trembling protest
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other day, one was strolling along Jackson Avenue in Long Island City and enjoying the late afternoon haze of auto exhaust when I decided to avoid a group of rough and aggressive looking youngsters by ducking down a dead end called Dutch Kills Street. Haughty and diffident, these unscrupulous looking minors had perhaps reached the third grade, but realizing that they have spent their short lifetime playing violent video games and were therefore potential killers, your humble narrator decided to walk the familiar path of ignominy and hide from them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Such physical cowardice has often proven to be the better part of valor for one such as myself, a shunned and awkward thing which resembles a man. Dutch Kills Street, where the native art form of Queens (illegal dumping) is practiced wholly, is overflown by structures sprouting out from the Great Machine at nearby Queens Plaza. Vehicular traffic departing and approaching the mighty Queensboro bridge hurtles along overhead, and the street grade lanes end at the fence lines of the titan Sunnyside Yards..
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the street was observed another of the curious shoes which I’ve been noticing scattered around in similarly desolate locales over the last few months. Odd bordering on obsequious, the presence of just one half of the mated pair- again and again- just makes a little bell go off in my head when I see it. It is common to see all sorts of domestic and personal goods scattered about the neighborhoods surrounding the fabled Newtown Creek, but the homogeneity of these singular shoe sightings simply suggests something sinister and suspicious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The rough looking group of third graders had noisily passed the intersection of Jackson and Dutch Kills, heading towards Tower Town down in Hunters Point. They were assembled in a “skirmish line” formation, walking abreast of each other while in the company of a group of women who seemed to have some measure of control over their movements. Some of these women had far younger children with them, who were being transported in bizarre cart like machines- whose appearance I did not like, I should add- which I found disconcerting. Your humble narrator hid behind a pile of trash for awhile, then fled the scene with haste.
The Newtown Pentacle 
I so enjoy your bulletins, and often wish I could share them or pass them along, however aside from the actual email, sharing is difficult as my internet virus blocker software always flags your site. Have there been problems with fraudulent ads? Today I finally braved the big red warning signs and asked it to open the page anyway…
E.R.A. Triano (@lizziewriter)
January 11, 2013 at 7:02 am
Couldn’t tell you why. Any ads which might appear are inserted by and benefit WordPress, not me.
Mitch Waxman
January 11, 2013 at 1:56 pm
Where I come from they call that a grammar school outing. Were any of them carrying assault rifles? No? No problemo. You simply pick the biggest kid and roll over on him. Unless he is carrying an AK-47.
druidlens
January 11, 2013 at 7:42 am
That opening on the ground, where the tire is situated – the entrance to the underworld of some sort? Also, it’s colored with an orange patina – the same kind of orange patina on the LIRR tracks that you promised us research on.
georgetheatheist
January 11, 2013 at 11:56 am
[…] about a year, I’ve been noticing this odd pattern all around the Newtown Pentacle, wherein a seemingly discarded single shoe is left conspicuously placed. As mentioned often, my particular curse is to notice […]
bewildering jarring | The Newtown Pentacle
June 27, 2013 at 1:28 am
[…] discussion of the single shoe phenomena can be inspected here, here, here, and […]
dangerous aggregation | The Newtown Pentacle
July 9, 2013 at 7:31 am
[…] be correct, and that the singular shoes which litter our streets are in fact some sort of grisly trophy or taunt to the gendarmé left behind by a sociopath, then this person has finally crossed the […]
no end | The Newtown Pentacle
March 20, 2015 at 11:20 am