Archive for October 2019
stark mad
I know why it’s so hot, always, at the Times Square station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s nothing quite as enjoyable as arriving on a Subway Platform in Manhattan and then finding out that there’s signal problems at Queens Plaza. The marketplace of aerosol pathogens carried by the human infestation into this subterranean structure is far better than getting a flu shot in terms of bolstering one’s immunological system, and the sheer unpleasantness of the ambient temperature is always a treat. Learning that you’re going to be spending a substantial bit of time waiting for your ride home – now that’s priceless. The “A” in MTA is for “adventure,” after all, and on Sunday nights the “M” stands for “Magnifique.”
The high temperature at the Times Square stop cannot solely be attributed to an annoying bureaucratic tendency amongst MTA station managers to not actuate their ventilation systems. Surely, it’s because the subway station was built atop the cavern carved out by Lucifer and the other rebel angels when they were swallowed into the ground during an argument they had with the Creator entity over Adam and Eve’s place in the celestial pecking order.
Said discourse occurred where Dave and Busters sits atop 42nd street, a location which was part of the Garden of Eden “back in the day.” Somewhere beneath the subway station itself is a lava tube that leads directly to hell. “Da Deuce” thereby, is a hellmouth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A succession of Subway trains which do not go anywhere close to where I needed to go arrived and departed the station, during an interminable interval. As is my habit, I passed the time photographing the trains entering the facility, which raised the suspicions of several dead eyed MTA employees. Of course, being employees of MTA, they barely gave a crap despite being suspicious. As any member of the International Brotherhood of Screw Turners Local 6 will tell you, that’s somebody else’s job.
My retirement plans involve capturing a photo of a suicidal human jumping off the platform in front of an arriving train. Sales and licensing of said shot will make me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. My wealth will allow me to exact Dante style revenge on those who have offended… sorry, that was the influence of the Times Square Hellmouth that I was standing on which was talking there.
It affects us all, in different ways, the hellmouth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While waiting, and boy oh boy I was waiting a good half hour at this point, I noticed that something had imparted a good amount of kinetic force onto one of the steel structural columns and blasted a hole in the paint covering it.
The modern day dark green paint MTA uses sat over a duller green which I seem to remember them using about 15 years ago. The white and the red layers seem familiar to me, from earlier eras in NYC. Might just be primer, but I seem to recall red being used in the early 1990’s for column paint. Again, might just be the hellmouth talking.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another pneumatic piston arrived, driving the usual cloud of sewer smell, rat shit, and powdered cockroach onto the platform. Normally, one would happily take the N just to get out of Manhattan and away from the hellmouth at 42nd street, but maintenance work was causing the N to go no further into Queens than Queensborough. Really, there is no better time to experience the joys of the MTA than a Sunday night.
Ultimately, I needed to wait for an R to get anywhere close to home.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was studying the layers of paint on that column, a pigmentary coating which had to be layered on 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick mind you, an R finally arrived. Luckily it was quite crowded and the MTA had made the logical decision that since it was October you didn’t need to run any sort of ventilation or air conditioning onboard. This was especially well received by a humble narrator given that atmospheric humidity was close to 90% and also since it was raining all day, everybody onboard was soaking wet and their clothing was evaporating additional humidity into the subway car atmosphere.
It really is a pleasure to be in NYC these days, ain’t it? The fairness, the equity, the affordability of housing… truly has our Mayor improved things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There has to be a word – if we were a German speaking culture there would be – for the sense of relief you experience upon finally boarding a subway train that’s heading back towards your home after passing through the gauntlet of MTA’s expert patience testers. Luckily, the folks already onboard the train were as well mannered as usual. You had the people playing games on their phones with the speaker turned on, the lady screaming into her phone in an unknown guttural at some remote husband, and there was a fellow eating a fried and quite aromatic fish dinner with his fingers.
If I could, I’d have held my breath the entire ride. Who eats on the Subway? Ugh.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek AT NIGHT! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! October 29th, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
thinkers perspective
NYC looks best when it’s wet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Biblical scholars believe that the Garden of Eden is metaphorical, but theorize that its supposed location would be where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers run into the Persian Gulf. Others postulate that Eden was on the Iranian Plateau, or on the Armenian plain. Hacks.
Eden, which is the metaphysical center and starting point of the entire universe as far as three of the major religions go, was in Manhattan. Specifically Times Square. Seriously, what would the rest of you do without me to set things straight?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was 42nd street between 7th and 8th avenues where the Adamic pair were presented to the angels by Yahweh, and this is the block where the great schism occurred amongst the sons of fire. That’s where Sammael became Lucifer, right where Dave and Busters is, along with a third of the angelic host who then fell into the ground with it and became demons. As a note, using “him” or “her” for god and the angels is incorrect both grammatically and factually. They are definitively “it’s.” Extradimensional and non material undying intelligences with seemingly limitless power are “it’s.”
The part of the Adam and Eve (or Adam and Hawwa for our Muslim friends) story everybody passes over, for some reason, is that the expulsion from Eden happened not just to punish the pair for eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, it was to ensure that they didn’t also eat fruit from the Tree of Life. The latter’s ovum would impart immortality to the primeval gourmand, and was protected from consumption or approach by a cadre of fierce Cherubim (which are “lower” and automaton like Angels that have little room for interpreting their orders) and a free floating flaming sword which was set on smite.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The actual location of the Tree of Good and Evil is pictured above, and was more or less where the Times Square Subway station entrance is found (accounting for continental drift, of course). The Land of Nod where the whole Cain and Abel thing happened is obviously Staten Island, but back then there were land bridges between Manhattan and Richmond County. Humanity, therefore, populated the planet starting from Times Square out.
The crossing of a lot of geography and vast oceans, and the epic tale of how the bloodline of Adam made it to the modern day Middle East and then incestuously populated Eurasia, must have been lost during Noah’s flood. Suffice to say, Times Square is the literal and metaphorical actual center of the Universe.
It also looks great when it’s raining.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek AT NIGHT! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! October 29th, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
tardy confessions
Better late than never, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Single shot today, depicting the newly renamed Newtown Creek Waste Reclamation Center… or something like that… as DEP just changed its name again. Y’know, the sewer plant in Greenpoint with the big silver eggs? That one, yeah. At night.
Back tomorrow with something more substantial, but just as moist.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek AT NIGHT! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! October 29th, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
nervous coordination
Wet, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots aren’t from yesterday’s rainstorm, instead they’re from last week’s deluge. My little dog Zuzu and I were eagerly awaiting the eventual return of Our Lady of the Pentacle from a social engagement last Wednesday when the sky opened up and biblical amounts of rain began to fall. What was odd about that particular storm was that the airborne droplets seemed to be swirling on their way down to the mean streets, negating any chance of finding a “rain shadow” to record the scene from. Even setting up my camera on a windowsill inside HQ didn’t really provide the lens with much cover as the rain seemed to be falling sideways. Weather is weird.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the interesting things that has come out of all the long exposure stuff I’ve been doing for a while now has been the revelation that you can visualize traffic patterns moving through urban streets using this technique. Head lamps, and running or brake lights, leave behind tell tale trails. For some reason this is fascinating to me, and since anything that isn’t standing still in the frame for at least fifteen to twenty seconds is effectively “ghosted” those trails are the only indication of where a vehicle was and what its path was. The reduction of item based distraction allows one to record actual “desire paths” chosen by the driver.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of these days, I’ve got to do a series of these and then blend them into a time lapse video. I’d love to somehow take up position thirty to forty feet over the double yellow line, of course, but you’d need one of those mobile oppression platforms used by NYPD or a cherry picker basket on a telecom maintenance truck to do so. The mobile oppression platform would be best, of course, since it’s got a solid cop roof on it.
I spent a lot of time shooting stuff in the rain this last week, and it’s going to be a moist five days here at the Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek AT NIGHT! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! October 29th, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
mustered up
A series of dull events, that’s my life.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not enough butter spread over too much bread. Desperately thirsty, but somebody has just shaken up the can of soda. Hungry and nauseous at the same time. Insomniac ponderings during the late night hours of the wolf. That’s me at the moment. The next person that says “you have to” or “you can’t” or tries to correct me based on something political which they literally just made up on the spot is going to reap the ‘effin whirlwind. “Who do you think you are” is going to get an answer, and the petitioner will not like the answer.
Go ahead, try me. I’ll burn your house down. I’m looking for a volunteer today, somebody whom I can unleash all of my sublimated rage, fears, and self pity upon. Try me. You’ll be doing me a favor, as it’s unhealthy to hold it in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It has been quite a frustrating interval for me, with all sorts of existential problems that can’t be solved easily or simply by working through them popping up. Disconcerting, one feels as if he’s walking on the blade of a knife recently, and digging my fingernails as deeply into my palms as I can only results in wounding the skinvelope. There’s only so much one can eat before something vomits back out.
Volunteers?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wit’s end. I need, really ‘effin need, a vacation. Thinking about it, I haven’t left the confines of NYC’s five boroughs in so long that I don’t remember the last time I did.
Home sweet hell, huh?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek AT NIGHT! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! October 29th, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 