Hitch-62: Christopher Hitchens, the best-selling/hard-partying polemicist and Washington author, died yesterday in Houston, Vanity Fair announced. He had Stage 4 esophageal cancer. Already tributes are pouring in: No surprise, given that Hitchens closely documented his own decline in health in essays and interviews; he was clearly near the end. Here’s Christopher Buckley‘s sendoff. I found one by Andrew Sullivan—-another public intellectual and U.K. immigrant who settled in D.C.—-to be especially touching.

Their Baby Does K All Day: In the Post, Chris Richards has a sweet profile of Benoit & Sergio, the D.C.-born dance-pop duo who—-if their single on DFA didn’t convince you—-are clearly destined for big things. When the group formed, member Benjamin Myers was teaching lit at a local prep school: “All the kids at St. Albans found out about the fact that I made music,” he tells Richards. “They were singing ‘Full Grown Man’in the halls. I was stressed about it, singing about cocaine when you’re supposed to be a role model.” In this week’s City Paper, Ally Schweitzer expands on some earlier thoughts about Benoit & Sergio. Back in January, I wrote about one of their best songs in One Track Mind.

Morning Wreckage: A controversial Sackler Gallery exhibit of artifacts from a shipwreck has been canceled, the Post reports, after being criticized because its material was excavated by a commercial company and not scholars. The Smithsonian is now seeking permission from the Indonesian government to re-excavate the site.

Today on Arts Desk: THE SLEIGHER. And Marcus J. Moore’s top hip-hop albums of the year.