Archive for January 2013
inspiring and stupefying
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Longtime readers will no doubt recount stories of my endless complaining about the harsh climes of winter, its effulgent and preternatural darkness, and the limiting of photographic opportunities created during the 15-20 minutes of daylight we get during December and January here in a City which doth not sleep, but may forever lie dreaming. Saying that, when the light is good at this time of year, it is very good.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent trek across Western Queens, following the littoral edge of the borough, was cut short at the realization that sunset was approaching.
Your humble narrator is fully aware, more so than most, of what comes out only at night in Western Queens and made haste for Astoria so as to affix fresh wreaths of garlic, polished mirrors, and crucifixes to my doors and windows. Along the way, such sights presented themselves, that I grew distracted and began to lose track of the time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am legend, at least in my own mind, and there was little chance that one such as myself could endure long in the presence of that which sleeps by day and prefers instead the sodium lamp lit landscape. Better to batten down the hatches at base, lock down all port holes, and run silent during these long January nights of pregnant malignancy.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
ghastly stillness
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst scuttling across Jackson Avenue in the venerable section of Long Island City recently, the ebb tide of traffic emerging from infinite Brooklyn carried a small vehicle which caught my eye. It was an Italian motor scooter, the perennially in fashion Vespa, but this one had a sidecar.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator has a soft spot in both heart and head concerning the subject of attaching sidecars to any sort of two wheeled transportation devices, as well as an acquired appreciation for the finer points of Italian vehicle design. I’ve never owned one, but were I to purchase such a conveyance, a sidecar for my little dog Zuzu would be part of the deal. I suppose Our Lady of the Pentacle could ride around in it too, but this desire is really built around seeing the dog in a leather aviators cap and goggles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Practical transportation like this is commonplace in Europe and Asia, where streets are Medieval in size and scope, and the price of Petrol makes even the outrageous modern rate of $3-4 a gallon seem cheap. One of the things which future generations of Americans will never experience, and this may or may not be a bad thing, is cheap gasoline.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
inquisitive and malignant
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever the weather has been tolerable by one so accursed as myself, efforts have been made to get out and wave the camera about. In the shot above, ongoing construction of new bulkheads at Whale Creek captured my interests. There will be quite a bit of activity along this section in the near future, as the NYC DEP requires that a new channel be dredged which will allow their sludge boats to transverse the section of Newtown Creek between the East River and the Whale Creek tributary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the construction master plan for the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the sludge tank at the East River will be decommissioned and the docking which currently feeds the after product of the plant to the sludge boats for further processing will be moved closer to their source on the Whale Creek tributary, which is just under a mile back from the East River. A new class of sludge boats is currently under construction, and will require a deeper draft than the Newtown Creek currently offers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One such as myself is excited by the prospect of dredging on the Newtown Creek, and the spectacular images such industry will present. Of course, I don’t live on the north side of Greenpoint, which will undoubtedly experience a less than admirable stench as the foul ichors which line the bed of the waterway are torn away from the bottom and exposed to both the air and to the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
concrete reverberations
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“The Tree fed by a Morbid Nutrition” at Calvary Cemetery, which has been observed as the site of varied occult activities in the past.
The postings “Triskadekaphobic Paranoia” and “Update on the Calvary Knots” discussed the tree and its locale in some detail. Most recently mentioned at this- your Newtown Pentacle in the fall of 2012- an odd altar was found and described in the post “embowered banks.”
It’s a lonely spot at a high elevation, a lost corner in the emerald devastations of Calvary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The whole hurricane thing ate up most of November, and then the Festivus season was upon me, so I haven’t had a chance to come back and check on this squamous tree since just before Halloween.
Since I was already in Calvary on unrelated business, it was decided to swing by and see what might be amok.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This toppled stone could very easily be explained away as due to the high winds of Sandy, or the accidental nudge of a grounds keepers machinery. Large riding mowers are employed at the cemetery, although I’d be hard pressed to understand why they’d be mowing the lawn during those months when the ground cover is brown and dying away.
Notice that cord at the base of the crucifix, that this is one of the stones tied with “The Calvary Knots.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tree fed by a morbid nutrition continues to be an interesting nexus of curious attentions. You never know what you’re going to find in Calvary Cemetery here in Queens, I always say.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
shared obeisances
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On this Maritime Sunday, witness the struggles of the Thomas D. Witte tug as it manages a barge into place on the lamentable Newtown Creek. That’s the City’s “Newtown Creek Dock”, tenanted by the mill of the titanic SimsMetal operation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In a distant era, this locale was the home of the LIRR’s infamous Manure Dock, where a 30 foot high pile of the stuff would have awaited disposition to agricultural clients further east. Recycling, it seems, has a centuried history along the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The narrowness of the great canal creates a series of issues for tug and barge combinations along the Newtown Creek and always has. There used to be a specialist company, Newtown Creek Towing, which was located nearby the Vernon Avenue Bridge.
A hearty Maritime Sunday shout out to DonJon towing and the crew of the Thomas D. Witte is offered.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 