“Let’s begin with what could have been an ending. In October, an editor asked me to prepare Courtney Love’s obituary. Nobody actually believed that Courtney Love had died, but many thought she was heading in that direction. If she had a fatal overdose or sudden heart failure, we needed to be ready. It was the first time, in 10 years of newspaper writing, that I had been asked to write an advance obituary for someone under 40.” —New York Times