Paul E. Fallon turns his love of cycling into a national conversation as he pedals over 20,000 miles through the forty-eight contiguous states and asks everyone he meets, 'How will we live tomorrow?' Hundreds of strangers offer him food and shelter; thousands more share their thoughts about our future. His adventure includes six passes over the Continental Divide, four lonely stretches across the Great Plains, perilous navigation in driving rain, raging wildfires, and a too-close encounter with a Porsche. Yet our glorious land is mere backdrop to the fascinating characters he meets: agitators; agri-business tycoons; reclusive mountain men; bubbling socialites; raging entrepreneurs; appreciative immigrants.
People's responses to Paul's open-ended question, How Will We Live Tomorrow? reveal a nation defined by contrasts rather than commonalities; a coast-to-coast manifestation of Newton's Third Law, where extreme action begets even more extreme reaction. In physics, this results in equilibrium. But a society that scratches at our differences rather than celebrating what we share becomes a centrifuge, spinning ever faster into its discordant parts.
Paul pedals through the 2015 Presidential primaries, when people don't bother to pay attention to so many candidates in an election so far away. He rides after the race gets winnowed down to two contenders, each ripe with faults. He witnesses the political rage that fuels Donald Trump, and the dismay that follows his election, even among deep red state supporters. Shouting 'lock her up' was so much fun; governing is a bummer.
At ten miles per hour, Paul is a slow moving antidote to our national dissonance. Unhinged from the pressures of constant consumption and insistent media, Paul finds generous people of all persuasions and discovers the strength in asking a question rather than pretending to know the answers.
Fallon, Paul E.: - Paul E. Fallon's voice does not give him away. No one has ever been able to identify the trio of geographies: South Jersey; Oklahoma; Boston; that sheltered him from boyhood to maturity just by hearing him speak. Each is a region of particular customs and accents, places others might call provincial. Yet this amalgam of unique places is Paul's foundation for appreciating a broad spectrum of human attitudes and behavior. Paul spent his architectural career designing healthcare facilities (MIT 1977, 1981). A casual connection to Haiti became a commitment after that country's 2010 earthquake. Paul designed a trio of buildings on The Magic Island and lived in Haiti part-time to supervise construction. Oscillating between the Western Hemisphere's most affluent nation and its poorest cousin became the focus of his book Architecture by Moonlight (University of Missouri Press, 2014). Living outside of the United States gave Paul a renewed perspective on his native country. He retired from architecture to explore our nation in a deeper way. In 2015-2016, Paul bicycled through the forty-eight contiguous states and asked folks the question, 'How we will live tomorrow?' He travelled 20,733 miles in 397 days; over two hundred strangers offered hospitality; he profiled more than 450 individuals and companies and collected thousands of other views on tomorrow. Paul has two children. He lives in Cambridge, MA.
