At Apple​.com today is an obit­uary. It is absolutely done in the Apple style; it’s simple, it’s graph­i­cally arresting — and it is also star­tling, almost unbe­liev­able. Steve Jobs is dead. When I heard the news that he had stepped down, I was almost in tears, some­thing my mother couldn’t under­stand. She was happy for him; he’d worked so hard for so long, she wished him a happy retire­ment. That wasn’t my first thought; my first thought was: he’s dying, and he knows it; he liter­ally can’t run the company any more. Why was that my first thought? Because it’s exactly the way I’ll retire from writing. Writing is my job, but it’s also my obses­sion, my compul­sion, my avoca­tion. I will stop when they pry my rigor-clenched … Continue reading →