Ave Atque Vale, Gore

For the second time in the space of a month our hiatus from blogging is interrupted by the death of yet another irreplaceable artist whose passing we cannot let go without comment.

Gore Vidal — writer; public intellectual; notorious wit, provocateur, and celebrity figure — died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles from complications of pneumonia reports The New York Times. He was 86.

Mr. Vidal possessed an almost embarrassing abundance of gifts: handsome to the point of beautiful, his cutting acerbic wit and sharpness of intellect were wonders to behold on numerous occasions on television talk shows and on the lecture circuit. As if those weren't gifts sufficient, Mr. Vidal, one of this country's most prolific writers, was perhaps the most elegant writer this country has ever produced, a gift on display in his 25 novels and scads of essays too numerous to count, not to mention several plays and a number of TV dramas and Hollywood movies.

With Mr. Vidal's passing, the world has been deprived of one of its most accomplished artists.

Atque in perpetuum, Gore, ave atque vale.