I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to report that J.D. Salinger died this week, aged 91, of natural causes. I don’t want to talk about his inestimable impact on generations of readers, or his influence on generations of writers (including poor little advertising writers like me). I don’t want to riff on how famously reclusive he was, on the pilgrimages to his home made by fans and seekers and reporters, on the lawsuits and scandals that threatened the privacy he fought to maintain. And I don’t want to namedrop Holden, or Seymour, or Franny and Zooey, or any of the other characters he brought to intimate life with his singular talent.

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Are you all a-dither with excitement? Okay, unless you’re an Apple fanboy, or a tech geek, or you work at ad agency/design shop like ours, you’re probably not biting your nails in suspense (as we are) over the announcement due out of Cupertino next Wednesday, when the long-awaited confirmation of Apple’s much-rumored tablet is expected. Frankly, given the abundance of Apple-related posts on this blog in the past (again, a function of our industry’s traditional reliance on Mac hardware), it’s a minor miracle and evidence of considerable restraint that we’ve waited this long to weigh in on the tablet issue. Because the net has been swirling for months about just what Mr. Steve Jobs has up his sleeve. You see, reports of an Apple tablet have circulated literally for years, but in the last six months or so the rumor mill has ratcheted up to a fever pitch, as unconfirmed source after unconfirmed source have said that this time it’s real, and it’s coming soon. And with Apple’s recent invite to a special unveiling next week (shown above), everyone in the know believes the time has come.

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Look in your local paper’s business section, and what do you see? Announcements of new projects, new hires, new expansions. It’s all about growing and acquiring and branching out. Which is perfectly understandable. What’s new is, after all, news.

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