Archive for July 2014
any idea
A giant boulder, encountered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While walking through the Dutch Kills section – up 32nd street towards 36th avenue just yesterday – one encountered a giant rock. It was more of a boulder, really, it was in fact a glacial erratic.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fairly sure am I that I would have noticed this before, given the orange safety bollards surrounding it, but I haven’t walked through here in a month or so (normally, I stick to Northern Blvd. on my way back from ye old Creek).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, the neighborhood hereabouts seems to have embraced the erratic, adorning it in the names of nation states. No doubt, this is symptomatic of the recent World Cup tournament fever which gripped Western Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One does wonder if this is some sort of manifestation of the native art form of Queens – illegal dumping – but it’s likely related to some work going on further down the street. Wonder how long this has been here without me noticing?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I got home and mentioned the rock to Our Lady of the Pentacle, she handed me a Union Jack flag and told me to go back and claim it for the Queen. She’s English, and that’s her people’s vibrant diversity at work. You see a never before noticed chunk of rock, anywhere, and you claim it for the Queen. I claim it for Queens instead.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
This weekend-
Sunday, August 3rd, Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
With Brooklyn Brainery, click here for tickets and more info.
as offerings
Renewing my call for commercial freight service on the NYC Subway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has mentioned this before: why does the NYC Subway system not offer commercial freight service during the overnight hours? How many trucks could be circumvented from ever entering Manhattan if a cargo train on the E tracks were to carry just Federal Express shipments from Kennedy airport to one of the hubs in Queens or Manhattan?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Rush hour is obviously not the time period which I’m proposing this, in fact, if the sun is up – it’s probably a bad thing to cause any interruption or delay in passenger service. I’m talking about the late nights, when most of the trains are running less than 10% full.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The MTA does it now, for themselves. Moving garbage and construction supplies around on modified rolling stock, as you see in the shots displayed above and below. They used to move cash around in similar manner, onboard the fabled “Money Train.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Load the cargo on at the Corona yard, or at the 36th street one in Brooklyn, or at Hunts Point in the Bronx – any of the final destination stops, really – and bring commercial shipments into the City’s heart via the Subways. Why not? It would reduce the number of trucks on the streets, and help eliminate some of the congestion entering and leaving in Manhattan below 96th street. It would also create a brand new revenue stream for the MTA.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fly in the ointment would be getting the bulk cargo up out of the station, but that’s something that would be easy to engineer around and one thing NYC is not lacking in are legions of stout young citizens with strong backs and a work ethic. See, it would create jobs too.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
This weekend-
Sunday, August 3rd, Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
With Brooklyn Brainery, click here for tickets and more info.
record scroll
One does not complain, it is “Kvetching,” which is a whole other thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Several comments received both here, at your Newtown Pentacle, and in the real world “meatspace” have opined that your humble narrator spends too much time complaining about this or that. My obviate ranting about the singularly horrible Time Warner Cable, the inebriate legions who pollute the sidewalks of Astoria with their besotted carcasses, or the ludicrous amount of environmental noise offered freely by the neighbors – it would seem – have struck an odd chord and lent an incorrect impression to my narrative.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First off – I grew up Jewish, and “kvetching” is as much a part of my culture as is coffee and cake – so respect the hell out of my vibrant diversity or I’ll slap a hate crime sticker on you. Secondly, one of the things that I’ve observed about the Borough of Queens over the years is the stoicism which the citizenry hereabouts displays in the face of the daily avalanches of those improprieties which they suffer. Nothing changes unless you speak about it aloud, and “just get used to it” is the precursor to a commonly quoted parable about a frog in a pot of water on a stove who doesn’t realize he’s being boiled alive because the temperature of the water is being raised in a slow and subtle fashion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Kvetching is a running sarcastic commentary on existential woes, a general call out to others commenting on the sisyphean suffering which existentialist goyem like Albert Camus or Franz Kafka made their careers out of. Kvetching is an attempt at voicing an unease with the status quo, in the hopes of discovering other unfortunates who share in the misery. Kvetching is an attempt to stimulate a conversation about that which is wrong, one which the powers and potentates of this world might take notice of and attempt to ameliorate. Kvetching is your right, as an American, it’s called “speech.” Complaining is something else entirely.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
This weekend-
Sunday, August 3rd, Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
With Brooklyn Brainery, click here for tickets and more info.
night gaunts
The Suydam tomb, at Greenwood Cemetery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Monday, Atlas Obscura produced an event at Greenwood Cemetery wherein your humble narrator would join with authors Clay Chapman and Bess Lovejoy in reading H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Horror at Red Hook” for a group of pale enthusiasts. The excursion was nocturnal, and offered cocktail selections from the East Village’s forthcoming Lovecraft Bar.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the charms of the evening, as organized by Atlas’s Megan Roberts and Allison C. Meier, was the opportunity to visit the interior of two mausolea at the ancient burying ground of Brooklyn.
One of them was the Stephen Whitney monument, which was discussed last year in the posting ” fastened ajar ” which described another nighted exploration of the place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the thousands of cool things about Greenwood, the sets of keys which govern admission to the mausolea. More often than not, these keys are hand carved, early 19th century affairs. The sort of keys you’d see on a heavy metal album cover from the 1980’s, essentially. When they turn the bars inside the locking mechanisms of the heavy gates and slab doors, there’s an audible “klunk” sound as the lock disengages.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is happy to report that within the tomb itself, the marble slabs were indeed crusted with a powdery Nitre, and the smell of mold and decay were omnipresent but quite tolerable. Of course, the ghastly contents contained in these walls include little more than mouldering bones after their long occupancy here, but there is a distinct perfume found in old tombs – something which is sensed rather than smelled.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Suydams are one of the ancient Knickerbocker families, landed gentry whose founders helped build a Dutch colony called New Amsterdam into something. The tomb’s official dedication is to Lambert Suydam, who died on April Fools day in 1833 in his 89th year, but there are many other members of the clan here, including his wife Sarah. It is very odd to stand in a structure like this, which is just shy of 150-175 years old, and more than one person along for the excursion commented on the bizarre acoustic excesses experienced within.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, a humble narrator is given to letting his mind wander, and the ideation of what might be carried by the static volume of air within the tomb began to prey upon me. Miasmic liquors would be found just beyond these marble slabs, pooling amongst those buckles and buttons and bits of bone which had survived the corruptions of the grave and persisted in perspicuous dissolution just in eyes away.
This is the kingdom of the conqueror worm, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My fellow narrators and I all used artificial illumination when reading our sections of the text of “The Horror at Red Hook,” and the crew of curious tapophiles which participated in the evening all carried lanterns (that’s Clay Chapman in the shot above, at the Pierpont monument). I opted to read off my iPad so that my face would be underlit and I’d look extra creepy. It was all quite an atmospheric evening, and I hope we might be able to arrange another at some future date.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
adding to
Even when I’m home, shit happens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, I’m sitting on the porch with the dog recently, when a fly lands on a table we keep outside. The fly looks at me, all haughty like, and proceeds to squeeze out this yellowish blob from what would be, on a mammal, its buttocks. You never know with insects, but if something came out of the analogous section of the dog…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Curious as to what this yellowish blob was, I grabbed my camera and soon discovered that it was beyond the limited “macro” focusing that my lineup of glass could capture. Macro photography is its own “thing” and is an area which I’m not really set up to explore. Therefore, I had to get all inventive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a quick trip to my desk for equipment – acquiring a small jewelers loupe and a pencil – I had set up a quickie magnifier for the fly goop. What I was hoping for was that was some sort of squamous egg cartridge which be sprouting worms, but I think it might have just been fly poop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obviously, this is far from a perfect situation – optical fidelity wise – shooting with an expensive lens through a cheap magnifying lens. There is a trick to this, one which involves disabling autofocus on the expensive glass attached to the camera. The camera desperately wanted to lock onto to the front of the loupe’s lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trick is to get the focal point of the image set for the point in space at which the magnifying loupe was focused, as you see in the shot above. An interesting exercise, but I didn’t get any little worms as I hoped. Regardless, I doused the thing with Lysol and went along my merry way. The dog slept through the whole thing, but she’s a honey badger when you really get down to it.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
There are two Newtown Creek walking tours coming up.
Saturday, July 26th, The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek
With Atlas Obscura, lunch included, click here for tickets and more info.
Sunday, July 27th, Glittering Realms
With Brooklyn Brainery, lunch included, click here for tickets and more info.
The Newtown Pentacle 