The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Last evening, I walked right through a conversation that two guys I know were having wherein one of them laid down his assertion that the world is indeed flat. NASA and the moon landings were actually a grandiose deception that allowed a group of pedophiles to siphon away billions of dollars in tax money to line their own pockets, and the Russians fell for the deception because of Hollywood. Upon hearing this particular narrative, I just folded my arms and smiled, wanting to hear the entire thing. The flat earth guy is a particular favorite of mine, as I’ve never known him to react positively to anything, even the time he won the bar’s Super Bowl pool.

For those of you on the fence, the planet is a slightly flattened at the poles spheroid. I have flown in a plane, and ridden within a ship on the ocean, and can confirm. As a point of NYC trivia, the Verazzano Bridge’s towers are far enough away from each other that calculations as to the curvature of the earth needed to factored into their design so as to have them square up to each other. You don’t go to those sort of lengths to uphold a conspiracy, bro.

That’s not the Verazzano pictured above, of course, it’s the Kosciuszcko Bridge over Newtown Creek.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

You got your right to think whatever you like, freedoms wise. You’ve also got the right to look like a dumb ass when you’re embracing concepts like the flat earth. It doesn’t matter what you believe, things are true or not. Fire is hot, water is wet. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but now we’re splitting hairs.

Other chestnuts from the good old days I’m waiting to hear include that animals cannot feel pain, tomatoes are poisonous, and that if a horse scares a pregnant woman her baby will be born deformed. Me? I’m going to stop bathing and go live in a barrel at the market square. I plan on freelance philosophizing for coins.

If you don’t get that reference, you should read more, and in particular about the Greek philosophers.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I tend to read a lot and can tell you that the depths of my ignorance about most things is near total, which is why I tend to read a lot.

Pictured above and throughout today’s post are the former bulkheads of the Phelps Dodge (formerly Nichols or General Chemical) Company, found along the fabulous Newtown Creek, here in the Maspeth section of the borough of Queens. “Scientific Manufacturing” is what they used to call what the operation here did. The Nichols people manufactured primarily acid here, and when the Phelps people took over the mill they incorporated copper refining into the schedule.

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, August 17th. 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 here, 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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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.