Archive for March 2014
flushed and excited
Come on now, this is just someone messing with my head.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, Friday to be exact, a buddy of mine who is new to the neighborhood was subjected to a short examination of the tripartite borders of Sunnyside, Woodside, and Astoria. We found ourselves on Skillman Avenue headed for Roosevelt Avenue when this scene presented itself. Like some sort of monstrous hybridization of “Project Firebox” and the “Mystery of the Single Shoes,” this mysterious tableau shed its birth caul and revealed itself to us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, a pet theory that there’s a serial killer stalking the concrete devastations of Western Queens and North Brooklyn who leaves single shoes in deserted places has taken root in my mind. Having published several posts about the phenomena at this – your Newtown Pentacle – the sociopath has likely found out that I’ve noticed him and has begun leaving trophies for me to find. The firebox thing makes it obvious. Who else notices fireboxes?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m going to refer to the hidden menace, who must be an ever watchful and lurking fear, as “The Queens Cobbler” from now one, and and I’m going to double knot the laces of my shoes whenever I leave the house. I will never wear loafers again, and have long avoided the perils of sandal or flip flops. The Queens Cobbler will not drag me partially bare footed into that good night.
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approaching egress
A day late and a dollar short, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sorry for today’s late and rather insubstantial update, depicting a life preserver frozen to the shoreline of Red Hook’s Erie Basin, which is somewhat metaphorical. Looking forward to the warmer weather this weekend, and your humble narrator will be everywhere along the Newtown Creek in the next few days, camera in hand.
Additionally, next week, I’ll be announcing the 2014 Newtown Creek walking tour schedule as it currently stands.
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stupendous spectacle
If you smell something, say something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In January, the new DEP Sludge Boat Hunts Point was described in this Newtown pentacle posting.
The boat’s arrival was the first part of a complicated story, and the next chapter will involve some heavy equipment arriving on the Newtown Creek in around two weeks time. According to official sources, an oft rescheduled interval of municipal dredging will begin the week of March 17th, with the intention of opening a navigational channel for the new sludge boats from the East River, all the way back to Whale Creek at the sewer plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Concerns about odor and disposition of the materials removed from Newtown Creek have been largely dismissed by the mid level DEP personnel running the operation, although community groups like the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee (this is one of the ones I’m “with”) have asked pointed questions and demanded that odor control procedures be put in place. The municipal contractor will be DonJon towing, and they will be equipped with some sort of foam based system to cover the Black Mayonnaise sediment when it’s deposited in a barge – should it begin to afflict the residential properties on either side of the Creek with a smell or odor issue.
DEP will be releasing a document next week, for “community outreach,” as it were. The word from on high is that 311 is primed to deal with odor complaints – so if you live in LIC or Greenpoint – If you smell something, say something and call 311 to complain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Disturbingly, our commonly held employees at DEP do not wish to detail what will happen to the materials removed from the waterway. There was some discussion about the different end destinations for it – they considered several industrial facilities practiced in the handling and disposal of toxic sludge – but there has been stony silence in response to queries about the details of the plan.
How will the material be handled, upon Newtown Creek and beyond? Will it receive primary treatment in Greenpoint or in Queens or somewhere else? If it’s going to be along the Creek that the DonJon barges are emptied and cleaned, where will that happen? How will the material be transported out of the area – by truck, barge, or rail?
Our employees in municipal government have let us know that it’s really none of our business.
This is an important issue, as when EPA begins its dredging operation for the Superfund cleanup, they will likely look at the process which DEP created for this far smaller dredging effort. More to come on this one, Lords and Ladies.
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recognizable passages
One of those days, it’s one of those days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today’s the day that Copernicus’s “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” was “withdrawn from circulation” in 1616 over religious exceptions to its blasphemy, which is not exactly a high point in history for the Roman Catholic Church. In 1770, the Boston Massacre (aka the Incident on King Street) set the stage for an American Revolution amongst the North American holdings of the British Crown to occur. In 1933, the Nazi party and its leader Adolph Hitler received enough of a majority in nationwide elections to dissolve the German government and establish a dictatorship. In 1946, Winston Churchill introduced the public to the term “Iron Curtain” for the first time – in Missouri, of all places.
March 5 is just “one of those days,” I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In 1963, singer Patsy Cline died in a plane crash. She beat Joseph Stalin, who died a decade earlier from complications brought on by a stroke on March 5, 1953. More recently, in 2013 as a matter of fact, it was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that suffered a cessation of his cardiac rhythms on March 5. Patsy Cline is the one to be missed out of this trio, as the two fellows were of the troublesome sort, and it would be crazy to want to see them again.
Today is also the 15th day of a month called Esfand, and it’s “National Tree Planting (or Arbor) Day” over in the Islamic Republic of Iran (additionally, it’s the year 1393 there, according to their Solar Hijri calendar).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in the middle kingdom of the People’s Republic of China, or “中国 or Zhōngguó” as they might call it, March 5 is “Learn from Lei Feng” day. Let your inner revolutionary flower, work for the proletarian masses today instead of selfishly poisoning minds, with your counterrevolutionary disestablishmentarianism and oppressively selfish bourgeois revisionism. Be like Lei Feng.
The Irish Saint Ciarán of Saigir enjoys a feast day on March 5th, which this year falls on Ash Wednesday, and he is one of the few Saints venerated for, or credited with, causing a castle roof to collapse on a company of rebel soldiers. Ciarán was only 29 when he went, and was way too young, if he ever existed at all. Lei Feng was only 21, and was likely fictional.
March 5th, 1982 is the day that John Belushi died. Belushi was real, but no saint.
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crushed convulsively
A ritual observance observed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted this on Northern Blvd. at 35th avenue last Sunday. Similar to prior findings, this assemblage of ad hoc sculpture seemed to be composed of common kitchen items. The best peasant magicks usually are. Oddly enough, Queenscrap ran a piece today about a similar find from nearby in Woodside – check it out here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As to the “prior findings,” this looks eerily similar in technique and medium to the subject of the 2011 Newtown Pentacle post “little memories.” Incidentally, that find also happened during the month of March.
The Queenscrap post links out to a thread at Reddit which postulates that this is a Tibetan offering/arrangement, called a Torma. Ignorance is my watchword, and your humble narrator confesses to it. These things have stumped me whenever I’ve tried to figure them out, which is odd as obscure occult lore is one of my hobbies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m pals with a Tibetan guy that lives across the street from me – a combat hardened U.S. Marine (and immigrant) with multiple tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq under his belt who is trying to readjust to civilian life. Think I’ll show him these pics. Maybe he’ll be able to confirm or deny their Tibetan provence, or perhaps he’ll take one look at them and run screaming into the night knowing that these idols signal the presence in the neighborhood of an unspeakable cult that was old when the world was young.
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The Newtown Pentacle 