Archive for October 2016
evil expectancy
Manic paranoia, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, whilst bringing a check to the bank for deposit, one overheard two gentlemen of the street comparing notes. The younger of the two informed his colleague that the Bush family were in fact reptiles, but he wasn’t sure if they descended from us or if we descended from them. His colleague asked if their reptilian heritage related back to their habit of drinking human blood. The former indicated he did not know.
You can’t make this stuff up, I tell you. What if they’re right? What if it’s all true?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my Croatian neighbors told me that you can catch cancer in the manner of a cold. My own mother was convinced that electricity could arc out from the wall outlets, and required the usage of little plastic plugs for otherwise unused power orifices. The world is a scary place, presumably.
I’m scared, and of pretty much everything and everyone. There’s a threat rich environment to be had on every street corner, and the only thing missing from NYC are jets of flame erupting from random spots in the sidewalk. What if an air conditioner fell on you from some eighth floor window? What if it was pushed by some acolyte of those blood drinking reptilians? That little blur of movement in the corner of the room around the baseboards? That could be a mouse, but it could also be something far worse, although it’s likely a mouse – which is disturbing enough, actually.
What lives, or exists, between the walls of all the apartments is not something you want to think about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The world is a scary place, full of existential horror and banal traps. The little plastic or metal tips on shoe laces are called aglets, and their purpose is sinister. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton patrol the landscape at night seizing people’s precious guns. HAARP is listening, but who is listening to HAARP? FEMA is building vast concentration camps nearby the airports – prison camps for political dissidents.
Heh… why do you think the City wants to replace Riker’s Island, really? Humanitarian concerns? Heh, how naive are you anyway? Heh.
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pathologically sensitive
Dead things, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post are grotesque, so apologies are offered to the sensitive, but I seem to encounter a lot of dead things when marching about. It’s mentioned that this is the conclusion of my depressive week here at the Pentacle and that next week I plan on being absolutely manic. I also plan on the first week of November being an obsessive, compulsive, and quite disordered one.
What can I tell you, I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing about running around places (as a note, the first shot in today’s post was from Sheepshead Bay) like the Newtown Creek watershed is this – if you think it’s some kind of playground and you can do or say whatever you want, you could easily end up like the quasi recognizable squirrel smear pictured above. The squirrel didn’t think it was a playground, mind you, rather it likely reckoned that the neighborhood rules governing the surrounding urban environment applied in the creeklands. It didn’t count on getting squished by a multi ton truck which was hurtling along well at over the “Vision Zero” speed limit. The squirrel, like certain government employees, probably didn’t think that a truck might be barreling along at that speed, because that would be illegal. Government employees actually believe that the law applies and will be followed by the citizenry, in the absence of enforcement. Naive, the squirrels.
If you live in the trees, stay in the trees, and stay off of the street because you don’t understand the rules of the road.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek is as serious as a heart attack, lords and ladies, and the cops only patrol here when they have to. More often than not, they won’t even get out of the car. It’s just us down here in the street, me and the dead things and those dark forces, so when you sit around in your Manhattan apartment – think about that.
Me and the dead things don’t have somewhere else to call home, and Newtown Creek isn’t our hobby.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
scarcely envisage
The future is smaller than you’d think it is, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since I’m in a bit of a Kafkaesque mood today, I figured I’d run a few pictures of some bugs I’ve met over the years. Bugs are like little war machines, and I’ve never been able to understand why the MIT types go to such pains reinventing the wheel when building robots and drones instead of just following nature’s solution. Why build one big hard to replace war robot when what you really want are a swarm of little cheap guys to do your nefarious bidding?
Also, bugs like that wasp pictured above might be a lot easier to enslave than you’d think. Imagine, what could you get done with an army of millions of ants doing your bidding? You’d certainly be able to “move that rubber tree plant,” despite the pop cultural aphorisms. If we could get control over the Termites, they could potentially build homes and cities for us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Big Agra” is what my environmentalist buddies would call a company like Monsanto, who are the ExxonMobil of planting things and feeding animals. I’m sure they’ve got a staffer working on changing the preferences of this butterfly specie, or that one, so that instead of liking to visit and fertilize Milkweed or other pest crops, they would instead prefer to visit rye or wheat stalks. They’re also likely working on military applications for their butterfly technology. Butterflies who spy, or Butterlfies who disseminate toxins to an enemy’s fields?
Imagine a United States Marines Tactical Butterfly unit. I’d like to think the insect’s wings would be a camouflage pattern.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weaponizing the bees and hornets would likely be the easiest thing to do. Everything I’ve ever read about bees suggest that just like termite mounds and ant nests, you have to consider the hive as being the living organism rather than consideing members of the community as individuals. A bee, or ant, isn’t very formidable on its own. When their Queen excretes the right sequence of pheromone triggers, however, the hive operates as a single organism. What you’re looking at above is actually a single cell of a far larger entity, programmed by an intelligence not its own to perform a task.
I would hope that the Marines get the tactical Butterflies, and that the Army gets the weaponized Bees.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
extirpate everything
Death, annihilation, hatred… in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few of you lords and ladies have commented on the dark mood which a humble narrator seems to be in, which is a correct assessment. Last weekend, I did my last “official” tours of 2016, and one does not allow himself the luxury of maudlin thoughts during tour season – as I have to remain upbeat while describing the sobering industrial history of Newtown Creek and its surrounding landmass, for fear of snapping the stoutest chord whilst describing the pneumonic cattle stables of LIC’s Blissville, or the Brooklyn side glue factory of Peter Cooper (where Jello brand gelatin was invented, as an aside).
Once the season is done, however, it’s as if some sort of great rubber band has snapped back into its primal shape and I can allow the black dog to roam and wallow in hopeless misery and spiritual darkness for a short interval. Home sweet home.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now! Now is the time to unleash the very worm that gnaws! Now is the time to creep through the shadows of the megalopolis in a filthy black raincoat, scuttling from corner to corner, and skittering along the masonry walls of cylcopean factory buildings and across disease cursed bulkheads in the manner of some sort of wandering mendicant. Now is the time to shine a light into the sewers and other dark recesses while asking that age old question – “who can guess, all there is, that might be hidden down there?” Now!
For some reason, I think inserting a “bwah-hah-hah” into this post would be appropriate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has a long held belief that if you’re suffering from the flu, the appropriate thing to do is to stay in bed and let the illness run its course. It’s the same thing with “feeling bad” between the ears – indulge yourself for a few days, lay down in the muddy puddles of the psyche, and allow the psychic fever to rage. The trick is not allowing that to become your “thing” and spending months or years staring into the mirror at three in the morning wondering why your mommy didn’t love you enough, or getting lost in morbid self obsession.
I believe you should, at least, pretend to be like and enjoy the company of the humans. Otherwise a dark mood can lead to outré expressions of loneliness.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
gray cottage
The night time is the right time, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The pedantic banality of my daily existence is occasionally punctuated by a series of rather dull events, and last weekend this included a trip to Greenwood Cemetery for Atlas Obscura’s “Into the Veil” party. It actually wasn’t that dull, as everybody else actually seemed to be having a good time, but the blackened callouses coating my psyche preclude one such as myself from feeling anything other numb.
I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite my best efforts at erecting emotional and behavioral barricades around myself, I do have a few friends and they were along for the excursion, and unfortunately my attempts at maintaining a social life got in the way of actuating the camera mechanisms with the anticipated and normal frequency.
Despite this, I did manage to crack out a few shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Into the Veil” is an Atlas Obscura signature event, and brings hundreds of people to Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery (est. 1838) for what can best described as a decadent party. There are bands, and bars, and performances. Above, a group of fire dancers performing at the Crescent Lake found on the northwest side of the polyandrion. It’s a 30 second exposure, and the streaks of fire seem to forming an occult sigil.
It’s all so depressing, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the far north western side of the cemetery is a rather large MTA facility which is both a train yard and a bus depot. The MTA uses harsh sodium based “stadium lights” to illuminate their property which throws an orange glow about for hundreds of yards in every direction, and it penetrates deeply into the fuligin shadows of Greenwood Cemetery where the night gaunts dance about in remembrance of the olden times.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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