Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot
Touching story and thoughts from John Gruber:
After the WWDC keynote four months ago, I saw Steve, up close. He looked old. Not old in a way that could be measured in years or even decades, but impossibly old. Not tired, but weary; not ill or unwell, but rather, somehow, ancient. But not his eyes. His eyes were young and bright, their weapons-grade intensity intact. His sweater was well-worn, his jeans frayed at the cuffs. But the thing that struck me were his shoes, those famous gray New Balance 991s. They too were well-worn. But also this: fresh bright green grass stains all over the heels. Those grass stains filled my mind with questions. How did he get them? When? They looked fresh, two, three days old, at the most. Apple keynote preparation is notoriously and unsurprisingly intense. But not so intense, those stains suggested, as to consume the entirety of Jobs’s days. There is no grass in Moscone West.