Copied

There’s nothing quite like the smell of a copy shop: The scent of reams of pulp and papers, combined with a whiff of ozone from the photocopiers sure to induce nausea and increase one’s risk of developing some form of cancer if anyone stood there all day.

There’s also this fascination I have with printed material: unsoiled, perfectly typeset text on medium weight paper stock, or, say, a page of physics equations straight out of a college-level textbook, each rendered in the eternally standard but pleasing TeX; the edge of each serif slowly trailing off into nothing, the ink slowly devolving into minuscule drops creating the perfect edge.

The printed word entails creation: a tangible record of one’s writing effort—one easily shared among peers—that can be passed around or duplicated—copied, if you will. Today, people still make a fuss about ending up published, cited, named in a byline—on print.

This blog is neither a printed record nor a notable achievement on my part. I can’t guarantee any form of coherence within or between posts. If a post turns out interesting, great for me. Everything else would probably be mundane anyway. I’ll write about whatever works.

I’ve never liked the smell of copy shops; it’s the seemingly endless state of creation and duplication that draws me in.

Get me involved in the process, and I’ll keep myself there.