Hitchens on CSPAN on Kissinger 

(from the Amis Discussion Board)

Topic:	Hitchens (1 of 2), Read 35 times
Conf:	Martin Amis Discussion Web
From:	DuncanThis dfthistle@aol.com
Date:	Monday, July 30, 2001 11:30 AM

Clicking through the cable offerings
yesterday, I landed on CSPAN's Book Events to
see the now alarmingly obese Christopher
Hitchens flogging his latest offering, The
Trial Of Henry Kissinger, before a nearly
empty house somewhere in America.
The tiny (well, relatively), lip-lined
orifice in the great lower hemisphere of the
Hitch's face persisted with its litany of the
former Secretary of State's international
crimes. Kissinger’s name, I am sure, will now
be placed next to those of Hitler, Stalin,
and Pol Pot, a sort of Shemp to the Moe,
Larry and Curly of the world’s genocidal
maniacs. Actually, Hitchens seems to have
done his homework, and makes a good case
against Kissinger. But you know, genocide and
other crimes against humanity don’t present
one discussing such topics with
opportunities to display much wit and humor,
so there was none of either; the Hitch is
deadly serious about seriously deadly types
like Henry Kissinger.

The hilarity ensued next, as CSPAN
immediately followed Hitchens’
Kissinger-flaying with a video-taped hour of
Kissinger himself keynoting before The
Washington History Conference (or
something..). Henry Kissinger, crimes against
humanity notwithstanding, is an engaging
extemporaneous speaker (no notes),
regularly prodding the standing-room-only
crowd into gales of laughter. The
juxtaposition of the humorless Hitchens
before the woefully empty folding chairs and
the humorous Henry K. in the plush and
packed auditorium in this manner struck me as
VERY Tull/Gwynn... I applaud CSPAN’s
scheduling for that.

Hitchens, like Amis, now resides in America,
England being ‘over’, as Mart likes to say on
occasion, and is still resolutely a Man Of
The Left, or more precisely a Man Of the OLD
Left, a fact proven by the “old school”
fashion/tonsorial insouciance he displayed on
the several occasions I’ve seen him on the
tube recently. The uncombed and oily-faced
Hitchens (pores no doubt frantically trying
to dump some of the doughnut grease he
consumed backstage) on CSPAN displayed a sort
of
post-70’s-I’m-Left-but-am-making-a-concession
-to-decorum-here look: jeans, rumpled grey
business jacket and black shirt, the collar
tabs of which, unencumbered by a tie, were
free to splay like the ears of a tired draft
mule across the lapels of his forlorn
jacket... The other occasion was his recent
appearance on Bill Mahr’s Politically
Incorrect where Hitchens was at his Old
School Best: sitting there in his acre of
faded denim, the untucked shirt’s proportions
allowed it to tent over the better-unimagined
Jabba-the-Hut shape underneath, his feet
stuffed into scuffed and curled Adidas. As
much as the other ‘contestants’ with their
ultra-now Ricky Martin-esque v-necked knit
shirts (white t underneath), clunky black
shoes, buzz cuts, uber-nerd glasses, bulging
pecs and six-pack abs displayed their total
in-tune-with-the-fashion-industry’s-latest-ed
ict look, Hitch’s get up was all hayseed ‘n
hirsuit early 70’s markers.

His politics being his stock-in-trade,
Hitchens sure looks the part. One wonders
about his former running buddy Mart and where
his politics might be at the moment. Amis
certainly doesn’t wear his indicators, as
Hitchens does, preferring a kind of Old Guy
(forget the buzz-cut, the pecs and abs)
Armani elegance, which I suppose, says
something.
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Topic:	Hitchens vs Mart on the runway (2 of 2), Read 19 times
Conf:	Martin Amis Discussion Web
From:	jules jwells7908@aol.com
Date:	Monday, July 30, 2001 05:25 PM

Speaking of Mart's sartorial splendor or lack
of, I cannot forget the suit spun from a
shade of green- that i just want to forget-
fabric that Mart's sported one evening we met
for dinner in LA.( i am willing to wager
loads it was a man-made blend -it looked
wash'n'wear, but i doubt he did-and i really
do believe he wore it during his entire book
tour.)

Look, I don't suggest i'm a fashion queen
myself (I dress simply enough) but get it
right, Mart ain't no Armani model. (And from
the looks of the pics of Isabel that Gooch
has posted here on MAD, she ain't either)
Way back when i met him, Martin wore jeans
and a cuffed white dress shirt. I don't think
he really thought much about it, except to
hide his behind.

As for poor Chris, he has long been
recognized as alcoholic and having had bouts
with the bottle myself -in the past-where
fortunately, I wasn't on the tube-I can only
feel sorry for the bloke.