Archive for December 2019
cowed to
All the holidays…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They say it’s Festivus, for the rest of us, as well as Channukah. Talk about eight crazy nights, tomorrow is Christmas Eve too. So much warmth and seasonal joy is afloat and available in the air, one can barely stand not sinking his teeth into its neck.
Last week, when I was limping over to the Community Board meeting here in Astoria, the camera was being waved about. I love that fruit stand pictured above and shop there occasionally, but have always wondered about the “United Brothers” name. Did these brothers used to quarrel with each other and maintained dueling fruit and vegetable stands before agreeing upon some set of terms in the hope of uniting under a single banner? Do the nieces and nephews get along? Is there a sister who got left out of the fraternal union? Do other branches of the family offer different kinds of produce – meat, or dairy? When they say “united” you don’t suppose that the place is owned by conjoined twins?
Also, would “fruit monger” be an appropriate term for their profession? Can you use “mong” as a verb? If you’re a monger or any sort, do you mong? When people get tired of your bullshit, do they ask if you don’t have any monging you should be doing instead of bothering them?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Drivers drive, painters paint. Carpenters don’t carpent though, and butchers don’t butch. Writers write, Cooks cook, Farmers Farm. Bricklayers lay bricks, Heavy Equipment Operators operate heavy equipment, Bartenders tend bars. Mongers?
We’ve got a lot of loaner words in modern English which came across the English Channel with the Normans in 1066 that are Medieval French in origin – like Carpenter – which replaced earlier Germanic Anglo Saxon sounding terms like “wood worker.”
The French speaking overlords who conquered England ate pork rather than swine, and lamb rather than mutton, and both were slurped up out of a saucer rather than a bowl. The conquered commoners who wore home spun britches retained the original Germanic terms, whereas the conquerors in their fancy pants used the French ones. After a thousand years, the term you commonly use is indicative of your social rank and class status.
I was thinking about all of this while listening to a group of people most would describe as “gentrifiers” discussing amenities in their tower apartment building at a Christmas Party recently. My root programming in blue collar Brooklyn would describe an amenity like access to a roof deck or a basement laundry room as “free shit you’re entitled to when you pay rent.” This would usually be followed by an admonition to not let “them” say no to you, and that I was just as good as everybody else so I shouldn’t be shy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always been fascinated by the NYC usage of the term “them” and “they.” They stole Carl’s bike, and Lenny was beat up by them. Shut up, or they’ll hear you. You’re going where with them? They’ll be waiting for you. They own everything. They are going to know if you talked to the cops. They are taking over. Lots and lots of prejudice and class struggle is wrapped up in they and them, the way we New Yorkers use it.
When people ask me why I’m taking photos on the streets these days, I like to say “It’s OK, I’m with them.” Then I point to the right with my left hand at nothing in particular while making my raised eyebrow smile face. “Just kidding,” I continue, “I’m just a photo monger, and I’m busy monging.” Finding out I’m just some idiot with a camera versus having stumbled across a terrorist photographer really disappoints most petitioners.
Screw them.
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correlated little
Rounding the week out with the trains
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is just about done with 2019 here, as I imagine most of you are. It hasn’t been a great year, but there you are. As my old man used to say, if you’re able to complain about it you’re still alive so there isn’t that much to complain about. He’d then indicate that I was probably bored if I had time to complain and offered to fill my time with some chore. Nobody has wished me a Fun Festivus (which is Monday the 23rd, btw) at any of the holiday parties I attended, which I’m upset about. It’s good though, as I’m a little “partied out” at this point in time, and don’t have the bandwidth to gather around the aluminum pole and air my grievances this year.
What can I say, I’ve always been a grumpy loner, now I’m a grumpy old man.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Where am I going next? It’s an existential question I keep asking myself, and the answer is ultimately “where the world takes me.” One of the bits of sage wisdom this grumpy old man can offer is to not try to force things into happening. Paradoxically, I’ll also offer that the world only makes sense when you force it to do so.
To put it into mundane analogical terminology – it makes no sense to lean over the platform edge looking for the subway, as it won’t force the subway to appear. The train is going to get there when it gets there. Making good use of your “dwell time” in the station (as MTA refers to it) is forcing the world to make sense somehow. In my case, that means taking a lot of photos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent encounter, which wasn’t the particular moment I was shooting this set of photos, involved the “what and why are you taking pictures of” trope down in one of the sweating concrete bunkers under Manhattan. This encounter wasn’t with law enforcement, members of which I had a couple of notable “in the field” conversations with in 2019, it was just some fellow commuter. I explained my activities to this particular petitioner by asking if she ever saw any of those cool old photos of NYC depicting subways or trolleys in BW photos from the 1930’s or 40’s on her Facebook feed. When she responded yes, I said “I’m the one whose photos your grandkids will be looking at.” She chuckled.
On that note, the 2020’s are coming and I plan on doing a lot of roaring in the next decade.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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.
efflorescent powder
Thursday, it affects us all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One encountered this beauty over in LIC last week, a burned out vehicle which the coppers had parked nearby the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Some other bloke was examining the wreck at the same time I was, but we didn’t talk. I prefer it that way. Without loneliness and isolation, I just can’t be happy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A singular Christmas party is all that remains on my calendar for 2019, and then I’m free of having to pretend any sort of civility for a couple of weeks. This is awesome sauce, and what with the broken toe no longer broken (mostly healed, but still hurts) I can finally get back to wandering the concrete devastations of Newtown Creek like some mendicant in the new year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way home from LIC, I found myself at the Queensboro Plaza 7/N/W platform. The fog which had defined that particular day had broken and transitioned to a light rain. As is my habit, as the trains were coming and going – I was waiting for an N – the camera got waved around. I’m fond of this shot of the 7.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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.
flung carelessly
High flying, somewhat minimalist Wednesday is here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week I had to conduct a walking tour of Newtown Creek, specifically my Infrastructure Creek tour, for Atlas Obscura. It was on that crazily misty day, and luckily I was able to conclude the thing before the fog broke and turned into a drenching rain. The walking tour ends at the waterfront in Hunters Point, where the final gyrations of the big real estate build out which have occupied the area for the last 15 or so years is playing out. Lots and lots of tower cranes are installed, and are busily at work on the new apartment buildings which will complete the Hunters Point South development.
These really are incredible machines, these cranes. Big, too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A smaller, and self propelled, crane was available for inspection nearby the tower crane and construction site pictured at top. This would be one heck of a ride, in my eyes, and getting the weekly shopping and laundry chores up the stairs would be vastly simplified. I imagine it would be difficult to park, however.
Hey, are there any advocate groups out there fighting for dedicated “crane lanes”?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This kind of fire hydrant has lived up to its design specifications exactly. The old school hydrants with the fluting and rounded tops are directly welded onto the pipe in the ground, and when they get knocked over by a truck or whatever, DEP has to shut off the main feeding the entire line. These new school ones, on the other hand, are connected to a valve above the pavement, and designed to pop off the pipe when a truck or car backs into them. All DEP has to do is shut the valve and file a work order for a crew to come and reconnect the hydrant.
Modern design, huh?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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.
disjointed fragments
Hells Kitchen in the rain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my destinations last week was a Christmas Party get together with my pals from the Working Harbor Committee at a bar in the City, specifically in the Hells Kitchen section. Well, I guess it’s Hells Kitchen as it was on 9th and 50th, which sure ain’t what you’d call the theater district. One used to be employed nearby, when the Ogilvy and Mather ad agency was based in the Worldwide Plaza building. The building owners used to save money when stocking the toilets with “consumables,” and the 1 ply stuff they’d fill the men’s room toilet paper dispensers with just didn’t sit right with me. I’d keep a couple of rolls of Charmin in my desk for when nature called. It’s the small comforts which make life worth living, I always say. I’d always make a show of taking a crap at work, since I loved, and still do, the idea of getting paid to defecate.
Pictured above is a lineup of those pedal cabs on 9th Avenue which the tourists love so much. I’ve heard them referred to as “tuk tuks” but that’s a term normally used for a sort of motorized for hire vehicle common in south east Asia. A friend of mine held a part time gig once as a repairman for these things, but then he decided to devote himself entirely to his other and more lucrative career as a Union Glazier.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A core belief of mine, mentioned many times, is that NYC never looks better than it does when it’s raining. Sure, it’s often uncomfortable and inconvenient, but our town is usually in need of a nice bath and all the reflected and refracted lights rippling around in the puddles are just magic.
Frequent commenter George the Atheist asked recently why I eschew zoom lenses in such circumstance in favor a single prime lens (in the case of these shots, 24mm). Short answer is that when the zoom lens telescopes in and out of its barrel, it tends to pull dust and moisture into the mechanism, so… rain. Additionally, I’m digging on the challenge of the limitations offered by a single focal length lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tonight, there will be a Queens Community Board 1 meeting at Astoria World Manner at 6:30 which I’ll be attending. It doesn’t seem that there’s anything earth shattering on the agenda, but the good news is that as of right now it’s the last “have to” I’ve got for this decade. There’s a bunch of “I want to’s” between now and New Year’s Eve, which is good news, but they mostly revolve around libation oriented social events.
The wheel of the year turns and turns.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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 