Archive for the ‘Broadway’ Category
curiously dislocated
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Although it is the Mother of harlots, entering Manhattan on a regular basis is periodically required of your humble narrator, for none may trade nor sell in the City of New York lest this borough’s mark is upon them. Usually this journey is accomplished along the subterranean R line, but often will one walk over to the elevated N line on the 31st street side of the neighborhood just to mix things up. You take the low road, I’ll take the high road, and I’ll be in midtown before ye…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Shining City, a place which your humble narrator actually lived for many years, has become lost in an inferior incarnation of itself. One does not long for the era of sin and fornication recently passed, it is the modern facade of the City which agitates. Many disagree with me, arguing for acceptance of a halcyon and quite modern era of progress and development which will eradicate the mistakes of prior centuries. All I can tell you, in retort, is that I don’t see many autochthonous smiles in Manhattan. Also, $9 is too much for a tuna sandwich.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An echo chamber, things there are no longer hot, nor cold- rather they are lukewarm. Don’t get me wrong, there ain’t no mountain spring water running out here in Astoria neither, there are oodles of things wrong in Brooklyn and Queens. I’m sure the Bronx and …Staten Island… likely have some problems too. I’m just saying that we don’t export them, unlike the unsustainable island of Manhattan, and that I- for one- am a lot more comfortable and likelier to be smiling here in Queens.
shrank away
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the posting “perfect service” a few days ago, the tableau of a Con Ed street repair was described. The gentlemen who performed this repair left behind a safety cone sitting on top of the manhole cover to their street pit. Two days later, the cone was moved for a time by a group of gentlemen with a giant masonry saw powerful enough to cut street.
It was all very exciting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After packing their saw back up onto a truck, they replaced the cone.
One is beside himself waiting for the next pulse pounding installment. Will someone come with a drill, punching holes in the asphalt? Will the entire block drop through the subway below? Lasers, perhaps? I will keep you posted.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy place… happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place… …happy place…
unthinkable gardens
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a little slice of life, from Astoria…
The public litter baskets are regularly emptied around these parts, DSNY does its thing well. The thing is, DOB does its thing pretty good too. Hence- they spend a lot of time looking for illegal sublets and apartments. One of the methods they use to determine the address from which a particular violation might emanate from are reports submitted by the DSNY and DOH inspectors who enforce the recycling rules. If a two family house is putting out more than a certain amount of garbage, for instance, it triggers further interest from these inspectors.
The inspectors are good at their job too, by the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, what officialdom doesn’t reckon is whom they are dealing with, here amongst the blessed hills of raven haired Astoria. A significant proportion of the population hereabouts was born overseas, and will relate tales of civil disobedience and outright partisan warfare against varied regimes- those of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Tito are mentioned by older inhabitants. Younger residents will relate their antagonistic relationships with governments, and having stood tall before the dictatorial policies of (amongst others) Mubarak, Thatcher, and several South American military “Juntas.” They do not fear Michael Bloomberg.
Resistance to bureaucracy is baked into their bones, and it is impossible to make them do something which they don’t want to.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, local custom has developed wherein the residents of these illegal apartment conversions are simply using the corner litter basket for household trash in order to not reveal the location where they are living.
Subsequently, the corner litter baskets are no longer usable for their intended purpose. Consequently, trash and litter are wind blown and gather wherever nature decides to deposit them, which is more often than not the sidewalks and fence lines of legal abodes. Said legal abodes are then ticketed for not cleaning the pavement, according to statute. Also, since the pavement is already covered in trash, there are no societal cues offered to discourage the populace from just dropping additional trash wherever they can.
The litter baskets are full up anyway.
perfect service
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent malfunction in one of the many Con Ed street pits here in blessed Astoria drew the somewhat swift response of service crews. It was only three days before they arrived at the spot where vaporous exhalations from the street had spewed, and they quickly set up for their task. Before long, a series of intense blue white flashes and a sound best described as “popping” sent them back into their service vehicle. They were summoning additional help.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A truck arrived, which had some sort of suction hose on it. The truck was very noisy, reminding one of the sound which might be made by a congress of baboons all vacuuming at the same time. The Con Ed employee was not actually a speedster whose movements were reminiscent of the Flash character of DC Comics fame, instead these are timed exposures which allowed the shutter to stay open for some 15 seconds. I know its difficult to accept that these guys actually move this much in 15 seconds, given the reputation of Union Labor in quasi municipal employ, but there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One prefers instead to believe that the Flash, and other meta human beings, would find easy employment in the municipal services which keep New York City’s fuse from burning away. In my estimate, the City at any given moment in only half an hour from total collapse. We live amongst a series of highly volatile dominoes kept from detonation only by the constant maintenance and tinkering of an army of labor. Somewhere in the Bronx just now, a Union guy casually tightened a screw whose failure would have otherwise unleashed the beast of Armageddon, while in Staten Island- a frayed strand of wire threatens the entire municipality with unthinkably dire and entirely existential implications.
stupefying beholder
DUE TO AN ILLNESS, THE FRIDAY NIGHT MAGIC LANTERN SHOW WILL BE POSTPONED!!!
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, also called the Smaragdine Table, offers the paraphrased occult wisdom of “As Above, So Below.”
The notion this hermetic treatise asks the reader to accept is that Heaven and Hell are mirrors of each other, virtually reversed images. An alchemical manual, the Emerald Tablet details a system of something not unlike chemistry which is hobbled by a world view which only accounted for 4 elements. It is a product of a post Roman/newly Muslim scholarly culture and at least a thousand years old, so cut it a break for the dualist world view. Seriously, anything that preoccupied Sir Isaac Newtown is worth a second look.
from wikipedia
Lupercalia was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 13 through 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. Lupercalia subsumed Februa, an earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February (Februarius) its name.
The name Lupercalia was believed in antiquity to evince some connection with the Ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia (from Ancient Greek: λύκος — lukos, “wolf”, Latin lupus) and the worship of Lycaean Pan, assumed to be a Greek equivalent to Faunus, as instituted by Evander.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 16th century grimoire Pseudomonarchia Daemonum offers the name and description of Furfur, an Earl of Hell and commander of 29 legions of demons. Furfur is meant to”cause love between a man and a woman, create storms, tempests, thunder, lightning, and blasts, and teach on secret and divine things.”
Could the heavenly opposite of Furfur be, in fact, St. Valentine?
Would this mean that the Cherubs we normally see associated with Valentine’s day, decorating hearts and shooting love darts, are part of some 29 angelic legions?
Here’s St. Valentine and Furfur. As above, so below?
from wikipedia
Februalia, also Februatio, was the Roman festival of ritual purification, later incorporated into Lupercalia. The festival, which is basically one of Spring washing or cleaning (associated also with the raininess of this time of year) is old, and possibly of Sabine origin. According to Ovid, Februare as a Latin word which refers to means of purification (particularly with washing or water) derives from an earlier Etruscan word referring to purging.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Using the late Republic numbers (presuming that the term “legion” is based on Rome), a legion would include 5,120 individuals backed up by an equal number of auxiliaries. 29 legions would equate to 148,480 regular soldiers, and with auxiliaries- both Furfur and Valentine would find themselves just shy of 300,000 supernatural shock troops with whom to wage the Battle of Ragnarok and the War of Tribulation.
Demons are supposed to scare you, but Angels have always scared the hell out of me. The thought of close to 150,000 cherubs on the war path just makes my head hurt. Just imagine the noise of all those wings.
Happy Valentine’s day, don’t forget to duck and cover.
from wikipedia
St. Valentine’s Day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. The most popular martyrology associated with Saint Valentine was that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire; during his imprisonment, he is said to have healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius. Legend states that before his execution he wrote “from your Valentine” as a farewell to her.
The Newtown Pentacle 