iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Good mail day. Thanks @lifewinning.com! What a beautiful new edition of a very special book ⚡️🩶🛜 www.seeingnetworks.in/product/netw...

Cover of NETWORKS OF NEW YORK by Ingrid Burrington, 2026 edition

Interior pages from NETWORKS OF NEW YORK by Ingrid Burrington, 2026 edition

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Got my first “can I send you my work?” pitch from a bot

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

It's insane how much of a project it is to get to the wild edges of NYC. I only made it to Jamaica Bay b/c I had a plane to catch in the morning and decided to stay at an airport hotel. Got a ride out to an island on the road to Rockaway that parallels the A Train and put in there. A few pics:

A Train causeway over Jamaica Bay, NYC, en route to Rockaway

Dead horseshoe crab and trash on Broad Channel beach, Jamaica Bay, opposite JFK airport

Snowy egrets in trees behind coastal marsh, Gateway National Wildlife Refuge, Broad Channel, Jamaica Bay, NYC

View of downtown Manhattan from Jamaica Bay

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

*But I will confess I was happy to get close to Newtown Creek without getting in it 😬

Metal salvage piles on the banks of Newtown Creek, Brooklyn

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I found this foldable kayak on Newtown Creek at the end of Manhattan Ave, seemingly seaworthy, unlocked and ready to go. I bet it’s still there and all you would need is a paddle…

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Reading today's newspaper while grabbing a late lunch and reckoning with the 21st century we got, versus the ones we imagined back in the 20th

Movie title: "NEW YORK CITY 2012 A.D" over an apocalyptic background vignette of wrecked railcars, tall grass, and the intact World Trade Center + other abandoned & ruined Manhattan skyscrapers in the background

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Best illustration (and quote!) so far in the vintage Lassie book my daughter and I picked up at the used bookstore the other day:

Children’s book illustration of man in Western hat telling older man also in Western hat and holding a young boy “That Wasn’t a Sasquatch!”

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Delighted to get two reports this morning that A Natural History of Empty Lots is among the books on display at the Obama Presidential Center’s public library branch—thanks to Paloma G. for the proof! 🫡🙏

Copy of A Natural History of Empty Lots hardcover book on museum library shelf

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Lawyer billboard of the day (Los Fresnos, Texas):

Billboard ad: “SpaceX Property Damage? Free Claim Review” with number and name of law firm

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

What weird, beautiful, and dystopian waters—full of urban effluent and old landfill and also rich with life

Anthropocene jetty with cinder blocks degenerating into rocks at South San Francisco Bay

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Headed out to paddle the Houston Ship Channel tomorrow; thinking about my recent excursion into these salt flats opposite the Meta corporate hq

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Yep! And a very anxious security guard who you could tell was under a lot of surveillance himself—and obligated to manually track how many people come to look at the sign each day:

Clipboard of Meta office security, with coffee cup

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Walked a hundred yards from there to entry to the home of the so-called Metaverse, and got a good reminder when I stepped into the weird grove behind the corporate coat of arms that our landscape often hides more palimpsest than we might guess:

Meta corporate offices sign 1 Hacker Way

Old Sun Microsystems sign behind the Meta sign

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Explored on foot after several hours out on the water, and found this remarkable edgeland between One Hacker Way and the storage lockers across the highway, full of towhees and big butterflies foraging & coupling:

Pile of tires in weedy growth of urban edgeland; Meta offices in background

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Stopped at this jetty and soaked up the sun and scene for a while before I realized it was entirely made of mid-20th century trash, and the bucolic coastal park I put in at was the old municipal landfill. Witness the Anthropocene geology of this prominence of cinder blocks, asphalt & sea mud:

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Had some marine creature knock the underside of my rubber boat right about here, which scared the heck out of me in the moment, and wasn’t the only such incident:

Coastal channel with petroleum storage tanks

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Paddled put that channel past some petrochemical tanks, under the high voltage lines, and into the Bay, then back into this interesting slough, where the marine and bird life was suddenly intense right where the most polluted water was rushing into the Bay, with the Meta campus in the background:

Meta campus seen across waters of Ravenswood Slough

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

I knew I had found an interesting spot when, moments after I put in, a curious and perhaps slightly annoyed seal appeared:

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

View of the area I paddled from the pedestrian bridge that connects the bizarro Teletubby-turf “Meta Park” (a pseudo-public park inside the Meta compound) to the public lands across the highway:

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Amazing day yesterday paddling the salt flats of Silicon Valley, looking for signs of life in the shadows of the Meta corporate headquarters campus

Blue packraft beached on a dark jetty; green foliage in the background

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

The closing para especially resonated with me, touching on the inventory of post-colonial North America biodiversity loss I have also been thinking about a lot:

Closing paragraph from story linked in previous post, about species loss revealed in Lewis & Clark journals

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Wild phlox coming up after the rain this morning, in the old gravel dredge along the urban Colorado

Wild phlox flowers — hot pink & white star-shaped petals

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

First confirmed airport bookstore sighting! Thanks to the amazing booksellers @powells.bsky.social PDX, and my friends Sona and Dalia for the field reports!

Paperback copy of A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown on airport bookstore shelf, with “Powell’s Bestseller” recommendation card.

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Powderpuff mimosa coming up outside an abandoned factory in East Austin, on another May Day in a country that doesn’t celebrate either variant

Hot pink flowers coming up in empty roadside lot; background has yard sign for JUNK KING

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

*My piece for Dark Mountain’s Bestiary is a variation of the notes underway toward this new book—thanks to the issue 29 editors for the prompt and the opportunity:

Publishers Marketplace deal announcement of new book Field Notes From a Near Future by Christopher Brown

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Delighted to have my piece about “Wild Cats and Predatory Robots” in the new Dark Mountain anthology, *Bestiary*—and to receive my contributor’s copy in the mail and see what a beautiful and wide-ranging book it is: dark-mountain.net/introducing-...

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Saturday morning phlox, coming up in the old gravel dredge by the river

Pink and white wild phlox on rocky riverbank

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

How did you know? Here’s another one of the trippy floral installations:

Floral installation with dead tree from Philadelphia Flower Show

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

And makeshift memorial outside Buford’s, with a smattering of folks standing around paying their respects and a bunch of TV news types looking like they’re wrapping up to move on the next one:

Makeshift memorial of flowers and stuffies

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Dude plastering a presumed bullethole just now under the watchful gaze of this AI Bronson that has always creeped me out, on the front of the Kung Fu Saloon next door to Buford’s, site of this weekend’s horrific mass shooting in Austin. *Seen walking back to the office from a late lunch .

Bar employee plaster bullethole from giant wall mural of Bronson lookalike cowboy with mustache and bandolero aiming a revolver

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

In the shadow of the antenna, a field of bones across from the shuttered elementary school. Saw a maybe-jaguarundi stalking here late last summer—like the osprey, one of the species of predators that have moved into this urbanized region as they found it affords better hunting than we might assume:

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

*Phone zoom of the osprey, still too far to easily id

Osprey atop old radio transmission antenna

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

This morning’s walk through the open lot around the 1922 AM radio antenna 10 minutes from downtown revealed 13 species of wild birds in the surrounding trees, and an osprey chilling at the very top of the tower:

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Stoked to share this news from yesterday’s Publishers Marketplace, and excited to spend the coming summer tracking robots and monsters across our increasingly dystopian landscape. With luck I will also find some hidden portals into greener futures: www.publishersmarketplace.com/deals/ss.cgi...

Deal announcement of new Christopher Brown narrative nonfiction book Field Notes from a Near Future.

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

But at least I was able to sneak these books picked up in Argentina into the USA. Another title by Piglia that I had on my phone, his amazing critical re-appraisal of Borges (*Borges por Piglia*), is what got me through my sardine-sized overnight middle seat with our 6-yr-old sprawled across my lap:

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Here’s another of the welcome signs yesterday at DFW, which helped provide context for the captain’s note that we were taking a slightly altered route.

Homeland Security sign warning passengers about dangers of flying to or from Venezuelan airports.

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Arrived back in the Tropic of Kansas yesterday after a week away in the Andes. Strange how getting back into one’s own country is (and has been since 9/11) the most fear-inducing part of the trip.

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

New birds for the life list in this unlikely place: Gray Catbird, Palm Warbler, Blue Gray Gnatcatcher, Scaly-breasted Munia

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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Ruins of the future, hiding in plain sight, as the morning songbirds dial it up and begin to almost overpower the non-stop sound of commercial jets

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