the underbelly

riding the train is a rare opportunity to bear witness to the underbelly of america. through those windows, you see things few people see.   if you're paying attention, you become privy to the private backyards, the industrial gravel lots, the remote beaches, the back alleys, the capsized ships and abandoned boats.  you discover the hidden nesting grounds of egret and heron, the washed-out signs hand-painted on backsides of brick buildings, the shanty villages of transients, the collapsed marinas, the hidden wetlands and waterfalls.   as you fly by remote beaches, people wave, and you feel strangely omniscient.  it is a unique and distant kind of voyeurism, a five hour slideshow of images that saturates your memory and spins the wheels of your imagination, telling stories of our culture: who we are, how we are, what we build, how we fall