The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesday photos, from the before time.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

More archive shots, captured during the before times, greet you today. These were captured prior to the Trumpists adopting the banner of the White Hand of Saruman, chopping down the forests at Isengard, and birthing the fighting Uruk Hai. They also predate Antifa joining that rebel army led by that pretty blonde woman with the three dragons, or the sudden revelation that all of the world’s rodents are annoyingly sentient. That press conference led by the rabbits and capybaras blew my mind, yo.

Today, I decided to revisit “Project Firebox.”

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Project Firebox was something which I spent a decent enough amount of time on when Newtown Pentacle first began to publish. These ubiquitous municipal alarm boxes were under threat back then, in the before time, as the Mayoral administrations of both Giuliani and Bloomberg had decided that the things were unneeded and redundant. After all, “everybody” carries a cell phone now, so why would you need to maintain – expensively – what’s essentially a network of telegraph boxes which are responsible for a high percentage of false alarms?

Both Mayors basically wanted to sack the electricians at FDNY who maintain these pieces of street furniture. Luckily, the current Mayor hasn’t decided that the red boxes are responsible for racism (yet) and thusly isn’t aware of their existence. Of course, the current Mayor is only capable of perceiving things when they fit into his political agendas, and he has not eaten the Eden fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil. This is why he’s often surprised by mundane or common things which the rest of us take for granted.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One has moved on from Project Firebox in recent years, thusly.

As a note, last night I was watching a reality TV series called “Alone” which drops it’s survivalist contestants with a very limited set of tools into rugged wild areas to see what might happen. I found this an interesting cultural artifact of the before times. The fellow I was rooting for was an Air Force search and rescue specialist, who had managed to easily surpass the challenges of living in the wild tundra forest within a week and set up a comfortable, secure, and well fed existence using a pocket knife, saw, and a few fish hooks. After a few weeks, he got bored and called for extraction to the show’s producers. The rest of the cast was starving, stabbing themselves accidentally, or burning down their shelters due to careless attitudes towards fire.

If FDNY ain’t close, pay close attention to open flame, I always say.

Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, July 6th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.

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“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.