Posted on 02/15/2022 3:17:46 PM PST by nickcarraway
P.J. O’Rourke, who has died at the age of 74, once hosted a small New Year’s party at his apartment in Washington. The year was 1990. He’d just returned from Germany, where he had covered the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I expressed my sorrow that I hadn’t been there to see it. He went into his bedroom and returned with a small tin of mints. He’d emptied it — and he’d put a shard of the wall he’d pickaxed himself with his own hands inside it.
“Happy New Year,” he said. That was P.J. Though he and I liked each other, we weren’t intimates. And yet he gave me something of inestimable value just because he could.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
This loss hurts. I just ordered 4 of his books and had them sent to a good younger friend’s house.
Holidays in Hell
Republican Party Reptile
Parliament of Whores
All the Troubles in the World
Hope she enjoys them as much as I when I was in college. I need to read his stuff again myself. :(
Way sorry. He knew how to stick it to the Left . . . with humor.
I was really sad to learn this. I’ll have to re-read “Holidays in Hell” and have a few drinks!
The world’s greatest satirist was Free Republic’s own Firehat. All others paled in comparison. Firehat was to satire what HP Lovecraft was to horror.
I was there and actually entered East Berlin in 1982, just before the wall came down as well. It was a stark reminder of what this country is headed for if it doesn’t change its ways. I went into a shoe store, that had about 100 pairs of shoes on the shelves with a line around the corner to get in before the shoes ran out. Of course, the price was very cheap. Also, the parking areas were filled with cheap Russian imports, all the same model, with about 3 or 4 different colors. A guy told me that he had to be on a list for 4 years just for the right to buy one of these “imports”. Things were relatively cheap, but no one had any stock to sell, of anything. I also got a piece of the wall a few months later. Anyone that touts the ‘benefit’ of socialism should spend some time in these hell holes to see how it really works. Of course what East Berlin had an abundance of in that day were government owned “Schwimmhalles”, which were free so everyone became a great swimmer.
He was a poster here?
“Age and guile beat youth and a bad haircut.” Loved that quote even when I was more youthful.
Very big loss.
How sad. Very clever man.
I’m not sure how to post this article by PJ:”High Speed Performance Characteristics of Pickup Trucks”.
This is the link:
https://truckinrod.tripod.com/fun.htm
Thanks; he was good. Sorry I missed that time period here on FR.
Another brilliant voice silenced.
And fat Michael Moore continues to waste oxygen.
Leftys with Platinum health plans tend to go a LONG time.
John Derbyshire would like that.
I’m more than sorrowful to read this news. This is kind of hitting like a kick in the stomach. I’ve adored PJ for decades. Rest in peace and God bless his eternal soul.
Well, he invented the Munsters. That’s quite something.
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