Archive for the ‘birds’ Category
sardonic stare
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“You know what I haven’t done in literally months” was what I said, and it was less of a question than it was a statement. Our Lady of the Pentacle clutched at a pillow and pushed herself backwards into the couch while saying “What?” with a concerned look on her face. “Get out on the water” exclaimed a humble narrator. “Hence” shouted I.
One scuttled over to the NYC Ferry Dock here in Astoria, accordingly. Heroically boarding a ferry, a humble narrator returned to the sixth borough.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sludge boats were bounding across the aqueous meadows, as were tugboats and all sorts of other maritime contrivances. The rule on the Ferry requires being masked up, which creates quite a situation when you’re standing in the slipstream of wind up on the top deck. Managing my baseball cap, sunglasses, and mask while operating the camera made one wish for a third arm. Despite all the time spent at Newtown Creek, one still hasn’t spawned a new appendage, unfortunately. A third arm would make clothes shopping difficult, I admit.
That’s the NYC DEP’s MV Red Hook sludge boat pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Astoria line makes a stop at the venerable Brooklyn Navy Yard along its route, and that’s where the Dann Towing’s Ivory Coast tug was spotted, as evinced by the shot above. My plan for this afternoon excursion involved riding the Astoria ferry to Pier 11, then hopping onto the Staten Island Ferry to St. George whereupon a reversal of course would be enacted.
I’ve missed galavanting around NY Harbor, and the particular photographic challenges it presents.
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, September 7th. 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.
“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.
unmentionable sabbat
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is taking this last week of summer off from narrating humbly, so single shots from past adventures are on offer. I’m out and about all week, if my plans work out, and will be back with fresh views of a City that doth not sleep after Labor Day.
“This one time I got to visit South Brother Island with the Audubons, and that’s where I saw this cool bird” is exactly how I describe this shot to people.
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 31st. 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.
“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.
intuitive knack
Thursday, it seems.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Archive shots again today, as a humble narrator has a bit of a situation playing out here at HQ and Newtown Pentacle’s never ending cavalcade of adventure and imagery has had to take a back seat. Zuzu the dog is quite elderly, and quite ill at the moment. One has therefore been trying to spend as much time as possible with her. When you’ve got a dog like Zuzu in your life, you signed a contract with her when she was a puppy. She’s always been a very good girl, has made my life immeasurably better, and keeping her comfortable at the end of it all is my end of the bargain. Zuzu is 14 years old, and is a fairly large dog in all actuality despite my usual description of her as “my little dog.” She’s been suffering from arthritis and spinal issues for a few years.
Overall, things are looking pretty grim for her at this writing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The conqueror worm gets us all in the end, though.
Saying that, googling what to do in NYC if your dog dies is pretty depressing. There are private services that will collect and cremate the cadaver, but the City’s DSNY will take the body on garbage pickup day. Procedure, as described by the official 311 site, is to put your dog in a black plastic garbage bag and label it “dead dog.” The garbage guys will grab the body and then carry it off.
Jesus, that’s cold.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We almost lost her a few months ago, but Zuzu rallied and recovered. Last week she messed up her back and hasn’t been able to use her back legs at all for a few days. The palaver of finding a Vet who does house calls during a pandemic is playing out right now for Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself. Her regular doctor doesn’t do house calls.
“Tsuris,” that’s the Yiddish word for “troubles.”
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 24th. 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.
“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.
spiritual rapport
Tuesday affects us all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, a trip to Randalls Wards Island was recently enacted, during which I saw a bird – pictured above. The history of these islands are – at best – a long and convoluted tale during which they changed names several times over many hundreds of years. Great Barent Island, anyone? Suffice to say that the most important thing in the history of these East River Islands was the day that Robert Moses decided to make them his base of operations. A tributary of the East River – Little Hell Gate it was called – separated the two islands and it was filled in at his command in the early 1960’s to create a single land mass. Moses’ Triborough Bridge operation was based here as of 1936, making this the actual “House of Moses.”
There’s an amazing number of playing fields and pedestrian paths on the island, and the whole scene is framed in by the Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking across a small waterway called Bronx Kill found on the northern side of the place, which is where that bird was noticed, that’s a CSX engine moving a garbage train around. The tracks lead westwards towards a Waste Management Facility, then eastwards and north towards to some unknown destination. That side of the water is an unknown country which local children call “Bronx.”
Seriously, what I know about the Bronx wouldn’t fill a thimble. I’ve been saving it for my old age. I can tell you a lot about the other four boroughs, but the Bronx? I can tell you where it is, basically. Ok, it’s Port Morris, but it’s nice not knowing everything about something for once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking more or less westwards along the Bronx Kill from a small pedestrian span called the Randalls Island Connector, in the distance that’s a part of mighty Triborough. Specifically, I’m fairly sure that’s it’s the Truss Bridge section of the Triborough Bridge complex. The visible arch is part of the Hell Gate bridge trackage. I wonder if it’s still called the NY Connecting Railroad on this side of the river, as it is on the Queens side?
More tomorrow.
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 20th. 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.
“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.
obvious effort
Friday shots from the before time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Critters greet you today, photos of which were captured prior to the war on statuary. Amongst those whose political dial leans toward the left, a humble narrator maintains an unpopular opinion that iconoclasm is never a good thing. If a statue of Godzilla is encountered, you are not going to bring Tokyo back by destroying the statue. Perhaps, you might want to create some signage for the statue describing what the beast did, and all the people it hurt, but you aren’t going to change history by knocking the face off of the Godzilla statue. Such practice has a long and ugly history, and usually signals that “the revolution” has run out of steam. Ever lament at the works of figurative Roman or Greek art in museums which are missing their faces? Roiled when the Taliban blew up those Buddha statues 20 years ago? Should the Polish Government grind away the remains of Auschwitz and build a shopping mall on the site?
Sometimes, when a statue of a bad person stands in the public square, you can change the message originally intended to illustrate evolving morals and modern points of view. Do you think Putin would be able to do what he’s been doing if statues of Stalin and Lenin were still glowering over and reminding the Russian people of the price of “strong leadership”? Also, you can’t exact revenge on somebody who has been dead for centuries by knocking down a statue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I like to wallow in my sins, and am proud of the fact that my points of view are always evolving and changing. It indicates, to me at least, that I still have an open mind and that empathy and compassion haven’t died within. It also indicates that I haven’t become an ideologue governed by some anonymous hive mind idea.
Of course, free thought and a personally arrived at point of view are things you’re not supposed to have anymore. Follow the leader, kid, or you might get cancelled. Otherwise – some jackass bike enthusiast in Astoria might tweet mean things at you at 3 a.m., or a firearms enthusiast might…
Pepsi comes in a blue can. Coke comes in a red one. It’s all carbonated sugar water dosed up with caffeine. Drink some water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beyond the brave new world of calcified support for people who couldn’t care less if you lived or died, something which has come up in conversation repeatedly in the last few days with a certain segment of my friends is the fact that this is the first time in our collective memory during which we’ve actually had the summer off. For me, it’s nearly 15 years since I haven’t been waking up at six in the morning on summer weekends, then leading a walking tour of Newtown Creek and coming home at “hot o’clock” in the afternoon.
I certainly miss going to work, doing “my thing” as it were, and wish that this summer off didn’t involve a plague. I always said that what this City needed was a good plague, and here we are. Be careful what you ask for, I guess. See y’all next week with some photos collected during the after time.
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.
“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 