Archive for the ‘Astoria’ Category
atavistical menace
Welcome to the darker side of the year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Call it what you will. There’s Samhain, and Calan Gaeaf, and we’ve also got All Hallows’ Eve – but it’s just Halloween here at Newtown Pentacle HQ. 2013 has been a slow one for the occult and magick beat, I’m afraid. Haven’t been able to bring you much more than a few headless chickens found on the rail tracks in Maspeth, actually. It’s not that I haven’t been looking, mind you, but I just keep on finding singular shoes divorced from their mated pair. Try and convince me that there isn’t some serial killer at work behind this phenomena, I dare you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A lurking fear of mine is the sure knowledge that there are rats in the walls. Just beyond the reach of station lights, they squirm and breed and hunger. Remember last year- directly following the storm- when concerns about this rodent army leaving the flooded tunnel system to try their luck above ground, in the darkened streets of lower Manhattan, were openly debated? Who can guess all there is, that might be down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Manhattan terrifies. Its teeming masses yearn to breathe free, but are forced to congregate in the great human hive in the name of industry. The atmosphere hosts a thriving variety of bacterial and viral specie, which float along on gusts of contaminant laden air from host to host. Pandemic is inevitable, and it would not be the first time either. First Cholera, then Typhus, Tuberculosis, and Influenza have historically cut great swaths of the population down on this crowded island. Always there are those who cannot afford to be sick, and are forced to go about their business with the affect and manner of the walking dead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Halloween though, isn’t about some mad serial killer operating in Queens, or an army of starving rats emerging from the Subways to feast, nor some plague that renders its victims with a virulent visage reminiscent of the living dead. Instead, it’s about spectral menaces rising from graveyards to wander the land in search of living souls to take back to hell with them, silly. The Danse Macabre is underway, so watch out Newtownicans, for evil of the most vile sort is afoot.
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these conceptions
A brief visit to the forbidden north coast of Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent obligations – involving a spate of home repairs demanded by Our Lady of the Pentacle – involved Hank the elevator guy, Our Lady, and myself making a journey over to the “Build it Green” warehouse found in Astoria on the forbidden northern coast of Queens. This is my personal nomen, incidentally, for the Bowery Bay and Flushing River side of the borough, which is largely occluded from the public space by industrial and municipal fence lines.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, for my Brownstoner column, I detailed a trip to Luyster Creek- which can be accessed here. One generally doesn’t come this way on the long perambulations for which I am known, as my interests generally draw me in the direction of the Newtown Creek. Also, I do not enjoy walking the camera around in the more residential sections of Queens as it draws certain attentions from the locals which can be… ahem… less than salubrious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Announced plans for the overdevelopment of this neighborhood by the Real Estate Industrial Complex, however, mean that I will be forced into spending some of my time this winter and spring recording the sights extant in this section. Wondering what I might find around the forbidden coast, or what might find me, keeps me awake at night.
Don’t tell the Creek, though, as she might think I’m cheating on her. It’s just the seven year itch, however.
Project Firebox 93
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Found amongst the blessed hillocks of Astoria, this scarlet soldier of the realm stands at 21st street and 31st avenue. Long has it stood, amongst the chaotic and never settled landscape, awaiting the moment when it will be needed. Shine on, Astoria Firebox, shine on.
this impression
Name a phobia, and I probably exhibit symptoms of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m afraid of anything meant to represent a sentient being, so Automatonophobia is on my list, As is Algophobia- which is what my fear of pain is called. One presents Frigophobic symptoms when a fear of cold flares to life, which usually happens to me between the months of November and March. Globophobic fits keep me away from any public event wherein balloons will be displayed, especially ones which are yellow. I’ve never liked being touched, but rampant Haphephobia relegates one to a horrid and crumpled mass of quivering defeat whenever someone brushes past on the subway and makes physical contact- no matter how casual. These conditions are all quite debilitating, and I demand pity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obsessions and compulsions notwithstanding, the work must come first. Nyctophobia must be denied, for what is there to fear about the dark that isn’t also there during the day? For those who suffer from an inverse affliction- a fear of the sun known as Heliophobia, the night is nepenthe. I believe that the non medical term “panphobia,” or the fear of everything, best describes my outlook. Despite this, a humble narrator dares both the fuligin night and the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, but does remain scared of all that might be hidden, out there, in plain sight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lengthening shadows and shortened intervals between dawn and dusk indicate strongly that the wheel of the year has turned once again to Halloween. Fundamentalists of modern times decry this most Christian of holidays as “the devils night,” lambasting the celebration of manifest fear and terror as antithetical to their limited interpretations of biblical narrative. One such as myself, however, prefers to embrace the army of phobias and trooping night terrors as they gambol along with the goblins and ghasts.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
public squares
Prejudice and Ursidae derision in today’s Columbus Day post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Call me Ursophobic, but your humble narrator has had it up to some proverbial line – drawn somewhere around his eyebrows – with these occasionally bipedal inebriates who have been turning up in Astoria for the last few years. Admittedly, their days are difficult, but that’s no excuse for them to just pass out on the street in some honey induced stupor, like the derelict pictured above. Who are these bears, where did they come from, and why were they allowed to come here in the first place? Is it ok to pass out in the trash where they come from? I think not.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Does he have a family somewhere nearby, with a brood of anchor cubs? Is there some she bear staring out the window wondering where he is, growing increasingly anxious that he might be honey drunk again, or that the bees exacted a horrible revenge upon him? Where are the cops? How can a dangerously besotted creature like this be allowed to just pass out on Broadway in Astoria? This neighborhood is going to the caniforms, if you ask me, and I won’t be a bit surprised if in a couple of years Astoria is known as an Ursidae neighborhood. This is how it starts.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 