Though I spend most of my days moving heavy dental equipment (on short notice) I usually try my best to be somewhere else…anywhere else…among anyone but those I’m consigned to spend my time with. I spend most of my days exploring inner realms: thoughts, feelings, the meanings behind the day-to-day facts of existence. More often than not, I’m usually dipping into some obscure realm of Science Fiction. Ah, but what is Science Fiction if not an exploration of the meaning of fact, it’s difference from truth and that odd, narrow overlap region between the two? There are vast differences between fact and truth, after all, and I love the manner in which SF (or any genre of art allows a safe exploration of this strange, shifty landscape.) I thought of Science Fiction today, as I returned home from a cold bit of dental-office-installation. I thought of Science Fiction, as a way of reminding myself that I know a bit too much about the output of various dental equipment manufacturers. I thought of Science Fiction, simply because of that question: So what?” On the way home from the day’s frigid assignment, I scored a ride from a co-worker. He was in the mood to stop off at a little shack. He had a taste for fish. I didn’t mind the delay. The fish shack in question stands in an area of Chicago I call The Bottoms. It’s an industrial area: rusty, ugly, and an Urban Explorer’s quasi-pornographic dream. As contemporary Urban Explorers (some more dubious than others will say: it’s an UrbEx just waiting to happen.) If the south side of the city can be called its posterior, then the Bottoms are—most likely—the rectal sphincter: a vital part of the city, despite any city-dweller’s reluctance to see its inherent value. Urban Explorers (some more dubious than others) are anthropologists and historians of an odd sort, and so they see value in the bottoms. Like Science Fiction writers (of which I am one) they tend to try and answer one particular question: “So what?” They look for the “what” and behind that, the “why.” I rather like that, and I rather liked thinking about it, today…as I snapped photos of a region of the city I seldom get to see. I was happy to move dental equipment with someone interested in devouring fish, afterward. I was given the chance to take interesting photographs (at the start of a snowstorm.) I saw rust, I saw graffiti, I saw salt-trucks, abandoned shopping carts, and, not-quite-unexpectedly, an old, ragged sofa, half submerged in the Little Calumet River. I saw all of the things people might ask “so what?” about, and I wondered at its meaning. What would Chicago (or the entire Midwestern USA be) without such an area. What would commerce be? Where would graffiti taggers find the right sort of rust on which to spray their oddly existential declarations of existence? And—most importantly—if I were a visitor from another world, where would I want to visit. An alien anthropologist would, most likely say something other than, “Take me to your leader.” An alien anthropologist would, more likely say: “Show me your bridges and your fish shacks. Show me your rivers. Show me your snow. Take me to your power plant. Take me to the real parts of your city.” And so, like any alien explorer (urban or otherwise, dubious or otherwise) I recorded a bridge, a river, power-lines and their pylons, and everything else in this image. It was all because I’d heard the question: “So what?” and I sought to answer it. And besides…all of that hulking, rusty, ugly metal was quite, incredibly gorgeous. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope that you’re all having a great start to the weekend.