I’ve owned the same device that prints on paper, for at least six years. It’s a Canon, has performed admirably, though albeit at quite a cost for the cartridges and ink. It’s one of those printer/scanners, except it was entirely impossible for us to get the scanner working.

With it I’d print stuff for my accountant, my resume, etc. Twenty years ago if you wrote something, you printed it. There weren’t those nice places on the web where you can tuck things like a daily diary entry (a blog), or photos from some part of your life with Instagram, or remember someone’s birthday on Facebook..

All of a sudden today, for some incredibly intelligent reason, my printer died as a printer, but was reborn as the scanner it was always meant to be.

These days printing documents is such an undesirable chore. But drawings! Drawings done with pen and ink can be scanned, made digital, combined with text, flow towards film!

But less and less are we printing. I no longer print car directions or maps. I scan them mentally, commit them to memory, or if too complicated to remember in detail . . I use MapQuest  with my iPhone.

So the printer of this machine died . . . but his head is up . . . he scans the world around him. . .