Archive for October 2013
shadowy colloquy
Sometimes I fear that I will fail to feel Atychiphobic.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Failure is indeed something to fear, despite the platitudes offered by scout masters, clerics, and well meaning friends. There is nothing an American hates more than not succeeding. Winning is the name of our game, with contest winners and touchdown champions awarded the greatest of mass accolades. Think of poor old Mitt Romney, and I’ll bet it’s the first time you’ve thought of that loser since November of 2012. The only thing I’m more afraid of than failing, I think, is the idea of actually succeeding at something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Should signs of success appear on the horizon, it is part of my nature to undermine and thwart its happy arrival. Perhaps it’s actually a fear of success which holds me back from living a life of deep meaning leading to a realization of some mythical “potential” that some have prophesied for me. It isn’t heredity, genetics, brain chemistry, or life experience that cordoned off the winners circle for me, though- instead it’s fate. Losing is a comfortable and well known experience, and I’m all about embracing the “known” rather than the undiscovered. Show me my foot, and I shall shoot it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Amongst the multitudinous things I fail to fear while submerged in my fits of Atychiphobia are a failure to anticipate, the failure to perceive, and inability to carry out a task properly and within specifications. I’m terrified of being considered generally undesirable or professionally unsuccessful, even though Murphy’s Law is the only jurisprudence which one such as myself can acknowledge or reminisce about. Cursed, I tell you, this humble narrator was born under the influence of a ill omen, which is probably all I deserve anyway, for if tales of reincarnation are true – one shudders to think what this soul did in its last mortal guise. Into the darkness, like a leaf blown upon indifferent winds, and always an Outsider – go I.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
winks ruddily
More things I am irrationally afraid of in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst transversing a vast system of labyrinths, those ones which underlie the shining city, and anxiously awaiting the arrival of a certain chain of electrically driven aluminum and glass boxes whose motive path would carry this humble narrator deep into the expanses of infinite Brooklyn, my attentions became fixed upon this ridiculously steep staircase and the so called escalator it adjoined. The term “Escalator” has always sounded kind of French to me, and anything emanating from what Caesar called Gaul is not to be trusted.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular escalator steeply spans an incredible distance, here in the center of a great human hive which is known as Manhattan. Populations of labor and management utilize it to move between high and low throughout the day, and few realize the existential danger which an individual dares when surmounting one of these Gallic sounding things. Have you ever seen what happens to primates when one of these escalator mechanisms malfunctions?
These stairways to heaven can chew up flesh and bone, inhaling living meat into their spinning gears – spitting out the sort of crimson spray one would expect from a Sam Raimi film – and are capable of reducing a wholesome citizen down into a broken chowder of gruesome countenance in mere seconds. Brrr.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vertigo inducing, examining this “via subterranea,” with its vastly Euclidean angles, caused a humble narrator to experience no small amount of nausea. The horrible potentialities of “might” or “could” began to overwhelm, and no small amount of nervous energy powered an anticipatory hopefulness that the electrically driven chain of aluminum and glass boxes might hasten their arrival at the platform, announced by the usual piston blast of powderized rat feces driven before them and gathered enroute via pneumatic action. One such as myself no longer feels disappointment, as it is my fate to experience only a lukewarm existence, but I was crestfallen when no sign of relief thundered in.
Darkness began to creep into the periphery of my vision as I pondered the possibility of falling up, instead of down, this soaring flight of mechanically moving steps.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Afraid of the dark- a humble narrator always carries a variety of portable lights with him, just in case of the unplanned absence of light on my daily round. When I stop to think of all that must scurry about within these tiled walls of rotting cement, the untold things which slither amongst those shadowy pillars of concrete, iron, and brick which encase and imprison the trackways, it is enough to drive one to the gates of a madhouse forthwith.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
public squares
Prejudice and Ursidae derision in today’s Columbus Day post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Call me Ursophobic, but your humble narrator has had it up to some proverbial line – drawn somewhere around his eyebrows – with these occasionally bipedal inebriates who have been turning up in Astoria for the last few years. Admittedly, their days are difficult, but that’s no excuse for them to just pass out on the street in some honey induced stupor, like the derelict pictured above. Who are these bears, where did they come from, and why were they allowed to come here in the first place? Is it ok to pass out in the trash where they come from? I think not.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Does he have a family somewhere nearby, with a brood of anchor cubs? Is there some she bear staring out the window wondering where he is, growing increasingly anxious that he might be honey drunk again, or that the bees exacted a horrible revenge upon him? Where are the cops? How can a dangerously besotted creature like this be allowed to just pass out on Broadway in Astoria? This neighborhood is going to the caniforms, if you ask me, and I won’t be a bit surprised if in a couple of years Astoria is known as an Ursidae neighborhood. This is how it starts.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
trivial impression
Maritime Sunday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A 5,100 HP, twin screw Z Drive tug, Laura K. Moran was built in Maine by Hodgdon, Washburn & Doughty Associates, is 92 feet, 184 GT, and was launched in 2008. Our buddy at tugster did a nice portrait of the Laura K., and this ship was the last command before retirement of legendary Tug Captain John Willmot.
from washburndoughty.com
Washburn & Doughty Associates, Inc. of East Boothbay, Maine specializes in the construction of steel and aluminum commercial vessels. Founded by Bruce Doughty, Bruce Washburn and Carl Pianka, the yard began building fishing boats in 1977. Since then, the yard has continued to prosper by diversifying its capabilities, developing innovative designs and building techniques, and reaching out to new markets. Washburn & Doughty has delivered of a diverse mix of tugboats, commercial passenger vessels, fishing boats, barges, ferries and research vessels.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Project Firebox 92
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Found amongst the blessed hills of Astoria, this scarlet soldier of the realm enjoys long tenancy along 31st avenue nearby Steinway Street. Its been in Astoria for a long, long time and remembers a mythological day when “things were different” and “people cared” unlike today. Dross neighbors notwithstanding, it serves its vigil endlessly.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 