Archive for the ‘animals’ Category
abundant melancholy
Yo, you seeing what I’m seeing?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is representative of how such a scene would appear to a raccoon, a seal, a dolphin or just about any whale. It’s also likely how it appears to a human being who suffers from a condition called Achromatopsia (which there are several different forms of, some congenital and others acquired). Achromatopsia is the lack of any color vision whatsoever, with the entire visual experience of those afflicted rendered in shades of gray. While this can be considered “quite goth” and is somehow poetic – it’s a pretty serious vision disease.
“Normal” human eyes are meant to perceive color. The typical human eye can discern around one million colors, whereas the eye of an Achromatopsiac can only see about a hundred shades of gray.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The neurologist Oliver Sachs once pointed out that whereas there’s a frequency of reflected light which humans will agree upon as being “red,” or “blue,” there is no way to test whether or not we are all actually seeing the exact same thing. Is my “coca cola” red your “coca cola” or is it a little more “fire engine” or “cherry”?
Odds are they’re not, as we aren’t really “seeing” anything. The brain is creating the things we see based on the limited amount of the raw photonic data, as collected by the eyes, which it decides to process. You generally don’t notice how much dust there is in the air unless a shaft of sunlight illuminates, it causing the brain to “notice” the anomaly and render it visually. Essentially, brains compress collected light into a construct which jibes with what the other senses are telling it.
Is that an image of a cormorant? Nope, it’s a capture of the light which was bouncing around one day when a cormorant swam by, which our brains process and interpret using a chemical database of prior observations called memories. Looks like a cormorant, though.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A lot of the information passing through the optic nerve is actually jettisoned by the brain. We don’t perceive the higher and lower frequencies of light – infrared or ultraviolet. Some critters have traded the ability to see the mid range entirely to focus on these spectrums, like the bee. Invisible light isn’t just a song from Sting’s old band “The Police” and it’s always been something a humble narrator is intensely curious about.
There are specialist cameras out there – security and nighttime cameras use a set of near infrared LED emitters to pump out a bright stream of IR light which these cameras can visualize and record. There’s also UV and IR film stocks, as well as esoteric lens filters and all sorts of DIY equipment you can use for the task of seeing the unseeable. Long have I had my eye on a camera kit offered by Nikon which is intended for the use of Police forensics teams, as said device can operate in both IR and UV to aid in the capture of splattered bodily fluids at crime scenes. Unfortunately, the unit is quite expensive and you need to flash credentials when purchasing it.
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thousand young
A goat with a thousand young, that sort of thing, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Magna Mater notwithstanding, one worries that he has lost his moorings, but I’ve thought that since the age of five.
So many dreams are left unfillfilled – such as sparking a witch panic in western Queens. It has also also long been one of my goals to lead a torch bearing mob, but little success has been found in pursuing this goal. There’s the nuanced side of it all – you need to store the rag wrapped sticks, the accelerants, and determine some sort of organizing point for the angry masses… it’s all quite complicated. You also need to get a group angry enough to take to the streets and chase the monster towards the old and flammable mill. There’s no way to start a political riot these days which doesn’t involve some sort of intense preparation, and advance permitting, and I’ve always been a spontaneous sort of guy. Also, my apathy can be considered as being weaponized, and I just can’t be bothered to pointlessly bleat. What’s wrong with a Monster anyway, who’s it bothering, and why do you want to slay it so badly?
At any rate – anarchy, chaos, and – wooooh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I spent last night at the District Office, which is what I call the bar in Astoria that I frequent, and chatted with the working guys for awhile. A surprising number of them were “big” on Donald Trump’s candidacy for President. In particular, they were in favor of the expulsion of “illegal immigrants.” I reminded them that most of these “illegals” who would get caught up in this effort wouldn’t be of Mexican lineage (whom most stereotype as being the “illegals”) and that a significant number of 70-80 year old Greeks, Croatians, and Irish people who have lived here for decades would be the likely victims of this policy. Why? Because back in the 1970’s and 80’s it was fairly easy to buy a green card from forgers.
Also, given what I know about the way things actually work in this City – you’d have to literally go from house to house and search every attic and basement for “illegals” to comply with the Federal Mandate.
Speaking strictly as someone of Jewish descent, this sort of thing has been tried before in other countries and it didn’t work out well for anyone involved.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Let’s do the thought experiment though, said a humble narrator, of how President Trump’s expulsion program would actually play out – using Astoria as an example. NYPD sets up a cordon on 21st street, and on Woodside Avenue. A skirmish line of Police begin moving north from Northern Blvd., working their way through every building and business and demanding identification and proof of status from everybody they meet. Those individuals who aren’t “pure” citizens are arrested, and shipped out to a holding cell.
The detainees would have to taken somewhere for further processing. Since our jails are already fairly full, we’d have to create mass incarceration camps where they could await deportation. Our national nightmare is the presence of an army of terrorists on American soil, yes? I can think of no better way to create one than building concentration camps full of angry people that know implicitly how to avoid detection when crossing a national border whose only wish was to become Americans and live in the United States.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
serious bubbles
It’s all so depressing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A somewhat random series of images greets you today. As endlessly mentioned in recent posts, I’m bored boredity bored bored, tired of winter already, and literally dying for something interesting that isn’t horrible to happen. This horsey ride over in Sunnyside… I wish they made adult versions of these things so I could at least have something to look forward to after the goal of achieving fifty cents was accomplished.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted this arrangement over in LIC, on Jackson Avenue. I don’t think that the Union guys consciously create compositions when they’re doing their thing, but they are often responsible for moments of true rapture.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The literal dust bin of history was stumbled across at the Vernon Blvd. street end in LIC’s DUPBO, where some thoughtful soul had disposed of a series of history textbooks and what seemed like an entire library of Time Life WW2 hard cover photo books.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was there, in LIC I mean, exploitation of one of the many holes in the fencing of the LIRR Hunters Point yard was undertaken. I’ve got a catalog of these holes and POV’s, incidentally, which includes the entire Sunnyside Yards and follows the Montauk line all the way back to Ridgewood. For those of you who live in Bushwick, Ridgewood, or East Williamsburg – two words – Scott Avenue (bet Randolph and Meserole).
Trust me, but be there early or late.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, I’m fascinated by laundromats at the moment, a subject which I’m planning on discussing with my team of physicians. This one is in Park Slope, where I somehow ended up one day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over at Central Park Zoo, there are Grizzly Bears. Their names are Betty and Veronica, and I have no idea which one this is. Where’s Archie, ask I?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
be fair
I love to photograph, So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today, it’s all about the yellows. The particular wavelength and angle of light emanating from the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself is ugly at this time of year, and a certain responsibility is felt to attempt to brighten things up. Pictured above is one of the groundling burrowers with the glowing red eyes who inhabit the Roman Catholic polyandrion called Calvary Cemetery, here in LIC.
Word has it that their role is to carry messages between those who exist above and below the till, and that the daily challenge is to try and avoid the multitudes of Hawks, Cats, and other predators who desire the rending of their flesh during the carrying out of their task.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last summer in Astoria, we had what seemed like a record crop of Sunflowers, which led to great rejoicing in the apiaries of Western Queens. I’ve mentioned a certain paranoia – carried over from childhood – regarding sunflowers and the buzzing harvesters which infest them, in the past. Regardless, the stalwart photographer must pursue his craft, and the fancies or terrors of infancy are best left on the back shelf.
Still, sunflowers freak me out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dead things abound in Western Queens, and not all of them are found below the soil of the so called cemetery belt. This poor little bastard counted its last minutes on a sidewalk in Queens. Often, one fears that this is the sort of posture one such as myself will be displaying when discovered by passerby.
Life a leaf, you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pineapples, in some abundance, observed at an Astoria fruit stand.
The most amazing part of our culture, in my opinion, is that after reading this post – in the middle of January – you can go out into the cold, and by writhing through the atmosphere for just a few blocks find tropical cultivars on sale. It will not be difficult for you to find mangoes, strawberries, pineapples – in January. That is simply amazing, when you get down to it, and it’s a reminder that despite the climactic challenges you’ll encounter – you live in the financial capital of a nuclear armed superpower which enjoys the actual highest standard of living ever known and that other nations and cultures send us regular tribute.
In many ways, we are living in the modern equivalent of late Republic Rome.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the subject of living in an analog for Rome (prior to the First Triumverate, natch), you can be reasonably assured of the presence of the fire fighters should sudden immolation occur. FDNY’s trade dress, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, always brightens things up. The only times that the phrase “everything is going to be alright” escapes my lips is when FDNY shows up – they’re our army of municipal super heroes, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The darkness of winter gives the Vampire community of Western Queens vast regency. As opined in the past, the army of Strigoi shuns entry into Astoria due to vast numbers of South and Central European ethnicities resident hereabouts. My neighbor Mario prefers to use high visibility paint on his cruciform wards, because “safety first.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s down on the western section of the Sunnyside Yards that you really need to be carrying the garlic in LIC. The area is infested with the Nosferatu in the Hunters Point Avenue section nearby the LIRR. It’s a big part of the reasoning behind the stout fences protecting the 7 train as it rises from the tunneled depths. You probably don’t want to accept the fact, I know, but there you go.
Don’t get me started on the Witch Cult. Vampires are merely rabid dogs inhabiting the shadowed corners of our world, whereas the worshippers of Hecate and the Magna Mater are hidden amongst us and actively working… I’ve probably said too much already.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
indubitably again
Wake up, sleepyhead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a brand new year, and we’ve all got a lot to get done. Let’s get to it! You’ll probably want to make some coffee first.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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