1: I’m not foolin.’ Are you a man?
Christopher Hitchens: I can certainly attest that I am 100 percent male, of the finest British weave. And you sir, wouldn’t know a joke if it came served on a bed of lettuce with sauce béarnaise.4}
Audience Member #1: Then why do you talk like a bitch?
Christopher Hitchens: Why you must respond in such a feline way, I don’t know, but I assure you my humor is purely masculine with its undertones of aggression. Like Nietzsche meant when he described a witticism as an epitaph on the death of a feeling.
Audience Member #1: Was that supposed to be a joke?
Audience Member #2: That sounds like gay poetry.
Audience Member #1: Like, “Forsooth yonder window doth glowest bright.”
Christopher Hitchens: Look, I am the comedian here. The microphone happens to be in my hand. You are the audience and are therefore have to affect not to be the potentates.
Audience Member #2: That’s it. I did not miss out on Ray Stevens to have some homosexual poet from France call me a potato.
Confederacy of Hitchens
“In addition to my constant iconoclasm, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment of the flaws of modern liberalism. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”
“Hitchens makes delicious cheese dips,” Hitchens’s mother said.
