Archive for the ‘insects’ Category
clumsy modifications
The Newtown Pentacle is back in session.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been creeping and crawling about, here in Astoria and in those spaces beyond, in pursuance of certain – lets just call it “esoteric” information. Hidden amongst the dross facts, the conventional interpretations, and the expected interpretations are hints at the true nature of things hereabouts. Dark undercurrents flow beneath the pavement here in the Newtown Pentacle, following ancient pathways which were wisely buried and carefully occluded by those generations for whom the setting of the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself meant naught but shadowed terror. Once, wolves prowled freely across the sunken meadows and painted nocturnal terror across the stinking marshes of western Queens and North Brooklyn. The Dutch, and later the Angles, went to great pains to hunt down and exterminate these canid predators – eventually causing their local extinction.
Who is to say, though, what moved into that niche once occupied by the wolves? Or what old world horrors the seafaring Nederlanders and Britons unknowingly carried here from their far flung journeys to the Far East? The settlers of this area were heretics and rebels, cultists who rejected the orderly religious practices of their times. Did Thomas Case and his followers speak truly when they promised adherents to their bizarre form of Quakerism that bodily transmogrification and eternal life could be attained upon this plane of material existence?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During the two week interval which saw this, your Newtown Pentacle, enter into a “holding pattern” – your humble narrator has been traveling non stop across the megalopolis in pursuance of carefully hidden reference. Uncommented private libraries have been visited, and the counsel of diabolist and clergy alike have been sought. It is once again the “most wonderful time of the year” as the liturgical wheel rolls towards Hallowmas and Samhain. Those hidden waterways which still gurgle and splash beneath the sunlit streets, dripping into night black grottoes and hidden voids perverted by modernity’s sewage and filth… Do the phantoms of those primeval wolves gather along them even now?
Who can guess, all that there is, that might be buried down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The presence of occultists and magick workers amongst us has long been established by multitudinous postings at this and other publications. Long time readers of this – your Newtown Pentacle – will attest to the presence of ritual altars and offerings found along area streets, railway junctions, and even within the gates of the mortuary complexes which distinguish this section of the megalopolis. Consultation with souls braver than myself confirms the presence of subterranean populations of humanity living in abandoned tunnels and forgotten vaults beneath the pavement. Forbidden books suggest that they might not be alone down there, and members of the underground communities refuse to speak, other than in hurried whispers, of things which stalk in the shadows.
It is best, ultimately, that those of us who exist in the open air warmed by the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself remain ignorant of such things… or so they say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Were it to become generally known what exists in the dank earth, amongst the plumes of industrial chemicals and atavist stream beds which litter the deep city, if the truth behind all of those “lost pet” posters were to be acknowledged… It might be enough to depopulate the City of Greater New York and signal the descent of humanity into madness and the glad acceptance of a new dark age.
The good news in that, however, would be that rents would likely go down.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
admixture or connection
Busy, busy, buzzy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of those annoyances which distract one from productive pursuits is a certain inclination corporate America has developed in the last few years. It seems that just as our elected and municipal officials seem to have largely forgotten whom their constituents actually are, so too have our corporate entities developed a lack of understanding as to what the nature of the “customer/services provider” relationship entails. A certain amount of pique, therefore, drove my steps as I headed over to a storefront outpost of a certain bank which has enjoyed collecting the fees associated with my various bits of financial business for nearly three decades in order to identify myself. The fact that they were able to reach me on the phone, and send me mail, was immaterial.
It seems that some new set of internal rules which their drones had determined as being necessary to safeguard the world from terror was missing from my account information, and it was the duty of the customer (me) to come to them and dot their “i’s” and cross their “t’s.” The consequences for not doing so would be dire, with accounts closed and an inability to remove my limited funds from their institution without supplying them with the information which they so recently decided was required anyway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It should be mentioned that the account in question was opened in 1987, an era when a young Joe Piscopo taught America how to laugh and Saint Reagan was in office down in Washington. Upon arriving at the bank, the manager I sat down with (they don’t wear suits and ties anymore, these bank managers. Rather it’s corporate branded polo shirts) was informed that since his institution was wasting my time in a vociferous fashion, so too would this process take as long as it possibly could for him. I apologized in advance and got started.
One launched into an extensive conversation about the history of colonial Woodside and Maspeth, the trade relationships between the Nieuwe Stadt and Boswijck colonies along Newtown Creek during the Dutch colonial period, my thoughts about the current Mayor, and my opposition to the Mayor’s proposed Sunnyside Yards development. Discussion of the current state of the Mets, where to get a good egg sandwich in Astoria, and the relative merits of the Marvel Cinematic Universe ensued.
After wasting after forty minutes of the gentleman’s time, I decided that I was satisfied and supplied him with the requested paperwork. He disappeared into the back room to make photocopies for their files and then returned telling me “you’re all set.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happily ensconced in the comfort of knowing that my accounts were not going to be frozen for the sin of not supplying 2015 era information to the institution back in 1987, one found himself wandering back in the general direction of HQ for around 15 minutes. That’s when my phone rang, and the manager announced that his photocopier had malfunctioned. A second trip to the bank was then called for, and this time I opted not to take it easy on them.
Using my tour guide voice to ensure that everybody in the bank, and likely in neighboring store fronts, could hear me – a long soliloquy began. This time I covered subjects ranging from the Rockefellers to LeCorbusier, mentioned a few bits about Robert Moses and the construction of the Whitestone Bridge, the declining quality of Italian style food in Western Queens, and how much enjoyment I find watching “The Strain” television show on the FX network which tells the story of a vampire takeover of NYC. Ending with the analogy that large financial institutions like the one I started a checking account with back in 1987 are in fact the true vampires of our modern age, I was handed back my paperwork and told “you’re all set.”
You waste my time, I’m going to waste yours.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
mad and fantastic
Busy bees, and misanthropy, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The insect above was busily raiding Our Lady of the Pentacle’s herb garden one recent afternoon. Accordingly, I chased it around from blossom to blossom with a camera and flash. Soon, it was chasing me around. Such is my lot. The bee was merely attempting to shoo a representative of NYC’s human infestation away, something for which I can hardly blame it. There’s too many of us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One shouldn’t be surprised at the various indignities and inequities commonly experienced along the daily round, I suppose, given that many of the places I find myself have the word “hell” in their place names. Over in Manhattan’s Hells Kitchen, for instance, this taxi garage was queerly devoid of human habitation. A good start, I guess, but there’s still too many of us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down on the Lower East Side, in an area once known as “Jew town,” this laundromat scene reminded me of certain Edward Hopper paintings. The facility was offering the humans housed therein a chance to remove the soils and bodily excreta which had accreted into their textile garb – using a variety of semi caustic chemicals, detergents, and mechanically agitated hot water. There’s way too many of us, and I fear that what this city could really use is a good plague.
Someday a real rain will come and wash these streets clean…
Sorry for the misanthropy, I get a bit “Travis Bickle” when my back hurts…
“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”
photo courtesy wikipedia
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Walking Tours-
Saturday, September 27th, 13 Steps Around Dutch Kills
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
Sunday, September 28th, The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek
Walking Tour with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for tickets and more info.
inspired dreamer
124 years ago today, an outsider was thrust roughly into the world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If the squamous gods of our own world do not care about you, what causes you to believe that those whose realm is cosmic would even take notice of an unimportant mortal speck living on a muddy world which – from their unknowable and unguessable point of view – has only recently coalesced from star stuff and debris? Were you to find yourself lying prone, naked, and cowering before some galactic, universal, or pan dimensional deity whose regency includes whole galaxies – realizing the true horror of the universe in that moment, and the inconsequential role which terrestrial life plays in it – would you go mad with the realization of the futility of life itself or would a blood vessel burst in your brain? Would you rise to your knees, begging to join some hidden cult which worships the titan, or stare unblinkingly at its manifest radiance until your eyes boiled away? One is incapable of anticipating what ones reaction to a pulsing nucleonic horror found at the center of our universe that is called Azathoth would be, nor what beholding the so called “goat with a thousand young” which is both the gate and the key called Yog Sothoth might do to you, but one would certainly be forever altered and held under their sway afterwards. We are but men, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These star born – or Elder Gods – whose machinations stretch back billions of years and into other dimensions and realities where our paltry notion of the constancy of physics and the true nature of the universe are revealed as childish fantasy – enjoy the devotion of uncountable servitors. Their servants, who are the true rulers of the earth, are in the air and the water and burrow into the ground unmatched and unheralded. None inquire as to their purpose, for none have realized that theirs is a plan which has survived more than one extinction event. The cities of the Old Ones, at the so called Mountains of Madness in fabled Antarctica, and those of the ruggose cone shaped Elder Race (which drifted into their current position as the continents formed) in the deserts of Arabia and Australia demonstrate that at the end of all things – only the Conqueror Worm claims victory. The so called insects have a plan, and they created this biosphere of ours only to increase their food supply, as a stock yard. Deep below the Pacific Ocean, their paymaster lies not dead but dreaming instead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hundred and twenty four years ago, a set of ideas was born at 194 Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island. The product of Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft and Winfield Scott Lovecraft, the child grew into a strange and lonely but quite erudite man who always considered himself an outsider in the world to which he was born. His name was Howard. His pen name was H.P. Lovecraft, and today (all this week, actually) we celebrate the day of his birth at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
little visible
It ain’t winter time this year, it’s Ragnarok.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s snowing again, so hooray! It was nice being able to leave the house again this weekend, which temporarily alleviated my status as a housebound invalid. Unfortunately, today’s snow caused one to cancel an appointment with the Manhattan based team of physicians that maintain the delicate balancing act which describes my physiology. Alas, putting myself into a hospital by visiting the doctor would be the sort of ironic consequence which has and does define the miserable life path of a humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dreams of tropical splendor suffuse my thoughts, although the idea of suffering insectivorous assault and the deprivations offered by fungal and bacterial infections of the skinvelope retards my desire for the warmth and blooming foliage of the equatorial band. Ultimately, everything wishes to eat something, and your humble narrator is apparently delicious to contagion and pestilence alike.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
How one misses the halcyon days of spring and summer, when gazing upon the world and recording its little lessons are governed only by the long interval between dusk and dawn. Winter is definitely not nepenthe to me, and I’ve had to reschedule the visit with my team of physicians. Later in the week, it seems, will be the day that I go to the Shining City to have wires attached and be subjected to the examinations of esoteric machinery.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 