Archive for 2012
it shines and shakes and laughs
– photo by Mitch Waxman
How one has missed the filth and degradation. Rendering the urgency of returning to these places, lonely and swept by a poisonous fume called wind, and finding the lessons offered has been a source of great angst for your humble narrator. It is difficult to describe my personal experience with these lots and parcels, or defend my deep affection for something like the former Phelps Dodge property at Laurel Hill. This is a shunned place, avoided by all given a choice, yet one finds himself moving inexorably toward it after pinning cap to head and telling “Our Lady of the Pentacle” that “I’m going out for a walk”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is little honey to be found here, unless one uses the euphemism favored by DEP employees for the material they handle. Everywhere is a concretized and apocalyptic post industrial landscape and active culture of garbage handlers and warehouse employees. Barren, the landscape enjoys only the crudest amenities. Street trees are quickly shattered by trucks, and a loose sandy gravel seemingly composed of powderized automotive glass reflects a weak and diffuse light transmitted by the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For one such as myself, a ghastly and shambling outcast scuttling about in a filthy black raincoat, the only thought a place like Maspeth Creek can evince is “Hallelujah”. Every suspicion about the truth of the great human hive is manifest here, and condemnation of society at large is readily at hand. Perhaps this is why I am so drawn to this forgotten valley of corrupted nature, as it mirrors the sickness in my own thoughts. An inch behind my eyes, I believe, is naught but black mayonnaise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maybe I am “all ‘effed up”, but to me, this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. “Welcome to Newtown Creek”, say I, with hardly any sense or ironic humor or twee dispatch.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
for more information on the October 27th Newtown Creek Boat Tour, click here
for more information on the November 9th Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show, click here
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
embowered banks
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking through Calvary Cemetery recently, directly following the so called Hunters Moon recently enjoyed by all, your humble narrator decided to check in on “The Tree fed by a Morbid Nutrition” which has been observed as the site of occult activity in the recent past. The postings “Triskadekaphobic Paranoia” and “Update on the Calvary Knots” discussed the tree and its locale in some detail. It’s a lonely spot at a high elevation, a lost corner in the emerald devastations of Calvary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The four paper bags were artfully concealed, and neatly arranged. It was only while walking a widdershin circumnavigation of the loathsome arbor that they were noticed. The path taken by most is alien to one such as myself, and long experience suggests that it is often profitable to investigate the hidden. Accordingly, a pocket tool was employed and one of the little sacks was inspected.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The jingle of coins was detected, although not visually observed. Magickal practice often involves direct involvement with bodily fluids and other esoteric compounds- some pharmacological in nature and possibly psychoactive- and it is best to not touch such artifacts with bare skin. Additionally, for those of you who subscribe to a supranormal world view which includes the presence of invisible intelligences and intangible entities possessed of power beyond human imagination, there are other possible exposures which might emanate from violating a ritual altar.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The package included some sort of vegetable or fruit, which had an incision midway through its ovum. Normally, it would be time for one to speculate on either the magickal or occult philosophy represented by this peasant altar, but frankly- leaving four sacks of incised vegetative matter and coinage in a deserted cemetery altar is one thing which I do not wish to speculate upon. A growing sense of dread and paranoid wonderings began to envelop me and I decided to just leave this thing to itself. In Calvary Cemetery, and all burial grounds, one hopes to leave naught but a single set of footprints behind, and carry nothing but photographs back out through the stout iron gates.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The (possible) Witch Knots were still in place on neighboring monuments, it should be mentioned.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
monotonous whine
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Polyandrion, Calvary Cemetery welcomes, and all roads lead here. After vainglorious attempts at normalcy, laced with some latent desire to fit into society at large, your humble narrator returns at last to a true place. There is no facade here, in this latent psychic cauldron of thwarted ambition and manifest hubris. There are only the tomb legions, and the groundling burrowers, and an odd man in a shabby black raincoat wandering a hill once called Laurel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Neglectful, a joyless and pitiless avatar of failed ambition has been ignoring this place for too long, occupied as it were with politicking and social engagement. A long season which has exposed many to my vast inadequacy during multitudinous tours and meetings is nearly at an end. To be seen by so many diminishes me, and frequent company on my walks obfuscates recognition of those patterns and curious relics of earlier times hidden in plain by torch bearing Dutchmen and buckskin clad Aborigines alike.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the last several months, Calvary has been a place passed by, often gazed upon with the sort of fondness reserved for a matron aunt or an overlooked friendship. No longer is this the case, recent sojourns have proven both productive and fascinating journeys- or perhaps it is merely the season of the year? Queens is speaking to me again, and for the first time in months, intelligibly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, the ever present headphones worn while walking this path- literally as these shots were being captured- began playing Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”. As this is a random classical piece, lost amongst the hundreds of hardcore punk and death metal songs contained in the same playlist. One considers this to be significant somehow, but often, small things seem important while wandering through the marble heart of the Newtown Pentacle.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
sensitive shadow
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Almost immediately following the appearance of the MV Newtown Creek sludge boat described yesterday, the Sea Wolf tug appeared at Hellsgate, making it ineffably clear that there is no place for me to escape from Newtown Creek and its world. Sea Wolf is a regular sight on the Creek, and the barge it was handling no doubt came from the recycling facilities of SimsMetal also found on the troubled waterway which defines the currently undefeated border of Brooklyn and Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Although my life seems to be some sort of permanent vacation, albeit one lived on an art students budget, it has been too long a time since one has left New York City and viewed something unspoiled- or just different. Part of this is due to work, and an inability to get away for any protracted length of time, but there is something else at work in my mind. One might actually have grown afraid to leave the megalopolis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like any prisoner, your humble narrator has become institutionalized, and cowers before the unknown world beyond the palisade walls of the Hudson or the crashing waves of Jamaica Bay. Rationalizations abound… there are a few places I’d like to visit- mainly in Europe (financially and culturally impossible), a few in Asia (similarly unattainable), and many in North America. Traditional vacation destinations don’t work for me, as personal descriptions of hell involve sitting in a chair on a beach and doing absolutely nothing while staring at empty horizons.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The manner in which my mind works, an admittedly byzantine and muddled process, breaks words down to find their true meanings. Recreation is “re-creation” and one has no desire to be recreated in any manner. Vacation is “vacant”. There is no break, no moment of rest for one such as myself. Enough of this idle, sitting in Astoria Park and watching the ships slide by. Clearly it is time to go back to my world of pain and misery along the Newtown Creek- where I belong.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
abrupt command
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spending so much time around the Newtown Creek, despite its myriad charms, one often desires to visit other locales. Accordingly, a recent afternoon was spent wandering about the shorelines of Astoria, specifically the legend haunted Hells Gate. Astoria Park adjoins the waterway, and it’s unique elevation over the strait affords one a lovely opportunity to witness not just the rail lines which exploit the Hellsgate Bridge, but to spot and photograph a disturbingly heterogenous number of commercial ships.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My desire to escape the creeklands for a moment is merely a passing whimsy, an attempt at normalcy. One often fears that this, your Newtown Pentacle, might strike a single note too often and accordingly efforts are made to explore an ever expanding series of sites and situations around the harbor. This is what was on my mind, when a DEP Sludge Boat came into view.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My goal in coming here was to avoid all mention of the world normally occupied, and to enjoy an afternoon with “Our Lady of the Pentacle” while perambulating about beneath the autumnal thermonuclear burning eye of god itself. To merely experience a day absent from conversations about municipal waste handling, titanic industrial combines, and speculation about “all there is, that might be buried down there”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Paranoid and stupefyingly pedantic, my world view is decidedly determinist. Nothing “just happens” and causation often indicates correlation as far as I am concerned. Newtown Creek will not allow me to escape its company, even for a short while. The Newtown Creek has actually begun to follow me about.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
The Newtown Pentacle 