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Cover: Stamped foil (uncreased, mirror-like)
Body pages: Laser-printed on alternating substrates—tracing paper (for surgical schematics), sandpaper (for LMS itch logs), and candy-wrapper gloss (for Airgas explosion ephemera).
P.1 (Foil Inner Sleeve, Visible Through Die-Cut Cover): The Leksell Stereotactic System is not a tool but a vow. To operate is to whisper into the folded gray. Error is blasphemy. Precision, the only liturgy.
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P.3 (Tracing Paper Overlay, Surgical Diagram): Howard Orlean’s wetlands: a lipstick smear on the cheek of a capped landfill. (Flip page to see the FedEx trucks reflected in the retention pond.)
P.5 (Sandpaper, Rubbed Raw): The itch that outlives its own measurement. (Scratch here to simulate.)
P.7 (Glossy Insert, Smudged With Fake Whipped Cream): Airgas’s nitrous oxide tanks: 3,000 psi of culinary and anesthetic futures. Cardi B’s Whipshots: 6.5% ABV of post-capitalist coping.
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P.9 (Mirrored Mylar, Reader’s Face Warped Over Text): Beatrix Potter’s defiance was botanical. Where is the cypher? She drew fences in mushroom ink. The land remembers her gloves.
Colophon: Edition of 400. Foil degrades with touch. LMS scores updated hourly via micro-abrasions due to sandpaper interface.
Back Cover (Peelable Aluminum Sticker): one surgical warning (unintelligible under fingerprints), 0.4g of simulated soil (non-toxic, non-remediated), and one itch you cannot locate.
Finally, the reason that none of the pages are letterpressed is because letterpressing implies permanence—and the content of this publication is actually a pronouncement of erasure. We have written the following about this in defense of impermanence; it is called: The Aluminum Coil/Foil Grimoire
- A Leksell System’s Warning: Letterpressed commandments belong to surgeons who believe in forever. We work in millimeters; our mistakes are vapor.
- A Howard Orlean’s Award Sitting on Top of a Capped Landfill: Letterpress is remediation without guilt. Our foil wrinkles with each read—like the land, it confesses.
- A Quantification System for an Itch: Letterpress produces smooth ridges and cannot capture ‘SO ITCHY!!!’ Sandpaper does.
- A Supply Chain Disruption Inhibiting Galaxy Gas Distribution: Letterpress is sobriety. Our pages are shotgunned—glossy, sticky, leaving residue.
- A Pair of Gloves Owned by Beatrix Potter: Letterpress fossilizes rebellion. Our tracing paper tears where her fenceposts pierced it.
Moreover, because we love talking about value (and to simply cut to the chase), the edition will cost between $120-$220/copy. Here is a breakdown:
- Printing (4-color, 8 pages + foil cover): $35–$60/unit (depending on press time, laser toner, and manual labor). Why so high? Surgical schematics (fine lines) and printing on various textures require precision and patience.
- Unique Substrates: e.g., tracing paper overlays: $8/unit (hand-cut, with die-cut surgical diagrams), Sandpaper inserts:** $6/unit (laser-printed itch logs, edges charred for "clinical urgency”), Glossy Whipshots insert: $12/unit (custom vinyl, screen-printed with fake cream residue).
- Aluminum Coil Binding and Wrapping: $22/unit (hand-bound and wrapped, with debossed title).
- Non-Remediated Soil Packet: $10/unit (legally sterile, but ethically dubious dirt in glassine envelopes).
- Labor (Collation, Assembly, Cursing): $40–$60/unit (each book requires 4–6 hours of obsessive handwork). The means of this production is very slow.
