Brooklyn and Edinburgh smell different.

From each other.

Leaving aside, for sake of sweetness, the snark of lacerating wit, they simply do not smell the same, even inside a national chain bookstore, where controls would, theoretically, seem to ensure olfactory homogeneity.

Maybe it’s not the sweat of denizens or the scent of regionalized cleaning products that distinguishes one from the other. Maybe it’s, oh, I don’t know, pheromones or, you know, something that fundamentally emanates from the life of the place. That compels.

Aside from the sweat, I still mean.

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