Archive for 2012
twisting willows
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman, 2012
During this infirmity which has struck me down, a twisting gimlet of overstressed tissue in my lower back (for those of you who haven’t read my endless complaints about it in the last week), an amazing amount of time has been spent combing the vast Internet in search of amusement and diversion. While doing so, a few images at the New York City Municipal Archives provided me with some intellectual whimsy. The shot above is quite modern, captured a few days after Hurricane Sandy. It depicts the “Queens Midtown Highway” section of the Long Island Expressway.
– photo by nycma.lunaimaging.com, May 13, 1941
The historic shot from May 1941, above, is shot from a few hundred feet south of my vantage point. Unfortunately, the spot where that photographer stood is now obscured by both a chain link fence and a highway sign which blocks the historic view. Of particular note in the 1941 shot are the presence of private homes, rather than industrial buildings, along the northern side of the highway. Also, the blanket of vaporous exhaust visible in the air of Long Island City is of some interest.
groveling obeisance
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, a short interval of puffy individual shots is being presented over the holiday weekend. Partially, this is owed to a debilitating back injury suffered last week which has reduced your humble narrator to the uniform of the house bound invalid- sweat pants and bathrobe- the other is that every now and then an individual image presented earlier in the year got swallowed by the post it was published in. To wit, the storied John J. Harvey fireboat upon the Hudson during the Op Sail event in late spring of 2012. A bizarre atmospheric light is captured therein, wherein storm clouds literally opened around the procession of ships and provided a somewhat eerie atmosphere. Those of us in the Working Harbor Committee ascribe such events to the otherworldly abilities of our own Captain Doswell, referring to the phenomena as “The Doswell Effect”.
fallen over
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thanksgiving weekend is no time to burden you with cares or worries, that’s Walmart and your family’s job, so the Newtown Pentacle tradition is to kick back and present singular images which appeal to the sensibility and tastes of a humble narrator. Above, and I do believe that this shot has run before at this – your Newtown Pentacle, is depicted the corner of 31st street and Broadway in demimonde plagued Astoria. The structure, of course, is the the elevated track of the Subway. There’s just something about the light in this one which I really dig.
held colloquy
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Liberty persists in darkness, and threatening storms, and even on “Black Friday”. This one off shot, captured while onboard a Working Harbor Committee expedition during the summer of 2012, is one of my annular favorites simply for the presence of “crepuscular rays”. That’s the fancy thirteen dollar word way of describing the rays of light filtering down through the clouds.
kaleidoscopic rotation
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thanks I give today is to the Audubon Society, for bringing me out to South Brother Island with them when they were doing a count of nesting shorebirds back in the spring, whereupon I was able to capture the image above. Probably my favorite shot of 2012, at least so far, and given the relatively late calendrical date- odds on favorite for this years “best of show”. Not a turkey, rather a night heron, by the way.
The Newtown Pentacle 