59 Comments
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Kira Thomsen-Cheek's avatar

Dang. So well-written. And the photos are all stunning!

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Thank you for reading, Kira! 🐸

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afra's avatar

The world needs more essays like this: it's so bizarre and gorgeous, breaking down the boundaries between biology, technology, and millennial nostalgia writing...

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Thank you so much, Afra!

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Ella Shapard's avatar

This is so interesting!!!! I love how you wove the threads together in this!!!

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Light 🏳️‍🌈's avatar

Loved this! I work in prisons (reform) and this is something I think about a ton. The lack of privacy while incarcerated starts at the body and extends to the technology. It’s almost the opposite direction of your experience of privacy, extending from technology to the body! Super interesting stuff

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Wow, such an insightful comment, thank you! I love that. Yes, it's really fascinating how technology and body become connected and the various directions of that exchange. Thank you so much for reading and engaging 🐸

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Rebecca Takada's avatar

Wait, what happened to the Bullfrog King? Don't leave us hanging 🥺

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

I took him to my neighbor’s dad who managed to remove the hook. He lived to tell the tale!

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ArnoldF's avatar

Kirk, wonderful article and collection of parallel photos between God's creatures and man's built creations. By the way, from what I read, the boiling frog in water is pure myth--never been done.

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

That’s my intuition as well! 🐸 Thanks for reading and engaging.

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Scott (a.k.a. DustyNewt)'s avatar

I'll be thinking on this all day... Thanks!

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Umang Kalra's avatar

This was a really brilliant read

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Gabriel Lucich's avatar

I could argue that the trend for showing internal technology in an aesthetic manner was pioneered much earlier than the Y2K era by Bulova in their late 1960s Accutron Spaceview watches. Not to say that there aren’t many examples from across time, but in the modern era, Bulova may have done it the best

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

I've just looked these up, and you're totally right! I think the Swatch Jellyfish was definitely influenced by these. But even these look influenced by the window on grandfather clocks. Our curiosity to see inside really does extend quite far back!

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Matthew Battles's avatar

Kirk, this is such an arresting set of observations—there’s so much to ponder here! Do you know John Betger’s 2011 essay, “Fellow Prisoners”? https://www.guernicamag.com/john_berger_7_15_11/

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Thank you, Matthew! I enjoyed the essay—it has similar notions of prison as something inside out: that we’re kept OUT instead of in these days. Loved the opening poem, as well as the thoughts of how the sheer velocity of cyberspace keeps pain from every being felt by those who rule it. Thanks for sharing!

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Brenden O'Donnell's avatar

I love this photography. The Y2K nostalgia is wild. I had a crystal blue transparent CD Walkman that I was OBSESSED with.

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Watching the Britney album spin inside of those things was absolutely hypnotic.

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Fialka Cote's avatar

This was a wonderfully well written read full of fascinating things I enjoyed learning about. I loved it enough to send it to my Kindle so I could enjoy it again, later this summer, when I spend more time outside and off my phone. Hoping to encourage a return of my own frogs to the swamp in my yard. If I could I would give this more than a single heart. You really got me thinking.

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Khenjé Demee's avatar

This was so lovely. I will now be examining the translucency of everything, thank you kindly!

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Bitter Kalli's avatar

this is so good, thank you!!

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Thanks so much for reading!

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Kelsey Tang's avatar

Reading about the progression from prison clear tech to blobitecture to LCD (and seeing our digital doppelgänger) to tech vaporizing into the air we breathe 👨‍🍳 You cooked!!!!

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Thank you, Kelsey!

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David Perrine's avatar

was hoping to see the Pompidou Center in here. great piece

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Oooh, yes! A great precedent for showing one's guts that even predates a lot of the consumer products I mentioned. That's taking me down a whole other rabbit hole now 🤔 Thanks for reading!

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