You can’t be on the Internet tonight and not be aware that Steve Jobs has died. That hit me bleakly–less because I’m a user of Apple products (Macbook and iPhone and iPad, yo), and more just because I’m a cancer survivor. And even though I didn’t know Mr. Jobs as a human being, his work nonetheless has had a formative effect on my life the last several years. I cannot help but feel for the loss of someone who’s touched my life like that.
I played “Da Slockit Light” for him tonight–by reading the sheet music for it out of the TunePal app on my iPad, which has become a critical tool for my session practice.
And after I did that, I fired up Le Vent du Nord’s “Lanlaire” on my iPhone, and listened hard via the earbuds to try to pick out the first few measures of Olivier Demers’ fiddle solo. Because, again, music, and music delivered to me on a device that wouldn’t have existed–certainly not in its current known forms, anyway–without Steve Jobs.
And I’ve raised a glass to him tonight: Ardbeg, mixed with Blenheim spicy ginger ale.
RIP, Mr. Jobs. Thanks for all you did, sir.
Raising a glass in honor
Today I read this article on CNN.com about a woman named Mississippi Winn, the oldest known African-American, passing away at the age of 113.
And I have got to say, I am in awe of that number. Not to mention the various bits about Miss Winn’s life the article shares–how she never married, how her father was born in 1844 and her mother in 1860, and how they could have possibly actually remembered slavery, only she never, ever talked about that. She’d always duck the topic.
She never learned to drive, either, and apparently also lived in Seattle for a while!
She lived through the entire 20th century, and I can only begin to imagine how watching the world change as much as it did during that century must have seemed to her.
113 was an awesome run, Miss Winn, and I hope you rest well. You’ve earned it.