RIP Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff, inspirational (to me, anyway) columnist and commentator on culture and civil rights, dead at 91.

The Hentoff bibliotheca reads almost like an anthology: works by a jazz aficionado, a mystery writer, an eyewitness to history, an educational reformer, a political agitator, a foe of censors, a social critic. He was, indeed — like the jazz he loved — given to improvisations and permutations, a composer-performer who lived comfortably with his contradictions, though adversaries called him shallow and unscrupulous, and even his admirers sometimes found him infuriating, unrealistic and stubborn.

Very often the highlight of The Village Voice for me. He will be missed.