WEBVTT

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(static crackling)

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- This is the life.

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This is great.

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And if you think this is some
remote tropical paradise,

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let me tell you, it is.

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- [Announcer] On the
west coast of Florida,

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you\'ll find a treasure.

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This treasure rests at the edge

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of the sparkling Gulf of Mexico, Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota, Florida.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- Sarasota area.

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- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.

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- Sarasota.
- Sarasota.

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- There\'s something so relaxing
about the sunset here on--

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- Sarasota.
- Sarasota.

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- [Woman] Sarasota area.

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- [Man] Sarasota, Florida.

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- Florida\'s mild side.

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- [Woman] Florida\'s mild side.

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- [Woman] One of Florida\'s
premier vacation destinations.

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All the ingredients
for a perfect vacation.

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The ideal vacation getaway.

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- I\'m in a relaxation coma.

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- [Man] One of the most
civilized cities I\'ve ever seen.

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- [Woman] A resort with
unmatched charm and character.

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Luxurious accommodations.

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Perfect mix of tropical island charm,

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and beautiful accommodations.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Woman] Sarasota.

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- Sarasota has it all.

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- [Announcer] A city
known from coast to coast.

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- [Man] Well-known as the
cultural center of Florida.

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- [Woman] The cultural
center of the Gulf Coast.

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- [Announcer] A center
of cultural activity.

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- [Woman] Cultural excitement.

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- Startling cultural riches.

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- [Woman] Cultural riches.
- [Man] Cultural riches.

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- [Announcer] Famous as a cultural mecca.

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- Van Wezel, less affectionately known

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as the purple cow, right?

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- That\'s right.

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- Play word association with Florida

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and just about anybody you talk to

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will come up with phrases like--

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- Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Announcer] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- And shark collectors.

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- Natural unspoiled beauty.

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- [Woman] Unspoiled beaches.

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- [Woman] Tropical island beaches.

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- [Woman] 35 miles of
white, sandy beaches.

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- [Woman] 35 miles of unspoiled beaches.

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- [Announcer] 35 miles
of broad, white sand.

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- [Woman] Powder white sand.

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- [Woman] The world\'s
whitest and finest sand.

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- [Announcer] An atmosphere of friendly,

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unpretentious, European elegance.

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- [Woman] Outlet malls.

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- [Announcer] Sarasota, Florida.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Woman] There\'s definitely
a seafood theme here.

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- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] This lively city.

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- [Announcer] This city of enchantment.

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- [Man] The best collection
of baroque art in America.

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- [Announcer] Fifth in the
nation\'s celery production.

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- [Woman] Shark\'s teeth
capital of the world.

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- It\'s incredible.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.

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- Golf.
- Golfers.

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- Golf course.
- [Woman] Challenging

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golf courses.

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- [Woman] Legendary golf courses.

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- [Announcer] The home of America\'s

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first established golf course.

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- [Woman] More golf holes per capita.

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- [Announcer] Golf courses.

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- Did you know that the first golf course

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in the state of Florida
was right here in Sarasota?

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Woman] Sarasota.

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- Sarasota.
- Sarasota.

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- Over 300 championship holes of golf.

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- Golf.
- Golf.

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- [Woman] Tennis is big here, too.

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- [Announcer] Sarasota, Florida.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Woman] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Man] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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- [Woman] Sarasota.
- [Man] Sarasota.

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(water washing)

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(soft piano music)

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- [Narrator] Sarasota
is a small suburban city

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on the southwest coast of Florida,

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which, when seen from above,

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resembles the shape of
a snail\'s mouth parts.

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(soft music)

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Those with power like to keep the place

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buttoned up and presentable,

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but at its deepest levels,

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Sarasota operates on a
shifting, hypnogogic logic,

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which resists all
attempts to impose order.

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In unseen spaces on
the borders of suburbs,

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in the abandoned buildings
and the overgrown alleyways,

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a turbid magic ebbs and flows.

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The young, the marginalized,
the weird and lost,

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those of us with the
time and the inclination

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are out there,

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mapping and charting the energy

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that keeps Sarasota dreaming.

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(eerie electronic music)

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Deep in the murmuring heart
of a cloistered suburb,

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an enormous abandoned golf
course bides its time.

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Surrounded by stead houses
and nuclear families,

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it exists as a wild, imaginative zone.

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Teenagers sneak out of their homes

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and converge in wrecked offices

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for parties and paintball fights.

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Elderly citizens roam the
overgrown forest with their pets.

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Urban explorers creep
through with cameras.

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This space, wholly without
any solid civic purpose,

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fosters the kind of
unorthodox interactions

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the situationists dreamed of.

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In 1955, the Situationists International,

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a radical organization

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of social revolutionaries and artists,

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released an essay calling
for the city of Paris

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to open its metro tunnels to
the general public after dark,

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providing only weak and
intermittent lighting.

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They demanded that all buildings roofs

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be embellished with railings and walkways

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to allow idle strolling,

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and that all streetlights
be given on and off switches

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so the public could control
the city\'s illumination.

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Had they lived in
Florida, this golf course

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may well have appeared
on their list of demands.

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When I was a child I had a close friend

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whose parents had built
a tree house for her

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in their backyard.

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It was less than a month
before the wasps moved in.

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Once they\'d set up camp
they were on constant guard.

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The wasps buzzing around
the tree house were,

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in a child\'s eyes, an
unstoppable natural force,

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on the scale of nuclear fallout.

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The golf course operates
on the same principle.

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Its ruined buildings have
become infested with wasps.

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Rooms resonate with the sound of them

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as they travel in and out
through drywall holes.

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There are nests everywhere,

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in the most improbably places.

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Anybody stepping foot
inside these buildings

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must do so with their consent,

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and must take great
care not to violate it.

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One can\'t escape the feeling
of being watched closely

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by an inchoate, aggressive intelligence.

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Sarasota\'s beaches are a major
point of pride for the city.

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Every year we rake in awards
from Z-list travel magazines,

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and questionable experts with
names like, Doctor Beach.

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If one tires of these pristinely preserved

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photo-perfect beaches,

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then one may shuffle
off to a certain stretch

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of unkempt shoreline,

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that can\'t seem to decide
whether it\'s a beach or a forest.

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The more open areas of South Lido Park

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are alive with that particular
bland, yuppie revelry

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that seems to settle
over parts of Sarasota

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like a beach-pink opium cloud,

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but for an enterprising misfit,

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there\'s a lot more to see.

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To get to the ocean
one must first traverse

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a forest maze of spiders,
runes, and lovers\' carvings.

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Eventually it opens up to a small beach,

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unmanaged and uncontained.

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There is a wildness
here which isn\'t present

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in the city\'s more sanitized beaches.

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We visited the day after a hurricane,

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and the sea creatures which
had died in the storm,

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were still washing up on the shores.

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(dissonant electronic music)

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(dissonant piano music)

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On the very tip the parks peninsula,

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there is a small, calm
inlet of ocean water

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that is host to an enormous
colony of tiny crabs.

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Day or night, summer or winter,

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the shore is always crawling with them,

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at times packed so tightly

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that one can hardly see
the sand beneath them.

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When an interloper
approaches, they scuttle away,

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and the combined sound
they make is audible,

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like the rustling of dry newspapers.

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The day we first came upon their colony,

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we felt like the city

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had given up one of its deepest secrets.

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When I was a child entering high school,

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I used to hear stories from upperclassmen

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about clandestine meetings
in the dead of night

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at the summit of a dirt
mound named, Mount Crunk.

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In a quiet section of Sarasota,
ruled by gated communities,

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a huge, fenced in,
forever-empty dirt pile loomed.

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Bored teenagers used to converge

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at its garbage-strewn peak,
and drink ill-gotten booze,

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weaving between the graves
of broken refrigerators

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that dotted its surface.

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Since this footage was taken,
Mount Crunk has been tamed.

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The enormous clump of dirt,

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where hundreds of sleazy
high school parties

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sloshed their way toward adulthood

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is now a park full of butterflies.

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(kids laughing)

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- Don\'t laugh, because
I have a fear of snakes.

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I really feel like we\'re in our territory.

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- [Boy] We\'re in snake country.

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- [Narrator] When we were younger,

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we would explore the
decommissioned railroad tracks

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by the old celery fields.

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If you followed them deep into the woods,

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you\'d eventually come upon a
set of ancient rusted boxcars,

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covered in graffiti.

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(muffled speaking)

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- [Boy With Camera] Do it.

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- You go in there, damn it.

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- [Boy With Camera]
There\'s no one under it.

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- [Boy] Why would somebody be
under it if you could be in it?

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(laughing)

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(muffled speaking)

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- [Boy With Camera] Look, the
gates are open, you can go in.

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- [Boy] The door is open.

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(muffled speaking)

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- [Boy With Camera] Jill,
are you guys coming?

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- Yeah.

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- [Boy] Jill, you want to go in first?

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- [Narrator] Years later,
we returned to film them.

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We were shocked to find
that somehow, some way,

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someone had removed
hundreds of tons of steel

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from the middle of the woods,

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for no discernible reason.

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All we have left is this
old camcorder footage

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from our high school days.

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(muffled speaking)

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- [Boy With Camera] It\'s dark in there.

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Wish we had a flashlight.

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(muffled speaking)

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Oh, I bet my camera has a light.

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(muffled speaking)

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- [Girl] Have fun.

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- [Boy] How do I get up?

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(muffled speaking)

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(eerie electronic music)

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- [Narrator] In the present day,

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the tracks still wind through the trees.

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But only traces of the cars remain.

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It\'s a strange jumble of objects

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from disparate times and places.

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Could these be the possessions of those

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who used to use the trains for shelter?

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Among the tracks we found
another sad set of remnants.

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A turtle had somehow gotten
wedged between the tracks,

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and died there.

00:15:31.392 --> 00:15:34.809
(eerie electronic music)

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About once a year,

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when a location\'s ground
temperature is right,

00:15:58.990 --> 00:16:00.670
a large number of ant colonies

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undergo their breeding
rituals, all at once.

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Newly coronated queen
ants fly into the air,

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searching for places
to begin new colonies.

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For one day, winged ants fill the skies.

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This year, flying ant day coincided

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with the largest tropical
storm of the summer.

00:16:25.190 --> 00:16:26.793
The ants were not ready.

00:16:30.550 --> 00:16:32.480
While tropical storm Debbie ravaged

00:16:32.480 --> 00:16:34.770
the normally placid Siesta Key Beach,

00:16:34.770 --> 00:16:37.290
ants all over town were
struggling to fulfill

00:16:37.290 --> 00:16:38.553
their biological mission.

00:16:57.770 --> 00:17:00.000
At the storm\'s climax we took shelter

00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:01.543
in an abandoned factory.

00:17:05.580 --> 00:17:07.730
Its walls and ceiling are long gone,

00:17:07.730 --> 00:17:09.280
and the remaining support pillars

00:17:09.280 --> 00:17:11.830
give the place a kind of religious feel,

00:17:11.830 --> 00:17:13.437
like a profaned temple.

00:17:19.496 --> 00:17:22.496
(soft guitar music)

00:18:28.526 --> 00:18:31.443
(muffled speaking)

00:18:50.310 --> 00:18:52.450
We learned about this place third-hand,

00:18:52.450 --> 00:18:55.530
from a friend of a friend
who\'d heard vague stories

00:18:55.530 --> 00:18:59.543
about an abandoned factory
bristling with deadly radiation.

00:19:10.620 --> 00:19:12.840
Combing through old government documents,

00:19:12.840 --> 00:19:14.220
we discovered that the factory

00:19:14.220 --> 00:19:16.400
had tainted the local well water,

00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:19.510
but it\'s now relatively
harmless to walk through.

00:19:21.483 --> 00:19:24.900
(eerie electronic music)

00:19:36.210 --> 00:19:38.160
The whole building is teaming with life

00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:40.593
in a way that can only happen in Florida.

00:19:41.630 --> 00:19:44.240
Without a strong winter
to slow things down,

00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:46.870
the subtropical climate
here creates a state

00:19:46.870 --> 00:19:49.483
of constant, never-ending growth.

00:19:55.500 --> 00:19:57.530
The vines never slow their crawl,

00:19:57.530 --> 00:19:59.090
and the insects never stop

00:19:59.090 --> 00:20:02.333
their restless annexation of territories.

00:20:04.286 --> 00:20:06.786
(eerie music)

00:20:21.020 --> 00:20:22.840
- I\'m Elliot, I\'ve lived is Sarasota

00:20:22.840 --> 00:20:25.343
since I was like four or five,

00:20:26.590 --> 00:20:28.850
in a lot of different parts
of Sarasota, actually.

00:20:28.850 --> 00:20:30.163
We\'re in Rivendell,

00:20:31.122 --> 00:20:32.330
which despite it\'s name is not actually

00:20:32.330 --> 00:20:34.050
a \"Lord of the Rings\" fantasy world.

00:20:34.050 --> 00:20:37.450
It\'s actually a weird suburban community.

00:20:37.450 --> 00:20:41.470
I used to always go Halloween
trick or treating here,

00:20:41.470 --> 00:20:45.033
because it\'s super-rich
and they give great candy.

00:20:45.033 --> 00:20:46.450
(laughing)

00:20:46.450 --> 00:20:48.410
I feel like the point at which Sarasota

00:20:48.410 --> 00:20:50.390
was highest in the public consciousness,

00:20:50.390 --> 00:20:52.760
was when the recession happened,

00:20:52.760 --> 00:20:55.650
and Sarasota was what
they used as an example

00:20:55.650 --> 00:20:59.090
of an economy that was
totally based on housing,

00:20:59.090 --> 00:21:03.230
and on exorbitant like
crazy expensive housing,

00:21:03.230 --> 00:21:05.883
and like flipping houses
in really shady ways.

00:21:06.830 --> 00:21:08.960
And then it all came tumbling down.

00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:10.940
I mean my mom lost her
house because of that.

00:21:10.940 --> 00:21:12.950
They shouldn\'t have given her a loan.

00:21:12.950 --> 00:21:17.110
People in Sarasota want to create

00:21:17.110 --> 00:21:21.290
a city where they don\'t have to recognize

00:21:21.290 --> 00:21:23.220
that people who aren\'t like them,

00:21:23.220 --> 00:21:25.560
who aren\'t rich, white, old people,

00:21:25.560 --> 00:21:27.000
they want to not be able to see them.

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:29.120
They want to not be able
to realize they exist.

00:21:29.120 --> 00:21:31.660
You look at subdivisions like this,

00:21:31.660 --> 00:21:35.660
and with very few exceptions,
everyone looks the same.

00:21:35.660 --> 00:21:39.700
And everyone has bought
into this same culture

00:21:39.700 --> 00:21:42.560
of like middle class consumerism.

00:21:42.560 --> 00:21:45.560
When I was a kid I used to
get up to so much crazy shit,

00:21:45.560 --> 00:21:47.030
\'cause there\'s nothing to do here

00:21:47.030 --> 00:21:48.230
that\'s oriented towards kids,

00:21:48.230 --> 00:21:49.760
\'cause everyone here is old.

00:21:49.760 --> 00:21:52.280
And if an old person doesn\'t
want to or can\'t do it,

00:21:52.280 --> 00:21:53.450
it doesn\'t happen here.

00:21:53.450 --> 00:21:55.620
Like, it\'s not available.

00:21:55.620 --> 00:21:57.810
- [Narrator] So what did you do?

00:21:57.810 --> 00:22:00.913
- I would hang out in
abandoned buildings, you know.

00:22:02.510 --> 00:22:05.980
Just explore places where
I\'m not supposed to be.

00:22:05.980 --> 00:22:08.107
I think that Sarasota, like touted itself,

00:22:08.107 --> 00:22:12.200
has a very artsy, and like
that sort of gay-friendly town,

00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:13.270
but it\'s really not.

00:22:13.270 --> 00:22:16.150
They tried to burn down
the one shitty like

00:22:16.150 --> 00:22:19.510
terrible, empty gay club,

00:22:19.510 --> 00:22:20.390
that there is in Sarasota.

00:22:20.390 --> 00:22:23.480
It was called Throb, it
still is, it\'s still around.

00:22:23.480 --> 00:22:27.180
And they don\'t know if it was
arson, but they think it was.

00:22:27.180 --> 00:22:28.730
Like, who would do that?

00:22:28.730 --> 00:22:30.470
No one even went there.

00:22:30.470 --> 00:22:33.370
Like 90% of the queer
people I see in this town

00:22:33.370 --> 00:22:36.770
are rich old white men.

00:22:36.770 --> 00:22:38.630
Which like, great, you\'re queer,

00:22:38.630 --> 00:22:40.880
you\'re still are like
at the top of the pile.

00:22:41.844 --> 00:22:42.730
I don\'t know.

00:22:42.730 --> 00:22:44.850
I was reading and I discovered that

00:22:44.850 --> 00:22:47.670
my dad\'s house will like almost certainly

00:22:47.670 --> 00:22:49.540
be under water in the next 30 years.

00:22:49.540 --> 00:22:50.750
- [Narrator] Where\'s your dad\'s house?

00:22:50.750 --> 00:22:53.920
- Siesta Key, and it\'s like
five feet above sea level,

00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:57.010
if that, and so, even if it\'s
not actually under water,

00:22:57.010 --> 00:22:59.120
it\'ll be so close to the sea level,

00:22:59.120 --> 00:23:01.570
that like, you won\'t
be able to live there.

00:23:01.570 --> 00:23:05.040
Yeah, I mean, there\'s already towns where

00:23:05.040 --> 00:23:07.710
they experience flooding
on a weekly basis.

00:23:07.710 --> 00:23:09.640
Like we\'re literally,

00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:11.903
the entire town is flooded.

00:23:13.540 --> 00:23:14.510
- [Narrator] You think
that\'ll happen here?

00:23:14.510 --> 00:23:15.590
- Yeah, oh no, it will.

00:23:15.590 --> 00:23:17.730
That\'s the first step,
that\'s the first step

00:23:17.730 --> 00:23:19.660
before it becomes like
permanently under water,

00:23:19.660 --> 00:23:22.360
is it just experiences a lot
of flooding at high tide.

00:23:23.890 --> 00:23:28.810
And then, slowly the tide at
which it becomes under water

00:23:28.810 --> 00:23:31.740
becomes lower and lower until
it\'s under water full-time.

00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:34.250
The thing about Florida is that

00:23:34.250 --> 00:23:37.730
it\'s very inhospitable to humans.

00:23:37.730 --> 00:23:38.563
It\'s a swamp.

00:23:38.563 --> 00:23:43.420
Like there\'s not even solid
ground to live on, really.

00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:50.120
And so, every human habitation
we\'ve placed onto this land,

00:23:50.120 --> 00:23:54.000
is just like a thin veneer of stability,

00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:57.513
on what ultimately is
shifting all the time.

00:23:59.300 --> 00:24:02.920
It\'s like how building on barrier
islands doesn\'t make sense

00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:05.000
They\'re washing away.

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:07.560
You can\'t like, the fact
that they have to keep

00:24:07.560 --> 00:24:10.310
pouring sand onto Longboat Key is absurd.

00:24:10.310 --> 00:24:13.640
Like, those ecosystems are
meant to be ever-shifting.

00:24:13.640 --> 00:24:16.610
Like they\'re literally
building on the sand.

00:24:16.610 --> 00:24:17.443
You know.

00:24:18.460 --> 00:24:23.460
And so, and they expect
that to be an investment,

00:24:23.690 --> 00:24:25.653
that they\'re gonna get a return on.

00:24:27.180 --> 00:24:28.620
Rather than seeing it as it is,

00:24:28.620 --> 00:24:32.563
which is, it\'s gonna have
to disappear some day.

00:24:33.910 --> 00:24:38.910
So, the school I went to is
like right past these woods.

00:24:38.910 --> 00:24:43.840
And, see Pine View is weird
in that it\'s not locked down

00:24:43.840 --> 00:24:46.390
the same level as a lot of
other campuses, I think.

00:24:47.380 --> 00:24:50.561
So, kids used to sneak out
into the woods all the time.

00:24:50.561 --> 00:24:54.200
There was a giant network of paths,

00:24:54.200 --> 00:24:58.193
in these woods between this
subdivision and the school,

00:24:59.450 --> 00:25:04.323
and we built whole weird
little tribes that like,

00:25:05.750 --> 00:25:08.130
our own little culture,
that lived back there.

00:25:08.130 --> 00:25:10.270
We\'d come back here every
chance we got during lunch

00:25:10.270 --> 00:25:13.173
or when classes were over but
school hadn\'t let out yet.

00:25:14.670 --> 00:25:18.530
And, we had little paths back
here, we had little huts.

00:25:18.530 --> 00:25:20.700
We had names for each of the little groves

00:25:20.700 --> 00:25:22.290
we would hang out in.

00:25:22.290 --> 00:25:25.450
There was this one spot where
it\'s just this giant glade

00:25:25.450 --> 00:25:30.110
of grasses, and we would get
tired and sweaty after playing

00:25:30.110 --> 00:25:30.943
weird games in the woods,

00:25:30.943 --> 00:25:33.300
and we would go to this grasses area

00:25:33.300 --> 00:25:35.140
and we would just fall into the grass,

00:25:35.140 --> 00:25:37.223
and lie in the sun.

00:25:39.020 --> 00:25:41.000
It\'s one of the only places we weren\'t

00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:43.820
under constant surveillance.

00:25:43.820 --> 00:25:44.653
Like you\'re in school

00:25:44.653 --> 00:25:46.600
and there\'s always someone watching you.

00:25:48.350 --> 00:25:51.110
Everything you do is
shaped by that stricture,

00:25:51.110 --> 00:25:56.110
but out in the woods we could
form our own little culture.

00:25:56.660 --> 00:25:59.140
You know, we could create something

00:25:59.140 --> 00:26:01.670
outside the bounds of what
the adults in our life

00:26:01.670 --> 00:26:03.523
said was necessary.

00:26:05.830 --> 00:26:09.370
In our society, there\'s
so few ways for kids

00:26:09.370 --> 00:26:12.950
who are like 13 to 18,

00:26:12.950 --> 00:26:17.950
to create something that is
their own, and only their own.

00:26:17.970 --> 00:26:20.570
Like, no one else even knew
about this, it was ours.

00:26:22.430 --> 00:26:23.810
Man, I had almost forgotten about

00:26:23.810 --> 00:26:25.560
spending all our time in the woods.

00:26:44.970 --> 00:26:47.310
- [Narrator] Downtown
Sarasota has a remarkable

00:26:47.310 --> 00:26:49.620
number of parking garages.

00:26:49.620 --> 00:26:53.150
You can hardly walk a
block without seeing one.

00:26:53.150 --> 00:26:55.270
We used to dedicate entire evenings

00:26:55.270 --> 00:26:57.930
to exploring them, one after another.

00:26:57.930 --> 00:27:00.240
We quickly discovered that
we weren\'t the only ones

00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:02.363
misusing the garages in the dead of night.

00:27:03.490 --> 00:27:06.450
Without fail, every time
we visited the garages,

00:27:06.450 --> 00:27:10.400
we encountered people just
hanging out, having a good time,

00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:12.023
as late as four in the morning,

00:27:13.490 --> 00:27:14.690
drinking and chatting,

00:27:14.690 --> 00:27:17.623
trying to land old shoes on high poles,

00:27:18.550 --> 00:27:20.780
pulling up lawn chairs
and watching parties

00:27:20.780 --> 00:27:23.343
in the nearby condos from a distance.

00:27:25.060 --> 00:27:27.770
This is the newest garage
to hit Main Street.

00:27:27.770 --> 00:27:29.373
It\'s really quite nice.

00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:34.420
One day we were filming
here when we came across

00:27:34.420 --> 00:27:36.613
a group of teenage long-boarders.

00:27:37.620 --> 00:27:40.287
(uptempo music)

00:27:55.197 --> 00:27:58.030
(muffled singing)

00:29:18.540 --> 00:29:21.210
You could call this the adult contemporary

00:29:21.210 --> 00:29:25.110
new age smooth jazz of parking garages.

00:29:25.110 --> 00:29:27.100
We hadn\'t yet found the the avant garde

00:29:27.100 --> 00:29:30.990
industrial Norwegian black
metal of parking garages,

00:29:30.990 --> 00:29:34.783
but it waited, drooling,
only a few streets away.

00:29:49.990 --> 00:29:52.680
There is no reason why a parking garage

00:29:52.680 --> 00:29:54.313
should be this foreboding.

00:29:55.400 --> 00:29:57.900
The signs are contradictory,
and vaguely menacing.

00:30:02.260 --> 00:30:05.333
The entire structure is
bathed in sickly yellow light.

00:30:11.810 --> 00:30:15.760
The architecture is brutalist
in the most deranged sense.

00:30:15.760 --> 00:30:18.040
Blunt curves enclosing jagged edges,

00:30:18.040 --> 00:30:20.543
that serve no purpose but to disorient.

00:30:21.660 --> 00:30:23.700
The garage is rarely used,

00:30:23.700 --> 00:30:26.800
but there are always one
or two cars on every floor.

00:30:26.800 --> 00:30:29.120
And they always look like the
belong to seedy characters

00:30:29.120 --> 00:30:30.653
out of a Tom Waits song.

00:30:31.630 --> 00:30:33.100
We could find no explanation

00:30:33.100 --> 00:30:35.930
for why this garage was established.

00:30:35.930 --> 00:30:37.370
It appears to have been built

00:30:37.370 --> 00:30:40.013
to support a hotel that never existed.

00:30:41.530 --> 00:30:44.030
(tense music)

00:30:47.270 --> 00:30:50.620
On the top level, burnt
into the concrete floor,

00:30:50.620 --> 00:30:52.240
there\'s a faded pentagram,

00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:54.510
placed at the garage\'s center point,

00:30:54.510 --> 00:30:56.483
as if to channel its energy.

00:30:59.340 --> 00:31:02.360
One summer, on a Wednesday
night at four in the morning,

00:31:02.360 --> 00:31:03.690
we came up to the roof

00:31:03.690 --> 00:31:07.240
and found a full-on
soccer game in progress.

00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:09.410
There were upwards of 30 people there,

00:31:09.410 --> 00:31:11.060
and they were fiercely competing.

00:31:11.970 --> 00:31:14.713
We just stood there shocked,
and watched the game.

00:31:16.040 --> 00:31:18.890
None of the players acknowledged
our presence in any way.

00:31:20.020 --> 00:31:22.190
At one point someone kicked
the ball off the roof,

00:31:22.190 --> 00:31:24.380
and another player sprang onto a bike,

00:31:24.380 --> 00:31:26.270
pedaled all the way down to ground level,

00:31:26.270 --> 00:31:28.070
retrieved the ball, brought it back up,

00:31:28.070 --> 00:31:29.433
and resumed the game.

00:31:32.170 --> 00:31:34.380
After standing there,
gawking at this scene

00:31:34.380 --> 00:31:37.100
long enough to confirm that
we weren\'t imagining it,

00:31:37.100 --> 00:31:38.980
we wandered back the way we came,

00:31:38.980 --> 00:31:40.423
and left them to their game.

00:31:49.844 --> 00:31:51.600
Sarasota\'s downtown and Main Street

00:31:51.600 --> 00:31:53.270
operate under a noise ordinance,

00:31:53.270 --> 00:31:56.380
stating that all live
music must be performed

00:31:56.380 --> 00:31:59.680
at a volume of below 60 decibels,

00:31:59.680 --> 00:32:02.143
which is roughly as loud
as a dishwasher cycle.

00:32:03.830 --> 00:32:05.510
As a result local musicians

00:32:05.510 --> 00:32:08.343
have found it hard to make bookings.

00:32:09.210 --> 00:32:10.810
Some of them in consequence

00:32:10.810 --> 00:32:14.353
have turned to alternative venues.

00:32:17.520 --> 00:32:21.010
This storage unit, just outside
of the ordinance\'s zoning

00:32:21.010 --> 00:32:24.380
has attracted a crowd of young
musicians and enthusiasts,

00:32:24.380 --> 00:32:26.160
who show up at all hours of the night

00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:29.763
for a bit of unsilenced,
and unsupervised revelry.

00:32:35.006 --> 00:32:37.923
(muffled speaking)

00:32:44.083 --> 00:32:46.833
(group chatting)

00:32:51.841 --> 00:32:55.303
(light rock music)

00:32:55.303 --> 00:32:58.220
(muffled speaking)

00:33:28.700 --> 00:33:32.033
(escalating rock music)

00:35:04.120 --> 00:35:06.350
At a beach-side playground
I was waiting outside

00:35:06.350 --> 00:35:07.860
of the restrooms for my friends

00:35:07.860 --> 00:35:10.800
when I saw something strange on the wall.

00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:14.080
There was a small lizard
of an unusual shape.

00:35:14.080 --> 00:35:16.130
Looking closer, I
discovered that the lizard

00:35:16.130 --> 00:35:19.770
had somehow gotten a hold
of another lizard\'s tail.

00:35:19.770 --> 00:35:21.780
It sat there perfectly still,

00:35:21.780 --> 00:35:23.830
holding the tail in its mouth,

00:35:23.830 --> 00:35:26.110
forming a nonchalant occult symmetry

00:35:26.110 --> 00:35:27.593
on the restroom wall.

00:35:30.950 --> 00:35:34.150
In the early 20th century
the Paris surrealist group

00:35:34.150 --> 00:35:37.030
spent many hours wandering
the streets of their city

00:35:37.030 --> 00:35:39.063
in search of the marvelous.

00:35:40.100 --> 00:35:43.020
The marvelous was their aesthetic ideal,

00:35:43.020 --> 00:35:45.120
a sudden shock in which a dream state

00:35:45.120 --> 00:35:48.730
surges forth from an everyday situation.

00:35:48.730 --> 00:35:50.820
In the surrealist\'s nocturnal strolls

00:35:50.820 --> 00:35:51.980
through the city of Paris,

00:35:51.980 --> 00:35:55.150
they discovered and
cataloged marvelous zones,

00:35:55.150 --> 00:35:57.240
where outbreaks of poetic delirium

00:35:57.240 --> 00:35:58.853
could occur at any moment.

00:36:00.300 --> 00:36:02.863
In the words of the group\'s
founder, Andre Breton,

00:36:03.787 --> 00:36:06.257
\"The marvelous is always beautiful.

00:36:06.257 --> 00:36:08.127
\"Anything marvelous is beautiful,

00:36:08.127 --> 00:36:11.357
\"in fact, only the
marvelous is beautiful.\"

00:36:12.452 --> 00:36:15.869
(eerie electronic music)

00:36:31.990 --> 00:36:35.050
This is the dock where
I learned how to fish.

00:36:35.050 --> 00:36:38.070
My grandfather, a retired
Portuguese math teacher,

00:36:38.070 --> 00:36:41.423
and bakery owner, is a great
enthusiast for fishing.

00:36:42.260 --> 00:36:43.300
When he took me along,

00:36:43.300 --> 00:36:45.310
he would reveal a side of his personality

00:36:45.310 --> 00:36:47.970
that would shock and impress me.

00:36:47.970 --> 00:36:51.630
On the docks, his soft-spoken
intellectual demeanor

00:36:51.630 --> 00:36:53.690
would give way to the measured intensity

00:36:53.690 --> 00:36:55.283
of a seasoned fisherman.

00:36:56.470 --> 00:36:59.710
I once accidentally caught
a seagull in my line,

00:36:59.710 --> 00:37:01.940
and I saw him wrestle it to the ground,

00:37:01.940 --> 00:37:03.690
hold it still by the neck,

00:37:03.690 --> 00:37:06.653
and disentangle it with
military precision.

00:37:08.360 --> 00:37:10.440
I went fishing with him again last winter,

00:37:10.440 --> 00:37:12.710
and we faced another surprising catch,

00:37:12.710 --> 00:37:14.920
an adult stingray.

00:37:14.920 --> 00:37:16.490
When we pulled it onto the dock,

00:37:16.490 --> 00:37:19.910
it gave spontaneous live birth.

00:37:19.910 --> 00:37:22.310
Baby rays emerged, one after another,

00:37:22.310 --> 00:37:24.870
rolled up like newspapers.

00:37:24.870 --> 00:37:26.430
They flopped onto the docks,

00:37:26.430 --> 00:37:29.143
experiencing dry air before water.

00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:32.330
We tossed them into the ocean,

00:37:32.330 --> 00:37:34.853
and then just looked at each other.

00:37:48.640 --> 00:37:52.140
(dreamy orchestral music)

00:37:54.930 --> 00:37:56.550
- Home sweet Colony,

00:37:56.550 --> 00:37:59.760
on a finger of sand called,
Longboat Key, Florida.

00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:00.593
It\'s the Colony.

00:38:01.530 --> 00:38:04.197
(uptempo music)

00:38:13.900 --> 00:38:16.120
- [Announcer] The Colony
Beach and Tennis Resort

00:38:16.120 --> 00:38:17.863
is an extraordinary resort.

00:38:19.110 --> 00:38:22.750
21 complimentary tennis
courts, soft hydro courts,

00:38:22.750 --> 00:38:24.430
tennis instruction programs.

00:38:24.430 --> 00:38:27.170
Find tennis, golf, and fitness sportswear.

00:38:27.170 --> 00:38:28.700
Serious tennis players.

00:38:28.700 --> 00:38:30.290
21 available courts.

00:38:30.290 --> 00:38:32.370
One of the standards against which

00:38:32.370 --> 00:38:34.870
other pretenders to
greatness are measured.

00:38:34.870 --> 00:38:37.750
- It\'s a relaxing, exciting place,

00:38:37.750 --> 00:38:41.180
and regarding me, I\'m
here for playing tennis.

00:38:41.180 --> 00:38:42.650
And I have fun.

00:38:42.650 --> 00:38:44.690
- [Announcer] The Colony\'s got it all.

00:38:44.690 --> 00:38:47.660
800 feet of the Colony\'s
own private beach.

00:38:47.660 --> 00:38:49.763
Sailboats, the pool, beach activities,

00:38:49.763 --> 00:38:52.240
supervised activities, fitness center,

00:38:52.240 --> 00:38:53.580
exercise classes.

00:38:53.580 --> 00:38:55.920
Need a special floral arrangement?

00:38:55.920 --> 00:38:59.300
Health spa, sauna,
restaurant, exquisite dining,

00:38:59.300 --> 00:39:02.370
extensive wine list, Sunday brunch,

00:39:02.370 --> 00:39:05.790
traditional American,
extraordinary culinary,

00:39:05.790 --> 00:39:07.410
gourmet delicatessen.

00:39:07.410 --> 00:39:09.410
Clothing and gift boutique, beach club,

00:39:09.410 --> 00:39:12.707
full service concierge,
ready for your enjoyment.

00:39:13.773 --> 00:39:16.440
(gulls calling)

00:39:38.300 --> 00:39:40.250
- [Narrator] In one of
the richest parts of town,

00:39:40.250 --> 00:39:44.373
the world\'s most prestigious
tennis resort lies decomposing.

00:39:50.360 --> 00:39:52.200
In life, it had been a top destination

00:39:52.200 --> 00:39:54.530
for the wealthy and powerful.

00:39:54.530 --> 00:39:57.870
George W Bush stayed in
its presidential suite,

00:39:57.870 --> 00:39:59.533
on the eve of 9/11.

00:40:03.320 --> 00:40:05.160
Over the past 60 years,

00:40:05.160 --> 00:40:08.560
as the US\'s wealth
concentrated ever upwards,

00:40:08.560 --> 00:40:11.070
the Colony thrived off of serving those

00:40:11.070 --> 00:40:14.233
ever fewer and more powerful oligarchs.

00:40:16.520 --> 00:40:21.520
In 2010, the resort at last
collapsed under its own greed.

00:40:21.730 --> 00:40:23.110
By this point, many people

00:40:23.110 --> 00:40:25.260
had a financial stake in the resort,

00:40:25.260 --> 00:40:26.470
but none of them wanted to pay

00:40:26.470 --> 00:40:29.123
for the renovations it
needed to stay functional.

00:40:32.250 --> 00:40:34.460
The lawsuits came fast and thick,

00:40:34.460 --> 00:40:38.120
until the Colony\'s legal
situation became so convoluted,

00:40:38.120 --> 00:40:40.363
that it could no longer sustain itself.

00:40:41.440 --> 00:40:45.490
As the war wages in council
rooms and court chambers,

00:40:45.490 --> 00:40:49.083
the Colony has become
a demilitarized zone.

00:40:52.120 --> 00:40:55.280
While these very serious people

00:40:55.280 --> 00:40:57.090
squabble over their bank accounts,

00:40:57.090 --> 00:40:58.900
and beach-side properties,

00:40:58.900 --> 00:41:01.710
the once decadent beauty of the resort

00:41:01.710 --> 00:41:04.183
has fallen into a toxic ruin.

00:41:06.310 --> 00:41:08.680
Nearly every building in the Colony

00:41:08.680 --> 00:41:11.563
is infected with poisonous black mold.

00:41:12.460 --> 00:41:15.550
Some of the rooms have
been sealed for so long,

00:41:15.550 --> 00:41:17.620
that they\'ve become hothouses,

00:41:17.620 --> 00:41:20.070
the mold growing so rapaciously,

00:41:20.070 --> 00:41:22.583
that the windows are beaded with humidity.

00:41:33.930 --> 00:41:36.010
Of the abandoned spaces we visited,

00:41:36.010 --> 00:41:39.160
the Colony is the most
unsettling to walk through.

00:41:46.600 --> 00:41:50.010
The rooms are scattered with
objects thrown hastily about,

00:41:50.010 --> 00:41:52.163
as though the guests fled in fear.

00:41:56.820 --> 00:41:59.783
The tennis courts feel like
they\'re harboring ghosts.

00:42:08.970 --> 00:42:11.000
The omnipresent mold haunting the place

00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:13.110
is a severe health hazard,

00:42:13.110 --> 00:42:14.870
and you can almost feel it draining you

00:42:14.870 --> 00:42:16.490
as you pass through.

00:42:44.020 --> 00:42:46.220
On the periphery of the compound,

00:42:46.220 --> 00:42:50.183
a derelict swimming pool
has found new occupants.

00:42:55.480 --> 00:42:58.350
Somehow freshwater fish
have found their way

00:42:58.350 --> 00:43:01.360
to this isolated tub of rainwater,

00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:03.393
just a few meters from the ocean.

00:43:07.440 --> 00:43:09.900
They may have hitched a
ride in from the mouths

00:43:09.900 --> 00:43:12.053
of the herons that circle overhead.

00:43:15.570 --> 00:43:17.570
They commune with the skeletal crabs

00:43:17.570 --> 00:43:20.573
on the shore of this alien environment.

00:43:22.652 --> 00:43:25.152
(eerie music)

00:44:11.342 --> 00:44:13.842
(eerie music)

00:45:26.236 --> 00:45:27.800
While investigating the disappearance

00:45:27.800 --> 00:45:29.640
of the celery field boxcars,

00:45:29.640 --> 00:45:31.640
we heard word of a second set of cars

00:45:31.640 --> 00:45:34.063
way off on the north side of town.

00:45:36.760 --> 00:45:39.240
They\'re rusted and desolate.

00:45:39.240 --> 00:45:40.550
They look like they\'ve been left

00:45:40.550 --> 00:45:42.843
to ripen in the sun for decades.

00:45:48.030 --> 00:45:50.730
After our initial visit,
we were shocked to learn

00:45:50.730 --> 00:45:54.080
that they\'d only been installed
a few months previous.

00:45:54.080 --> 00:45:57.410
The owners of the boxcars
needed a place to store them,

00:45:57.410 --> 00:46:00.140
so they chose a stretch
of track directly adjacent

00:46:00.140 --> 00:46:01.653
to a residential neighborhood.

00:46:05.810 --> 00:46:07.420
The residents were incensed,

00:46:07.420 --> 00:46:09.850
and made public statements
condemning the owners

00:46:09.850 --> 00:46:14.400
for inviting undesirables
to share their space.

00:46:14.400 --> 00:46:17.547
One letter bemoaned that the cars, quote,

00:46:17.547 --> 00:46:20.587
\"are like magnets to curious children,

00:46:20.587 --> 00:46:23.177
\"adventuresome teens, and the homeless,

00:46:23.177 --> 00:46:26.690
\"already in that area
looking for a dry home.\"

00:46:26.690 --> 00:46:29.443
She forgot to mention
documentary filmmakers.

00:46:32.010 --> 00:46:34.680
Beyond irritating the
homeowners association,

00:46:34.680 --> 00:46:37.010
and attracting everyone else,

00:46:37.010 --> 00:46:39.460
the cars act as a rotating gallery show

00:46:39.460 --> 00:46:43.790
for the city\'s marginalized,
anonymous, outsider artists.

00:46:43.790 --> 00:46:48.030
In a city where 90% of paintings
include pastel pelicans,

00:46:48.030 --> 00:46:49.660
it\'s thrilling to see what happens

00:46:49.660 --> 00:46:52.933
when a huge sheet metal
canvass is open to the public.

00:47:01.550 --> 00:47:03.650
This is one of the only places in town

00:47:03.650 --> 00:47:06.240
where you can see
representations of Sarasota,

00:47:06.240 --> 00:47:09.393
that aren\'t specifically
tailored to draw in tourists.

00:47:22.720 --> 00:47:24.530
Just a few hundred feet off

00:47:24.530 --> 00:47:27.350
of South Lido\'s crab-strewn shores,

00:47:27.350 --> 00:47:29.830
there is a vanishingly rare ecosystem

00:47:29.830 --> 00:47:32.210
that can only be reached by boat.

00:47:32.210 --> 00:47:33.550
Gripping the edge of ocean

00:47:33.550 --> 00:47:36.350
is a series of tunnels made of mangroves,

00:47:36.350 --> 00:47:39.773
one of the few trees capable
of living off of salt water.

00:47:40.900 --> 00:47:44.450
In order to thrive in a
salty intertidal environment,

00:47:44.450 --> 00:47:47.683
the trees have grown into
strange and novel shapes.

00:47:49.940 --> 00:47:54.210
The mangroves form a habitat
for a number of species.

00:47:54.210 --> 00:47:56.940
Some of them have
co-evolved with the trees,

00:47:56.940 --> 00:48:00.743
taking on alien forms to suit
their unusual environment.

00:48:08.980 --> 00:48:10.240
Drifting through the tunnels

00:48:10.240 --> 00:48:13.170
was a spiritual experience for us.

00:48:13.170 --> 00:48:16.410
We felt like we\'d found
Sarasota\'s pineal gland,

00:48:16.410 --> 00:48:17.870
the seat of its soul.

00:48:21.776 --> 00:48:24.276
(eerie music)

00:51:06.408 --> 00:51:09.908
(bright orchestral music)

00:51:10.870 --> 00:51:13.720
- [Announcer] Sparkling sunshine
on a breeze-swept island

00:51:13.720 --> 00:51:15.680
in the Gulf of Mexico.

00:51:15.680 --> 00:51:19.050
What a perfect setting for a
holiday for Nancy and Bill.

00:51:19.050 --> 00:51:23.600
A joyous holiday, with an
extraordinary surprise in store.

00:51:23.600 --> 00:51:26.923
They are about to discover
a remarkable landmark.

00:51:27.890 --> 00:51:29.450
It is no more,

00:51:29.450 --> 00:51:32.440
but our lucky pair saw it, explored it,

00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:34.010
along with the island paradise

00:51:34.010 --> 00:51:36.500
that is the Longboat Key of today,

00:51:36.500 --> 00:51:39.340
a fantastic ruin, a ghost hotel

00:51:39.340 --> 00:51:44.063
that stood as a landmark on
Longboat Key for 37 years.

00:51:54.350 --> 00:51:55.430
- [Narrator] Those who make a hobby

00:51:55.430 --> 00:51:56.960
of visiting abandoned spaces,

00:51:56.960 --> 00:51:59.793
like to call themselves urban explorers.

00:52:00.920 --> 00:52:03.980
A true urban explorer
does not damage or steal

00:52:03.980 --> 00:52:05.800
from the properties they visit.

00:52:05.800 --> 00:52:08.600
The saying goes, take
nothing but photographs,

00:52:08.600 --> 00:52:10.223
leave nothing but footprints.

00:52:11.490 --> 00:52:12.690
There\'s a single blog

00:52:12.690 --> 00:52:15.800
dedicated to urban
exploration in Sarasota.

00:52:15.800 --> 00:52:17.670
We met up with its mysterious owner,

00:52:17.670 --> 00:52:19.713
who goes by the handle, Shyguy.

00:52:20.690 --> 00:52:23.220
- My name is U.E. Shyguy,

00:52:23.220 --> 00:52:26.180
and that stands for
Urban Exploration Shyguy,

00:52:26.180 --> 00:52:29.580
and recently I\'ve moved to Sarasota,

00:52:29.580 --> 00:52:33.843
just for high school, so I\'ve
been here for four years.

00:52:34.700 --> 00:52:38.820
That\'s kind of how it started.

00:52:38.820 --> 00:52:40.630
As a teenager, I don\'t feel like

00:52:40.630 --> 00:52:43.040
there\'s a lot to really do in Sarasota.

00:52:43.040 --> 00:52:45.260
I mean I think that\'s a pretty
common belief everywhere,

00:52:45.260 --> 00:52:47.540
but we really felt that.

00:52:47.540 --> 00:52:49.920
We didn\'t have cars, you
couldn\'t get into clubs,

00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:53.640
you could take the bus down
to the beach, or the mall,

00:52:53.640 --> 00:52:55.330
but I guess that was really it,

00:52:55.330 --> 00:52:59.780
so we made our own fun.

00:52:59.780 --> 00:53:00.620
In our spare time,

00:53:00.620 --> 00:53:03.550
we would go hang out at
these abandoned golf courses.

00:53:03.550 --> 00:53:05.460
And they were huge, hundred acres,

00:53:05.460 --> 00:53:08.090
and they had club houses,

00:53:08.090 --> 00:53:09.700
cart houses, storage sheds.

00:53:09.700 --> 00:53:11.690
There\'s all sorts of graffiti.

00:53:11.690 --> 00:53:14.730
People turned it into a
skate park at one point.

00:53:14.730 --> 00:53:16.230
One time we went out there and

00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:19.150
we found shotgun shells
all over the place.

00:53:19.150 --> 00:53:22.460
We found empty ammunition, and then,

00:53:22.460 --> 00:53:24.170
we saw a pit bull run up to us,

00:53:24.170 --> 00:53:25.050
and at that point we thought

00:53:25.050 --> 00:53:27.290
we were about to get murdered by somebody,

00:53:27.290 --> 00:53:29.530
because the guy had a gun on his back.

00:53:29.530 --> 00:53:31.160
And he was on a four-wheeler,
and he just comes up to us,

00:53:31.160 --> 00:53:33.190
he said, you guys can\'t be out here.

00:53:33.190 --> 00:53:35.790
That was the first time we
saw him, so we were like,

00:53:35.790 --> 00:53:37.580
okay, never again.

00:53:37.580 --> 00:53:39.417
And then eventually, we, screw that,

00:53:39.417 --> 00:53:41.410
and we just kept going out there.

00:53:41.410 --> 00:53:44.090
I guess from there it kind of sprouted

00:53:44.090 --> 00:53:47.500
more into a, instead of just going there,

00:53:47.500 --> 00:53:50.550
actually appreciating what it is.

00:53:50.550 --> 00:53:51.383
And,

00:53:53.690 --> 00:53:55.310
once I was able to do that

00:53:55.310 --> 00:53:57.640
I guess it really opened it up.

00:53:57.640 --> 00:54:00.030
You see the big picture of everything,

00:54:00.030 --> 00:54:03.220
because I used to frequent
a couple of these spots

00:54:03.220 --> 00:54:05.290
that have been destroyed.

00:54:05.290 --> 00:54:07.750
You know, something that
I really liked a lot,

00:54:07.750 --> 00:54:10.890
just became wiped out, I
had nothing to say about it,

00:54:10.890 --> 00:54:14.053
and that was kind of a bummer.

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:17.380
And I like to look back at the
pictures that I tool there,

00:54:17.380 --> 00:54:18.423
and I thought well,

00:54:19.550 --> 00:54:22.110
these places are popping up and
getting destroyed every day,

00:54:22.110 --> 00:54:26.053
so I think I\'ll go out and
have fun while they last.

00:54:27.530 --> 00:54:30.500
I feel like a lot of these
places that you go to,

00:54:30.500 --> 00:54:31.940
they were meant for tourists,

00:54:31.940 --> 00:54:33.350
they were meant for people to enjoy.

00:54:33.350 --> 00:54:35.860
They were for the public as opposed to

00:54:35.860 --> 00:54:39.810
a lot of abandoned plants
and industrial parks.

00:54:39.810 --> 00:54:42.110
You can definitely still enjoy them.

00:54:42.110 --> 00:54:43.230
I mean there\'s so much to see,

00:54:43.230 --> 00:54:45.120
there\'s the abandoned church,

00:54:45.120 --> 00:54:49.440
and that has some of the most beautiful

00:54:49.440 --> 00:54:51.220
giant oak trees that
I\'ve every seen before,

00:54:51.220 --> 00:54:54.180
and they must be hundreds of years old.

00:54:54.180 --> 00:54:56.023
And there\'s a huge field behind it.

00:54:56.860 --> 00:54:59.030
I see people playing with their dogs,

00:54:59.030 --> 00:55:00.970
fishing in the lakes.

00:55:00.970 --> 00:55:04.670
I see people getting on top of
the old abandoned buildings,

00:55:04.670 --> 00:55:07.890
so they can get a high view
and look over the skyline.

00:55:07.890 --> 00:55:12.340
And, just because it\'s
gone for the tourists,

00:55:12.340 --> 00:55:15.090
I mean it\'s gone for what
you would normally think that

00:55:16.280 --> 00:55:17.663
a golf course is there for.

00:55:18.620 --> 00:55:22.700
It\'s kind of a whole new group of people

00:55:22.700 --> 00:55:26.603
can come in and enjoy it for
whole new different activities.

00:55:28.830 --> 00:55:31.770
I guess when, like when
something\'s decomposing,

00:55:31.770 --> 00:55:33.400
first you get the flies,

00:55:33.400 --> 00:55:35.670
and then you get worms, I don\'t know.

00:55:35.670 --> 00:55:39.260
It\'s just, something like that.

00:55:39.260 --> 00:55:41.190
If you think about Sarasota,
you think about the beaches.

00:55:41.190 --> 00:55:44.020
You think about the art, you
think about the Ringlings,

00:55:44.020 --> 00:55:47.610
and I guess retirement in sunny Florida,

00:55:47.610 --> 00:55:49.210
but you don\'t really think about

00:55:50.093 --> 00:55:51.690
what\'s going on behind the scenes

00:55:51.690 --> 00:55:54.660
of the sunny vacation community.

00:55:54.660 --> 00:55:57.230
Some of these places
kind of just fall apart.

00:55:57.230 --> 00:56:01.260
Nobody notices them for years and,

00:56:01.260 --> 00:56:03.410
they\'re just there on
the side of the road.

00:56:06.300 --> 00:56:08.890
It makes you think that
in the center of this

00:56:08.890 --> 00:56:10.660
vacation community,

00:56:10.660 --> 00:56:12.270
and everyone just goes about their lives,

00:56:12.270 --> 00:56:14.670
it\'s just a little glimpse there

00:56:14.670 --> 00:56:17.600
of everything\'s falling apart.

00:56:17.600 --> 00:56:20.420
I kind of have this dystopian

00:56:20.420 --> 00:56:23.190
future kind of fantasy,
I guess you would say.

00:56:23.190 --> 00:56:24.777
So, when I see these old buildings,

00:56:24.777 --> 00:56:27.420
that have only been neglected
for five or 10 years,

00:56:27.420 --> 00:56:29.980
and they\'re just completely falling apart,

00:56:29.980 --> 00:56:33.180
walls have caved in, trees
are growing through the floor,

00:56:33.180 --> 00:56:35.740
that\'s just kind of a glimpse like,

00:56:35.740 --> 00:56:38.180
what could happen, or what
the world would look like,

00:56:38.180 --> 00:56:41.103
just in five or 10 years
without anybody living there.

00:56:42.030 --> 00:56:45.740
And just how quickly
nature would take back

00:56:45.740 --> 00:56:46.853
whatever we put there.

00:56:48.270 --> 00:56:50.400
It\'s interesting to see
what just one or two years

00:56:50.400 --> 00:56:53.190
of neglect will do.

00:56:53.190 --> 00:56:56.783
It just goes to show how
impermanent everything is.

00:57:03.687 --> 00:57:06.187
(eerie music)

00:57:11.750 --> 00:57:14.520
- [Narrator] On an unnamed
beach north of Longboat Key,

00:57:14.520 --> 00:57:16.983
Sarasota rehearses its future.

00:57:26.480 --> 00:57:27.790
We\'re headed for a time

00:57:27.790 --> 00:57:30.690
when major swaths of the
city are under water,

00:57:30.690 --> 00:57:32.693
or otherwise uninhabitable.

00:57:42.040 --> 00:57:44.120
An imperceptibly slow apocalypse

00:57:44.120 --> 00:57:45.853
is washing in with the tide.

00:57:58.600 --> 00:58:01.230
The fallen trees fading into the surf

00:58:01.230 --> 00:58:03.390
foreshadow a flooded city,

00:58:03.390 --> 00:58:04.793
in a drowned world.

01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:29.297
We return to the place
where the turtle had died,

01:00:29.297 --> 01:00:31.243
and the boxcars had vanished.

01:00:34.230 --> 01:00:36.600
It had been over a year
since our last visit,

01:00:36.600 --> 01:00:38.863
but the turtle\'s remains were still there.

01:00:40.860 --> 01:00:43.263
They were almost unrecognizable.

01:00:44.620 --> 01:00:46.390
The bones were bleached by the sun,

01:00:46.390 --> 01:00:48.000
stripped nearly bare,

01:00:48.000 --> 01:00:49.370
and scattered about widely,

01:00:49.370 --> 01:00:51.563
as though blown apart from underneath.

01:00:54.980 --> 01:00:56.710
Strewn across the train tracks,

01:00:56.710 --> 01:00:59.090
they formed an exquisite tableau,

01:00:59.090 --> 01:01:00.803
marking a secret history.

01:01:16.960 --> 01:01:20.323
We came back to the golf
course to find it dissected.

01:01:24.900 --> 01:01:28.210
The headquarters and clubhouse
had been neatly removed,

01:01:28.210 --> 01:01:30.323
evicting its vespine tenants.

01:01:33.210 --> 01:01:35.930
The thousands of wasps
that called it home,

01:01:35.930 --> 01:01:37.290
were forced to cram together

01:01:37.290 --> 01:01:39.750
in the one structure left standing,

01:01:39.750 --> 01:01:41.043
this tiny guard post.

01:02:00.220 --> 01:02:02.733
The old factory has been erased as well.

01:02:07.250 --> 01:02:11.363
This secret meeting place has
become a blank concrete slab.

01:02:17.710 --> 01:02:20.530
The planes from the nearby
airport careening overhead

01:02:20.530 --> 01:02:22.963
left us feeling disoriented and exposed.

01:02:33.100 --> 01:02:35.670
We gave up on finding
anything of interest here,

01:02:35.670 --> 01:02:37.303
and headed for the beach.

01:02:46.400 --> 01:02:48.720
At three a.m. Siesta Key beach

01:02:48.720 --> 01:02:50.883
is the most marvelous place on Earth.

01:02:51.840 --> 01:02:53.300
As the night spirals out,

01:02:53.300 --> 01:02:56.280
the beach\'s personality shifts.

01:02:56.280 --> 01:02:58.010
Traversing the darkened sands,

01:02:58.010 --> 01:03:01.200
one passes the rare
silhouettes of other visitors,

01:03:01.200 --> 01:03:03.263
dimly seen under weak moonlight.

01:03:04.160 --> 01:03:08.320
The ocean blends into the
sky to form a complete void.

01:03:08.320 --> 01:03:11.823
It feels like when the sand
ends, the Earth does to.

01:03:15.220 --> 01:03:18.200
Every night the beach is
littered with young sand castles

01:03:18.200 --> 01:03:20.273
left there by the day\'s visitors.

01:03:21.380 --> 01:03:22.450
We walked among them,

01:03:22.450 --> 01:03:24.653
cataloging the ways a sculpture can die.

01:03:39.560 --> 01:03:42.320
We stopped just before dawn,

01:03:42.320 --> 01:03:44.880
we looked up, in our shared dream

01:03:44.880 --> 01:03:47.940
a massively complex
luminescent rainbow grid

01:03:47.940 --> 01:03:49.900
was domed over the sky.

01:03:49.900 --> 01:03:51.890
It\'s latticework slowly pulsing

01:03:51.890 --> 01:03:53.373
with the beat of the waves.

01:03:58.610 --> 01:04:00.520
These moments of surreal beauty

01:04:00.520 --> 01:04:04.810
have become the basis for a
deep secular spirituality.

01:04:04.810 --> 01:04:06.780
Like Breton we\'ve seen the marvelous

01:04:06.780 --> 01:04:09.350
in our explorations of Sarasota.

01:04:09.350 --> 01:04:13.120
We\'ve learned how to find other
realms inside the ordinary.

01:04:13.120 --> 01:04:15.630
In these spaces, with these people,

01:04:15.630 --> 01:04:18.090
we\'ve found a form of transcendence.

01:04:38.279 --> 01:04:42.186
In this spirit we make the
following declarations.

01:04:42.186 --> 01:04:45.186
(soft guitar music)

01:04:47.950 --> 01:04:49.730
We will trace the movements of stars

01:04:49.730 --> 01:04:51.253
in the flesh of an orange.

01:04:57.610 --> 01:05:00.563
We will paint ourselves
in the rust of train cars.

01:05:05.530 --> 01:05:09.163
We will see ocean waves
reflected in the eyes of lizards.

01:05:13.270 --> 01:05:17.223
We will hear the gurgling venom
in a thousand ant abdomens.

01:05:20.900 --> 01:05:23.843
We will speak to ourselves
in the language of wasps.

01:05:32.100 --> 01:05:35.333
We will read secret histories
in the skeletons of sharks.

01:05:43.840 --> 01:05:46.760
We will bury ourselves under
decaying tennis courts,

01:05:46.760 --> 01:05:48.770
and harmonize with the city.

01:06:19.877 --> 01:06:22.794
(light rock music)

01:06:29.053 --> 01:06:34.053
♪ Do you feel potential ♪

01:06:35.725 --> 01:06:40.725
♪ Ursula ♪

01:06:42.343 --> 01:06:47.343
♪ To live like we\'re meant to ♪

01:06:49.103 --> 01:06:54.103
♪ Unrestrained with you ♪

01:06:56.794 --> 01:07:01.794
♪ Are you becoming satisfied ♪

01:07:03.113 --> 01:07:08.113
♪ Does every year go faster by ♪

01:07:09.820 --> 01:07:14.820
♪ Are you becoming satisfied ♪

01:07:16.581 --> 01:07:21.581
♪ Does anything still change your mind ♪

01:07:22.915 --> 01:07:27.915
♪ I need some essentials ♪

01:07:29.705 --> 01:07:34.705
♪ Ursula ♪

01:07:36.595 --> 01:07:41.595
♪ To take some air and income ♪

01:07:43.233 --> 01:07:48.233
♪ I know from who, from
who, from who, from who ♪

01:07:50.691 --> 01:07:55.691
♪ Are you becoming satisfied ♪

01:07:57.113 --> 01:08:02.113
♪ Does every year go faster by ♪

01:08:03.943 --> 01:08:08.943
♪ Are you taking it all in stride ♪

01:08:10.651 --> 01:08:15.651
♪ Does anything still change your mind ♪

01:08:17.534 --> 01:08:22.534
♪ Are you becoming satisfied ♪

01:08:24.383 --> 01:08:28.133
♪ Are you becoming satisfied ♪