The core rhythm, a loop that Apple re-creates live on a metal percussion instrument, began as her banging with scissors on the things that sit on her desk at home.

NEWYORKER: Revelation Road

She has a gallon of water on her desk at work. ("I'm constantly going to the bathroom, " she says.) She's given up French fries and French bread, possibly her two biggest diet downfalls, although she gives herself permission to splurge during one meal a week.

CNN: Mom's last words inspire 85-pound loss

Braswell has a Mac and a PC on her desk and keeps an Amiga 1200 warm at home.

CNN: Surfing Silicon Valley: Say yes to games on the Mac!

Soon Carla Devade and Marc Devade will be together, and she will shout, and he will shout, and she will go to the bedroom and pick up a novel, any one of the many that are lying on her bedside table, and he will sit at his desk and try to write but fail.

NEWYORKER: Labyrinth

My mom, who is writing a memoir based on letters her dad sent back from WWII, works at the same roll-top desk my dad first used as an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota in the 1980s.

FORBES: Authentic Connections and Growing Your Creative Confidence

At the next playgroup, I asked the lady at the front desk to pass my e-mail address on to her. (By the way, Mary isn't her real name -- I changed it to prevent scaring her off.) I was beet red as I walked Kylie toward the subway station, and was doing frenetic hop run behind the stroller.

CNN: A kind of courtship: Finding a mom friend in the big city

An internal report, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, showed the LA County District Attorney alleged the image was leaked after a stack of photos of the singer's injuries was left lying on a desk at the Wilshire police station, and Ms Reyes took a picture of one with her phone.

BBC: Rihanna

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, a staunch traditional Catholic, kept her image hanging on the wall behind his desk and spoke of how she had helped his uncle escape from certain death at the hands of the Russians in the 1940s.

CNN: Amanda Knox: Fascination with 'the evil female'