Joan Rivers, Robin Williams (and Wendell Berry)

So one of my younger friends asked the equivalent yesterday of, "Who the heck was Joan Rivers?" And I suppose I'm courting disaster by kind of asking the same thing. She was funny and made me laugh and certainly was a pioneer stand-up comic, still going strong at 81. All of that's admirable and I'm sorry she died, but my goodness --- the outpouring of coverage in media, actual, virtual, social and otherwise ...

Same thing happened a couple of weeks ago when Robin Williams killed himself, a sad occurrence, one to be lamented. But ....

I'm happy to report that Wendell Berry, roughly the same age as Rivers, is still alive and well and living in Kentucky. But I'm wondering what sort of coverage he'll get when, hopefully many years down the road, he shuffles off this mortal coil. 

Similar coverage for a pioneering stand-up philosopher and poet? Most likely not. Although it was a line from Berry rather than Rivers or Williams that was running through my head when I woke up this morning: "Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection."

So I tracked down the context to "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front." Here it is ---

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.