46 Comments

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

Expand full comment

Thank you for reading, Kira! 🐸

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

This was a really brilliant read

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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 🐸

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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.

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

Thank you so much, Afra!

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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!

Expand full comment

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/

Expand full comment

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!

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

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

Expand full comment

Brilliant. The movement from a curious, open, breathing internet to an opaque, deceptive one is beautifully captured. And reading about frogs is always a delight!

Expand full comment

Thank you for engaging, Lara, and for such a thoughtful comment! So happy you found something in it 🐸

Expand full comment

love love love 🐸

Expand full comment

Instilled me with wonder! Thank you for this, felt like an oasis in the Substack desert.

Expand full comment

Thanks so much! 🐸

Expand full comment

how beautiful! i also really enjoyed the photos

Expand full comment

This is what i’m here for

Expand full comment

Thanks for reading, Benjamin!

Expand full comment