A Sneak Peek Inside HODINKEE Magazine, Volume 8¶
Published on Tue, 1 Jun 2021 15:00:00 +0000
Funky sport watches, newly discovered space watches, and go-go gadget watches.
Synopsis¶
In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Stephen Pulvirent sits down with Senior Vice President of Content Nick Marino to discuss the newly redesigned Volume 8 of Hodinkee Magazine. Marino explains how the magazine has evolved to reflect the broader changes at Hodinkee, featuring a complete redesign while maintaining continuity with previous issues. The new approach narrows the focus specifically to watches and time, yet paradoxically widens the scope by using watches as a lens to explore fashion, sports, collecting, and other cultural topics. The magazine aims to make the world of watches more inclusive and accessible to everyone, regardless of price point or level of interest.
The episode features three in-depth conversations about stories from the new issue. First, Stephen talks with James Stacey about his Reference Points piece on the Rolex Explorer II, a watch that has become synonymous with Stacey himself. They discuss the watch's unusual origins as a tool for spelunkers and volcanologists, its evolution through various references (particularly the beloved 16570), and how it represents a quirky, counterculture side of Rolex that differs from the brand's more mainstream offerings.
Next, Cole Pennington discusses his investigative piece "Snuck Into Space," which adds a new chapter to the history of space watches. Pennington reveals that on the same Skylab 4 mission where the famous Seiko Pogue became the first automatic chronograph in space, Commander Gerald Carr secretly wore a Movado Datacron HS360 with an El Primero movement on his ankle. This discovery, which came to light through NASA oral histories and the watch being inherited by Carr's daughter, demonstrates that significant gaps still exist in our understanding of horological history and that new stories continue to emerge as information becomes more accessible.
Finally, Genevieve Walker discusses her feature "Go Go Gadget Watches," which examines watches as technology over the past century. Through a timeline format mixing real innovations with fictional watches from pop culture, Walker explores how the definition of a "gadget watch" has evolved—from the first chronograph pushers and automatic movements to Dick Tracy's two-way radio watch, James Bond's weaponized timepieces, and ultimately the Apple Watch. The piece illustrates the two-way conversation between fiction and reality, showing how imagined technologies in popular culture have inspired real innovations, and how our desires for wrist-worn technology have both expanded and, in some ways, reached a natural limit with modern smartwatches.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Cole Pennington | To be able to tell these things is an honor because these people put their life on the line for the advancement of humankind and so forth, and that's eh, it's a bit of a responsibility to undertake the storytelling aspect, however sm,all that might be, right |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polmer and this is Hodinki Radio. This week we're talking all things Hodinky magazine since the new one, volume eight, drops today. And I've got our senior vice president of content, Mr. Nick Marino, the mastermind behind the new magazine, with me today. I can see he's already laughing, but uh wanted to bring Nick in to tell us all about the new mag. How you doing, Nick? Hey, glad to be here. Thanks, Steven. Of course. Tell us about the new magazine, man. We were we were seven volumes in, and volume eight is uh it's a new thing. It's a it's a pretty big departure and an exciting departure from what I think people kind of know and expect from uh the Hodinki magazine. Yeah. Well, you know, the mag |
| Nick Marino | azine has always been a physical emblem of Hodinki writ large. And as Hodinki is evolving, the mag is evolving with it. Close readers will have noticed some changes in the look and feel of the site. More color, hopefully a little more energy, a stronger sense of play in our visuals, and that we wanted to bring all of that to the magazine. At the same time, we wanted to keep continuity with all the issues that came before and respect our heritage. And so what you'll find is a magazine that has been completely redesigned, cover to cover, all the way down to the paper stock, but that is the exact same trim size as every other issue, which means it it'll fit nicely on a bookshelf next to the previous issues. And it maintains even the same visual language on the cover with that sort of instantly recognizable rectangular window. On thisly cover looks a little different from previous cov |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ers. A little bit. Yeah, just a little bit different. And I I think it's interesting to me because there's, you know, before we covered topics outside of watches in the magazine, that was really our place to cover things adjacent to the world of watches. But I think in the new magazine, and correct me if you disagree here, but I think we we're still doing that, but we're doing it in a way where everything is kind of like bounced off the idea of watches, you know, we're covering product, we're covering history, we're covering design, we're covering art, we're covering automotive, we're covering all these things, but we're covering them all kind of through the lens of or bounced off the wall of watches. I think in a lot of ways, this is the watchiest mag |
| Nick Marino | azine we've ever done. We've actually narrowed the focus to be just about watches and and time. And yet, on the other hand, we've totally widened the focus because now through the lens of watches we're able to talk about fashion we're able to talk about sports we're able to talk about collecting and investing, we're able to talk about all these sort of big issues through the lens of watches and time. You know, the the physical object, that's part of a story. But to me, it's it's actually not the end of the story. It's the beginning of the story. And the most interesting pieces that you'll find in this magazine are the ones that use |
| Stephen Pulvirent | the watch to go somewhere deeper. Yeah, I I totally agree. Well, one of the other things you've done is you've made the magazine more diverse. And I don't just mean that in a sort of like representation way, although that is part of it, but it's also just like it's a mix of familiar voices and new voices, a mix of, you know, products that people are probably familiar with and that are like household names in in Hodinky land, and some really weird esoteric stuff. And and I wonder if you can speak to kind of like that motivation and that idea. Ye |
| Nick Marino | ah, we're really trying to make the world of watches better for everyone. And we're trying to make it bigger. You know, we want to sort of throw the doors open to everyone. And everyone really means everyone. That means everyone at every price point, at every level of interest. That means men and women. That means everybody who might have an interest in this category. And so you know you,'ll see, for example, there's a photo of Lil Wayne next to my editor's letter. And I think the stereotype of rappers is that they all wear these kind of you know iced out, heavy duty, you know, kind of hundred thousand dollar watches. And in fact, what Lil Wayne's wearing is like $120 G Shock. I love that because it completely flips the stereotype on a 10. Anytime we can make people think about what's on their wrist a little differently, we're doing something right. That's the goal of this magazine, to help you think about watches and time its |
| Stephen Pulvirent | elf in a whole new way. Yeah. I think that's great. And we've got three stories here that give a a pretty nice range of what to expect. We've got a conversation with James Stacy about his reference points about the Rolex Explorer 2. We've got a chat with Cole Pennington about his story that kind of adds a new chapter or maybe even rewrites the history of watches and spaceflight. And then we've got a chat with Genevieve Walker, a new voice for the Hodinky audience, and her story about gadget watches and the idea of watches as technology, which I personally found really fascinating and made me think about the subject in a totally new way. And this isn't everything. Uh obviously, the magazine contains everything from you know ancient Aztec timekeepers made of stone, all the way up to conversations with NFL superstars. So uh it's a pretty broad range in this magazine. So Nick, thanks for giving us some insight here. We'll have to have you back on the show again sometime very, very soon but we'll uh we'll get into these three conversations so without further ado let's do this and up first we've got my conversation with James Stacy about reference points Rolex Explorer 2. Hey man, how's it going? Yeah, really well. Yourself? Things are good. Things are good. I'm excited to talk magazine with you, man. I know uh the story we're gonna talk about is one you've you've had kind of in the back of your mind for quite a while, |
| Nick Marino | right? Yeah, it's a big one. It's uh it's a watch I really like and it was uh you know a treat to a treat to get a swing at the feature for the for the mag, and I think the layout and everything people find pretty surprising, but I think it ties in nicely with the watch. Yeah, I I agree. So |
| Stephen Pulvirent | uh this is reference points Rolex Explorer 2, which I don't know if I can think of a more |
| Nick Marino | James Stacey story than uh than this one. Yeah, it would be easily my my most favorite, like genuinely modern Rolex, especially in terms of a five digit timeline. I think there's some pretty sweet stuff from way back and there's some pretty really sweet stuff from the last 10 years. But you know, yeah, I'm a deeply an explorer to uh fan. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, I I know uh the the reference you wear regularly, the the polar has kind of become the James Stacy. It's become kind of synonymous with you. But I'm wondering, do you remember the first time you ever saw an explorer two? Like the the your first encounter |
| Nick Marino | ? Yeah, and I've actually gone back because I wanted to do like an origin story and actually find the person and talk to them for uh either a story or a podcast or something like that, but a long time ago, and I've never been able to find the video again, but a long time ago I I watched a YouTube video of a guy and I wanna say he was in a E forty six M3, but it was about driving various mountain roads in the Alps. The funny thing is is the because the car in question was a right hand drive car and and this person was a left handed person, so the watch was on the wrong wrist to even be seen from the camera. And all I remember noticing was it was a a watch of some sort with a white dial on a gray NATO. And then at some point in the video, and and some of this I'm conflating. We're talking like years and years and years ago that I saw this. I still sit wanna say this was a Steve Sutcliffe video, which means it would be an Evo video, which means I should have been able to find it by now, but I haven't. But at some point in the video they switch to a uh left-hand drive car and you get a better view of the watch, and it was a a 16570, an earlier one than my own, but a polar sixteen five sevent ony a gray NATO. And I saw it just like I thought, oh my goodness, I'm in love. Like it's a watch you can see from thirty feet away. That's one of my favorite things, but a watch is when you kind of know what it is from all the way across. So two restaurant tables over. You know, those those 40 millimeter five digit Rolexes look really good on a larger wrist, one even larger than mine. I mean, but yeah, it was a a great looking watch and it always stuck out. And then you know, the other side that that was um more pertinent to the story is this watch is also referenced in one of my favorite, you know, nonfiction books, uh No Shortcuts to the Top by the American Alpinist Ed Visters. And it was the watch that Rolex gave him to be part of their testimony program as uh alpinist while he was on the process of doing all fourteen of the world's eight thousand meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. I believe he was something like the fifth person ever to do that, the the first American to do it. I mean just this guy's still alive, still climbing. He's he's incredible. His books are great, but he references a white Rolex and I later bought the ad from the magazine with him standing at the top of a mountain and the white 16570. Th |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ere is nothing that makes me want a watch more than those old school Rolex ads. Like I have probably four or five ads for my vintage explorer, my explorer one. And like they are so dreamy and so aspirational. And they just like they just cut right through me. I see them and I'm just like, damn, I |
| Nick Marino | want to be that cool. And and the fun thing is is if you go back far enough, I think they were more fun. The if you were doing this tomorrow, you'd wear this. That series is classic, right? Yeah. But if you go forward a bit and, you see this a lot in the Explorer 2 stuff because the Explorer 2 was a weird watch. It it almost like it had a really kind of um esoteric reason that they gave it for being born, this watch for caving, spelunking. And so they attached this French scientist, Jean Francois Burnett, and his work around volcanoes. And so not only did you have the kind of charm of the concept of those, if you did this, you would wear one of these, but now you had this like hyper specific, and then you know, a few years later, Ed Vister's sitting on the top of Manislau or or Everest or something like that, and saying, you know, this w not just for the caves, we're on the top of mountains as well, not just under them. It's kind of such a strange watch, kind of a left of center watch. It kind of always has been for the brand, because it's not a sub, it's not a GMT master. It doesn't have this like very defined diving, racing, flying sort of thing where they're like, oh, we're caving. And they're like, well, who what's caving this is something people do how many academic splunkers exist in the world 20 fifty a hundred five hund |
| Stephen Pulvirent | red i don't know right and it's also hard because like a picture of somebody on a mountaintop like looks awesome. And like everybody understands the idea of climbing Everest, right? Like that's an easy thing to market. How do you get a picture of somebody cave diving? Like you don't, you know, and like this is such a like esoteric, strange thing. It's also a hard thing to photograph. Yep. Part of the point is that it's all in darkness. Like part of the reason the watch exists and the reason it has this, you know, bright orange 24-hour hand is because down in a cave, like there is no sun sunrise and sunset. Like no cycle. It's an inherently difficult thing to communicate about. And I think, you know, in your story, you do a a really good job of kind of walking through the like weirdness of how this watch was born, but then how Rolex kind of like changed course a little bit and like adapted it and kind of figured out how to position it in a different way, which I mean one of my favorite Rolexes of all time is is the original Milgaus. Oh. Mostly just because it is so weird. And over the years, Rolex has kind of refined it and kind of like taken a lot of the weirdness out. Yeah, made it closer to the brand. Exactly. And and I think the Explorer too has come closer to the brand, but it's they did the same for sure. It's always retained a little bit of that weirdness, which I think is is really a huge part of its charm |
| Nick Marino | . Yeah, I I would say that the milgos is now a somewhat weird date jest in many ways, or an OP or however you want to view it, but like there's not really a world I guess you could say that the Explorer 2 is a is a weird GMT master. Yeah. I guess if you wanted, right? They've they've commonly shared the same or very similar movements. They have a similar travel feature set. Yeah. But I think that the way that they started is so different. The GMT master started as this very like defined, easily understood tool for pilots that even carried the color of a specific pilot's, you know, outfit. And then on the other side the 1655 comes out in nineteen seventy one so we're no longer talking mid century Rolex. This is this is uh modern Rolex, quote unquote, maybe the start of of Rolex as we really know them today, especially in a manner where they're not simply playing, you know, the sort of like the Beatles, the same four chords in a different way, the sub, the GMT master, you know, uh they're they're they're trying a different song, they're going a different route. And in the 70s were a special time for all sorts of things. Pop culture, media, media theory, uh, you know, is prevalent in this, in what this decade meant in terms of leaving post-war era and and such behind and starting on something new. And for the sixteen fifty fsive not' not only did you have you know it doesn't even have Mercedes hands, it doesn't have normal twelve hour markers, it has these uh it has twenty-four five-minute markers, which is super strange. And of course a few years later they would bring out the sixteen five fifty, which kind of established what that watch would look like for the next I mean up until today, really, in many ways. And the longest standing generation was the 16570, which is my favorite. Then they went to the 42mm, which I think was an important decision for the brand. It's it makes the watch a little bit less appealing for my wrist, but it does easily differentiate the watch from subs, speedmasters, daytonas, that sort of thing. So I yeah, I I I think it's uh it's an interesting watch with uh with kind of a fun backstory that because the backstory feels not contrived but kind of so limited, it's for cavers that you almost don't have to take it as seriously as something that was had to be for diving or with a military background or the GMT master and its connection with you know pretty hardcore aviation and professional aviation and that sort of thing. This watch is like it's fringe professional. So yeah, you got spelunkers, you got guys that lived in tents at the base of uh Everest most of the year. Like you you you got kind of more fringe 70s personalities wearing this. Reinald Messner early in his days, you know, wore a 1655 and and we saw him later with other versions of similar and Mesner wore a lot of Rolex long before his days now with Montblanc and on really legendary climbs. But you know, yeah, it is kind of this counterculture Rolex in some way, at least the expansion of counterculture, this kind of connected into it in a fun way. Yeah, I I totally agree. I want to |
| Stephen Pulvirent | know, you know, as you were researching this, like it's obvious that this is a watch you know well and that you've thought a lot about. When you were actually writing the story, was there any like weird bit of history that you didn't know that just kinda like blew you away or something about the watches |
| Nick Marino | themselves that you didn't know? Some of the minutiae uh which we do cover in the post, the differences between a mark one and a mark II, Mark III dial, there's different bezels, like all that kind of stuff makes sense. But it's funny how I think what resounded with me, and this maybe doesn't fully slot into as an answer for this specific question, but what came up in my mind while we're while I was going over all the differences is of course, you can really see where the idea of like scholarly Rolex understanding sits. And so when you get back to the 1655, people have written a lot about it and all the different versions and there's little drawings of all the different the coronet hole size and the the alignment of two letters that tell you it's a mark two and of course rail dials, that's easy to understand. But then as soon as you get to a sixteen five fifty, there's way less. Like this watch was in a in a zone where it wasn't old enough to be this special collectible thing necessarily, so people weren't writing scholarly information, reference data about it.. Yeah But then it's also not new enough to be part of the current popularity of watches. That's almost like you know, my Explorer 2 is made in 07, and it's probably about as old as an Explorer 2 could be, where it becomes almost not interesting due to its history. I I think they're interesting now. I think people care now. These watches have gone up in value, the rest. But I think, you know, when you research watches, you really learn there's a glut of information for stuff up until what nineteen seventy five, nineteen like court's crisis, nineteen seventy seven. And then there's a big hole where like watches were just a thing and and and people weren't really like necessarily keeping fantastic records at brands. You get you ping a brand about nineteen eighty eight and ask them for information. They go, Oh it was kind of a crazy time. Uh and that's their way of saying like we moved the office and we don't still have that file fol |
| Stephen Pulvirent | der. Aaron Ross Powell we moved the office laid off two thirds of our company and were really worried that we were going to have to sell the machines |
| Nick Marino | for scrap. Yeah. Exactly. We considered pivoting to making aeronautical uh measurement systems or yeah selling the whole thing to uh to somebody in West Germany. But yeah it's it's it is kind of it is kind of like a a weird thing. So there's this there's this hole of information from sixteen five fifties and even a lot of the early data for sixteen five seventies, you know, what what the early dials might be compared to later ones, which ones have which loom, which ones have this marker or that like the so I mean it's it's fun to see that you can go back and write about a sixteen fifty-five and and list five production dials, two service dials, yeah, four or five bezels, depending on your position, four original bezels for certainly. And then you get to the 16550 in and people's paragraphs, there aren't drawings and photos and reference images. It's just, you know, a block of text that says, well, they came out on this date and and they basically made it for four years, and then they made basically the same watch for the next twenty plus years and people didn't really care. Yeah |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Well, people who are interested either in learning more, buying one, both, neither, should definitely check the story out. Uh the magazine is out now and uh we'll have links in the show notes for people to go uh check it out. Thanks for giving us this look inside the story and uh I really enjoyed reading it and I I think other people are going to uh as well |
| Nick Marino | . Yeah, I'm glad you like it. Definitely the story's gonna cost you less than a watch. Uh so maybe start there and decide decide later if uh if you want to go deeper. But uh yeah, I hope people dig it and and I hope it fits into the greater scope of the magazine. I'm looking forward to seeing the other pages. Awesome. Thanks James. Cool man. Take care |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Next, I sit down with Cole Pennington to talk about a new chapter in the history of spacewatches. Hey Cole, how's it going? Steven, always a pleasure to uh be talking to you. We're playing the uh West Coast Southeast Asia time zone game here, but uh it's good to good to see you as always |
| Cole Pennington | . Likewise, not for much longer, and maybe maybe I'll be in the West Coast time zone too. Let's see. Hey man, it's |
| Stephen Pulvirent | uh the living's good out here. You're welcome any time. Today we're we're here to talk about space, which I feel like fifty percent of the time if you and me are having a conversation, it's about something space related. But this is a good one. This is your piece for the magazine Snuck into Space. That I hope I'm not like overselling it here or overhyping you, but this is a piece that kind of rewrites the history of space watches, right? Yeah, that's an interesting point |
| Cole Pennington | . Does it rewrite or does it add to it? I I I hate to say rewrites, but uh it adds a piece, a missing piece to the narrative about the first automatic chronograph in space. It's not to take away anything from all the the scholarship and work that other people have done, but yeah, in a way it it adds an important element to this ever evolving conversation. Okay. That's that's a good way to put |
| Stephen Pulvirent | it. I'll I'll take that slight hedge here. Before we get into your story, the kind of received wisdom, the scholarship that's already been done that you're building off of here. Like you said, you're not discarding it, you're building off of it, is that the the Seiko pogue was the first automatic chronograph in space, right? That's that's the kind of story we all know. Right. |
| Cole Pennington | That is. I mean, so in 2006-ish A guy actually wrote to Colonel Polk. Uh, just just wrote him, you know, just literally wrote him a note and asked, hey, what's the story with that watch? So that's actually on our site. There's the there's a good uh we should link to it in the the show notes, but that story has been told, yes. So we all |
| Stephen Pulvirent | know that that was the first automatic chronograph in space. And the big deal with an automatic chronograph in space for for people who may not immediately understand why that distinction is important. And Cole, correct me if you disagree here, right? Is that they didn't know how an automatic watch would work in space. Like in zero gravity would a winding rotor be sufficient, or do you need a hand wound watch? Right. Like that was a question that wasn't fully answered, was it C |
| Cole Pennington | ole? At this point, no. It it wasn't. I mean not not officially. I mean the the common thing you read all the time on forums this that and the other thing is the it had to be the speed master because it was hand wound and so forth. Well that's not totally true. And as we'll see, there were some personal tests done to to solve this problem too. So that is |
| Stephen Pulvirent | that that's what's at stake. Yeah. I like your I like your scare quotes for people who can't see when you say personal, by which you mean like super against NASA policy and guys sneaking shit up into space, which I'll be honest, when when we first talked about this story, Cole, when you when you first brought this to us, which we'll we'll talk about in a second, my immediate reaction was like, we're talking about like early-ish space travel here, like guys weren't sneaking shit up in these capsules. Like that can't be true, right? Like everything was so perfectly calculated and the weights mattered and like everything was so precise. Could these guys possibly be sneaking stuff up? And it turns out they did it all the time. Exactly. This |
| Cole Pennington | actually isn't that weird. It really is all the time. Like the the famous and you can Google this too, the the corned beef sandwich that was snuck up by John Young. I mean that's s and and we say sneaking. Another thing too is like that kind of implies like someone's really skirting the rules. It well, also NASA has had decades to sort of restrict the rules, right? Rules were a little bit looser back then. Keep in mind, we were like like imagine the first voyages crossing the Atlantic Ocean. It was all looser because there was a lot ahead of us that we didn't know to regulate, right? So sneaking it up implies some like someone's doing some dirty work. Well, maybe not totally, you know. That's that's fair. So |
| Stephen Pulvirent | let's get into the actual watch in question here. So basically the TLDR version of your story is that on the same mission where the Seiko pogue went into space, there was actually another automatic chronograph in the same vessel, correct |
| Cole Pennington | ? That's right. And not only another automatic chronograph, but another one of the contenders for the first automatic chronograph, period. So the watch was a Movado Datacron HS360, and inside of that watch is the El Primero movement, which as you know is also the contender for in 69, the first automatic chronograph, produced. So that watch actually went up on the ankle of Commander Gerald Carr. And he put it on his ankle during the suit-up phase. This was already out there, right? It's just discovering it. So in an oral history report, he even chronicled putting the watch on his ankle during Suda to bring it up to space. And this is an official |
| Stephen Pulvirent | NASA oral history, right? This isn't like something that like somebody found somewhere, right? |
| Cole Pennington | No, no, no. This is the real deal. This was a project that NASA took on internally and um this came out in the early 2000s. So he spoke about this in the early 2000s, and it had been spotted online here and there, a mystery watch. Uh, but no one really knew enough. I mean, you know, NASA has tons and tons of archival images, so if something is up there, someone's gonna catch a glimpse. But no one had put two and two together yet that this watch that he describes as a movado in his oral history report is the mystery watch that was spotted in all these photographs, archival photographs. So it actually took him, sadly, passing away, and then his daughter inheriting the watch and looking into it and doing more research for for the story really to come to light. So that's how the story came to me. Uh a fellow named Michael Heymond, who's the founder of a a chrono group in Southern California, said, Hey, I have a friend, and the friend here is Jessica Carr, whose father, you know, left this watch to her and she thinks it's the watch that went up to space with him and you should look into this kind of thing. So got on the phone with Jessica Carr. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | And that's when the story started unfolding. Yeah, it's a pretty wild thing that this did kind of like sit under the radar for so long. Like you said, the information was all out there for the most part for at least the last what 10, 15 years. Yeah. And somehow it just kind of it just kind of sailed through. Like it didn't it didn't really like trigger any any alarm bells anywhere. And it's I don't know, for me, it's it's exciting as a as a journalist and as a person who who's deeply invested in in researching the history of this weird little little hobby we all have. Like it's exciting to think that there are still like genuine bits of history to either be discovered or to be illuminated out there. That's exactly it. And |
| Cole Pennington | the key takeaway for me, was that for better or worse, a lot of these things emerge when the original owner of the watch, you know, leaves this earth. That's the only way for stories like this to be spotlighted. And for the record, you mean pass away. You're not talking about going into space, which is the other thing here too. Yeah. Correct. So that's the interesting thing. Like how many stories like this are out there? And and are the breadcrumbs already out there all along? And only in hindsight, can we put these pieces together? And I think the answer is there there's a lot. And we'll see. I mean, we'll see as time goes on. But this story, this story is yeah, incredibly unique. But I have a strange feeling that things like this, and as access to information becomes easier to manage, as watches become more mainstream, I think we'll see more |
| Stephen Pulvirent | and more stories like this. Yeah, I I agree. I think also we're seeing kind of the trajectory over the last again, like 10, 20 years, the internet makes these stories easier to tell and easier to find. So I think we're going to continue to see some of these watches from the 60s, 70s, 80s that maybe like were a little bit lost, they're gonna start to make their way back into the limelight. And as as they do, it's gonna be much easier for the right people to connect. And in this case, like you said, it was like a friend of a friend happened to be the daughter of the guy who took the watch into space. And it's like that kind of stuff can happen now. And that person can find you, and then we can tell this story. And like that is super fascinating to me that, this is still in some ways, like it's not quite a game of telephone, but it's it's a game of like, oh yeah, I have a friend who knows somebody, and like it's like kind of old school gumshoe reporting in that way, but in a in a digital way. I mean, I know you're you're a pretty big space nerd. I consider myself a space nerd. You put me to shame probably two or three times over. Uh, you're you're kind of lapping me here. But uh I I wanted to know as you put this story together, was there anything you discovered that kind of like surprised you? Anything that shocked you as you were putting this together? Uh pretty |
| Cole Pennington | interesting. I was in the story too, but there was a guy named Peter Lee, who was hot on the trail, and kind of had been putting the pieces together all along as well. So, you know, I was in in close contact with him, pinging ideas back and forth and uh kind of sharing research and so forth. So it was just kind of that surprised me to think that there was someone else hot on this trail already. And the other thing too that that really stuck out about him is that he's a a surgeon by day. And he was doing research, honest to goodness research in his spare time. So like again it illustrates or kind of underscores the the notion that watches are so powerful that people are willing to just invest important time into these little passion projects. And in this case, a passion project that turned out to be a big deal. I mean, cool. You do surgery in your spare time, right |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? I mean we've all gotta have hobbies, okay? Yeah, all right. You know, the the last thing I wanted to ask you about is this fills in you know one kind of like hole that we maybe didn't know existed in in the history of uh watches and space travel. Is is there another hole or another kind of like enigma that you're hoping to solve or or a piece of the puzzle that you'd like to find or help put together going forward? Something that's still out there kind of like tantalizing? Actually, |
| Cole Pennington | so as I was going through and talking to more and more people. Sort of the opposite happened. And it's not great. But I did come to a point where I kind of sat back and, you know, after doing all this research about even just about Skylab, so we should mention, yeah, it's Skylab 4, by the way. But came to this point thinking, all right, myself and a few other people are obsessively tracking down this story about a watch that went to space. Then it hit me. Eventually, none of it will matter because space travel will become so ubiquitous and so commonplace that a watch that was flown in space won't have the gravita, so to speak, a little bit of pun intended there. And it'll just be like how we take a watch on an airplane. Or whatever. So maybe like, yeah, again to go back to the metaphor of discovering the new world, maybe the telescope that went on one of the first voyages to the new world was kind of worshipped. But now who cares, right? So the whole spacewatch thing, after thinking about it, it kind of left me, uh, you know, staring into a black hole, thinking at one point it won't be a big deal. That |
| Stephen Pulvirent | 's really fascinating. I hadn't thought about that at all. And I don't know, I kind of want to challenge you a little bit on it not mattering. I think like these are the things that went there first. You know, they they paved the way, they helped pioneer and and they really like helped, you know, not to be too dramatic about it, but like they helped human civilization move forward. Like they helped push us in a new direction. And I think those things will always be valuable. But I do kind of love the idea that it becomes unremarkable. Like, I don't know, like the moment I can own a space-flown watch, like, hell yeah, man. Like sign me up. N |
| Cole Pennington | ot just own. Maybe you take that watch with you on a suborbital flight. I mean, that's the other thing. Yeah, that might happen in |
| Stephen Pulvirent | our lifetime. Yeah, exactly. And like I really hope it does. But uh yeah |
| Cole Pennington | , you and me, mission to Mars for Hodinky? I mean, hey, if the commenters are right, Hodinky just got a ton of money from a million different people. Why don't we take some of that money and funnel it into a fund that |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I love it, Cole. I love the enthusiasm. I was gonna say I think the skills you and I probably bring to a mission to Mars aren't like in the top couple hundred skills that they need. But like, if they do, then sign me up. Like, I'm on board all day. Never underestimate yourself, Stevie. See, this is why, Cole, this is why we keep you around, my friend. This is this is the real deal right here. Well, thank you so much for sharing this story both in the magazine and and with us here. Again, I just really love this and and I'm super thrilled with how it turned out. And I think the the storytelling itself is great like you know the nuts and bolts of the story are really fascinating but I think the way it came out in the magazine is really great the illustrations are beautiful some really cool photos so uh yeah I definitely recommend I mean, anyone listening who enjoyed this conversation, like definitely go check it out. It's uh you're you're not gonna be disappointed. Yeah |
| Cole Pennington | , I I hope everyone that helped bring the story to light and everyone who reads the story is is satisfied with it and and it was an honor to tell the story. That's the other thing, too, that I guess I should add here. Like to be able to tell these things is an honor because these people put their life on the line for the advancement of humankind and so forth. And that's eh it's a bit of a responsibility to undertake the storytelling aspect, however small that might be, right? Like you said, it might be a hundred rolls down the line, but it's something. So yeah, that would that to kind of end the conversation, I think that's an important point to drive home. So yeah, I hope everyone reads it and enjoys it. Love that cool. Awesome. Thanks, man. Really appreciate it. And uh talk to you soon. Alrighty. See you, Steve |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . And now my conversation with Genevieve Walker about gadget watches and watches as technology. Hey Genevieve, how are you? Hi, doing well. Thanks so much for joining us. My pleasure. We're uh we're here to talk all things gadget watches. It's your feature in the new magazine. Uh it's called Go Go Gadget Watches, and it's all about the kind of techier side of wristware, but not just today, kinda over the last what, like hundred years or so? Yeah, something like that. First of all, let's let's just define gadget watches. Like what is a gadget watch as far as you and your your story are concerned, well, you know, that's kind |
| Genevieve Walker | of part of the thesis of the piece, really. Gadget watches aren't exactly what I would have thought to describe them as going into this. You could call a watch that's on the wrist a gadget watch, considering our timeline, or you could call a gadget watch something with a buzzsaw from a Bond movie. So, you know, it's like |
| Stephen Pulvirent | kind of anything you want it to be. Yeah. Yeah, I think in an interesting way, especially, you know, you mentioned a timeline, right? And and running through the story, you know, you kind of highlight the story is structured as a timeline and you highlight certain moments on the timeline more in depth than others. But the the first two kind of pings on the timeline are Brightling releasing a chronograph with a pusher where the crown is not the pusher, and that's 1915. And then 1926, the arrival of the automatic wristwatch. And I think that's really interesting because it underscores the idea that like on a certain level all watches are gadget watches, or at least were in their time? Totally. And |
| Genevieve Walker | that I think is the point of this timeline to show that the normal functions of a watch or what we think of as normal functions could be considered cool gadgety features if you put it in this sort of perspective where watches didn't really have anything. But also, I mean that we're just talking about the normal progression or evolution of the technology there. But if you put that against you know the idea of a gadget watch, that is a gadget and it's super cool, especially because it the watches didn't have those things before. So ye |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ah, those are definitely gadget features. Yeah. And and there's also I I love in this timeline, there's a mix of of kind of real things and fantastical things. So we've got, you know, the TV watch sitting right alongside James Bond's watch, or we have the Apple watch, you know, sitting not too far from Dick Tracy's two-way communicator watch. And it's it's interesting to see the interplay of sort of dreaming and ideas about what a watch can be on the one hand, in in the sort of fantasy realm. And then on the other hand, you have these kinds of innovations eventually making their way into like actual consumer products that people can go buy. Yeah. And I l |
| Genevieve Walker | oved that. I kind of came across that as I was researching. I mean, it seems really obvious that the fiction would inspire reality when you look at it in a timeline like this, where those things are sitting next to one another on this timeline. You know, it's just kind of wild to see what brought what into the world. So, you know, you have Dick Tracy's original two-way radio watch, and then you have this sort of weird real version that almost comes to market, but it's just missing some certain miniaturized pieces that would have been necessary to make it real. But that watch being created, this like this real version of a tick tracy watch, pushed other technology forward like you know the miniaturization of other pieces needed to go into it was just a lot of technology being developed for wartime but you know what's to say that Dick Tracy didn't have a huge impact on a lot of the gadgets that we have now because people were trying to feed a hungry consumer market that wanted this thing that seemed so cool and so almost possible and yet was |
| Stephen Pulvirent | n't. Yeah, I think that's that's really fascinating. And I I I think you touched on there another thing I I love about this, which is that it shows the weird ways in which like historical events impact watches and then watches kind of impact historical events or pop culture or whatever and the way that it's really a two-way conversation. I mean the the stuff in like 2001 a space odyssey comes to mind where like Hamilton created special watches and clocks just for the movie, and then those kinds of things ended up becoming extremely popular just a few years later. And it's you get to see the way in which sort of like culture and consumerism kind of like play off of one another in a really direct and compelling way. Right. Yeah. |
| Genevieve Walker | And a part of that, I think, too, is just a hunger for design. Yeah. We see something cool and we're like, well, I want that. I don't really care how it works. Like the 2001 stuff, you know, that was competing with real-world watches, real life watches that were more complex than what was going on there in the fictional realm. But the fictional realm looked more futuristic than reality. And so that too was a really powerful driver, I think, of this whole timeline. It's like, yeah, we like cool looking things like the sneakers and back to the future and the double watch wear |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ing on the wrist of Doc Brown. Yeah, no, I I love that. You know, some some of the stuff on this timeline is is stuff I think a lot of people will know about. I mean, like there are references to Knight Rider and Inspector Gadget and like those things, James Bond. I think those things are things people expected, but was there anything you discovered in researching this story that kind of like shocked you or surprised you? I can't say that anything po |
| Genevieve Walker | pped out of the woodwork that I was surprised to find. I was actually surprised by how few watches there were in the popular fiction. But I think what surprised me the most was that Inspector Gadget was such a big player. Penny, the niece, who is Inspector Gadgets assistant, has everything and has these versions of things, meaning gadgets and devices that maybe most closely resemble what we have now like this almost Apple watch that she wears and a tablet that she can open and communicate and like look |
| Stephen Pulvirent | things up on and scan rooms. Uh something I I don't think we can leave out is there's two things. Uh I would say like swatch and G Shock are kind of like two players where when they came out like they were definitely gadget watches. And I think now they've just become like part of the vernacular of watches. And I I wonder how you would maybe position the kind of like impact of those two things kind of both |
| Genevieve Walker | coming about in the 80s. Well I feel like uh I I want to group it with the fashion, like the fashion watch sort of like takeover of the market. I guess what I kind of talked about before, but in a different context, it's like the gadget becomes the look. It's for squatch primarily. I do think that that is an instance where one can pinpoint maybe the fictional overwhelming reality in terms of what's influencing what, because in these movies we have all these watches at around that time that kind of don't do much more than what the real versions do. So I think that swatch especially is is key there. So the market starts to I think catch up with the human body in a way because like what more do you really want on a wrist? It's like we all kind of came to a halt and were like, wait, wait, wait. Actually I just want something that looks pretty cool on my wrist. And then the other, you know, gadgets and functions, whatever, those can, you know, I can have a good TV, I can have like a tablet eventually |
| Stephen Pulvirent | , but on my wrist. Yeah. I mean, I think that's actually like kind of a perfect segue to to the last thing on this timeline, right? Which is is the Apple Watch. And we we position it as or you position it as as the Apple Watch and beyond. And you know, having covered the Apple Watch since the day it was announced in Cupertino, like there's a way in which the Apple Watch like almost feels like the endgame, right? Like it's it's a strap and a screen and it does kind of whatever and it has sensors on the back, but they're all hidden. It's very monolithic in a way, while also providing kind of like infinite flexibility. And and I wonder, you know, we we've covered the Apple Watch on the site a million times. People can go read all about it. But like I'm curious about that beyond. Like where do you think gadget watches go now that we have a watch that is kind of like a a blank slate to be any gadget. You know, I think we just start carrying pocket watches again |
| Genevieve Walker | , potentially. Jack will love to hear that. You you've just made Jack very, very happy. Um but no, I, you know, I don't think we really want much more from the watch than what the Apple Watch and other smart watches can provide. Because there's a point, and you know, the this this isn't on the timeline, but there's a point at which gadgets stop becoming smaller and start getting bigger. It's a functional issue. You know, we don't want to watch television on our wrist when we can watch it on enormous screens in our houses. Or we can look at you know our iPad even. Yeah. So I do think the smart watches we have now, you know, if you were to let me let my imagination run wild, I could tell you what I want on my watch, but it wouldn't be the functional things that gadget watches, fictional and real, have provided. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, I totally agree. Well, this has been great. The story's incredible. It's the writing is really smart. The illustrations are unbelievable. Uh, you know, if you're listening to this, like definitely pick up a copy of the magazine. The illow for this is is really cool and I think does a great job kind of putting these things in in dialogue with one another. So thank you for the story. Thank you for chatting. And uh hope hopefully we'll have you back on here soon |
| Genevieve Walker | . Well thank you so much. It was awesome to work on this story. And yeah, the illustrations are incredible. Amazing. Thanks so much |