The obituaries for John Perry Barlow are stacking up on the Apple in the dining room. What a great man!

7 February 2018

John Perry Barlow—a man who could talk to anyone. Today the tech person looked on her Apple and watched the notices come in, fast, as news got around.
The New Yorker of 27 March 2017 (I saw a week early on the Internet) had a story about a lad named Evan who has things in his backpack no one should have to carry. One is the 1000 page, more or less, "Herman Melville, Volume I." This was fun for a few hours. (When the New Yorker came, and I got to check with Vittorio Lodato who had just arrived in Seattle for a book event and agreed that it was a hoot.) Then on that same 20 March 2017 my daughter drove home from San Francisco after her turn with the ailing John Perry Barlow during which he and I had talked on the phone about Gene Autry and Willie Nelson and American Morse and tying messages on the Y stick so you did not tear off the brakeman's arm, and the Internet. She turned on something called Podcast and Lodato came on reading "Herman Melville, Volume I." She was startled, but I had just told her about it, and she kept control of the Saab that used to live in Morro Bay. At least I got to tell John Perry Barlow about how the Internet had changed life for me during the last 15 years, after "Herman Melville, Volume II." He had no idea, of course, about the Internet. What a remarkable man! My daughter said today they have him dressed up as a cowboy for the funeral. Oh, his Wyoming days. And who else could I talk to about Gene Autry? And can you imagine a man who variously accomplished that the obituary notices don't all begin with "lyricist for the Grateful Dead." Someone here compares him to Jay Leyda, powerful in very different fields. He had a hard last few years, Barlow did. A great man. Now there is no one I will ever talk to about Gene Autry and Willie Nelson and American Morse and how you tie messages on the Y so the brakeman does not tear off his arm, and also the Internet. A great champion of freedom of the Internet, Barlow was.