Archive for the ‘Astoria’ Category
fantastic handiwork
Again, Friday?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gaze at your navel, lords and ladies. One found himself in lucky circumstance on the night of a full moon, as the satellite’s relative position to the ancient village of Astoria provided for a line up with the cruciform adorning a local Christian meeting house. I’ve always wondered about why certain sects of Nazarene worship build fortresses as their sacred spaces. Guess it has a lot to do with European culture and history. American variants of Christianity abandon the masonry and curtain walls of these fortress building schemes, preferring instead auditorium style buildings made of wood. I’ve never encountered a church made of straw, nor witnessed a Big Bad Wolf trying to blow down a church, but there’s got to be a connection.
Ask a physicist to calculate it, since a humble narrator is shit at basic arithmetic let alone higher mathematics, but I’ve often wondered how many mega jeules of energy Yahweh must have channeled through the atmosphere to resurrect junior. The rest of the Bible indicates that with a few exceptions, Yahweh operates within the internal rules of it’s own universal constants. Didn’t just dissolve reality with a snap in the Noah story, Yahweh used a global flood instead. Sodom and Gomorrah were taken down using an obviously volcanic mechanism as well.
Let’s presume it’s all true, this predicate…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Potential energy is what’s contained, chemically speaking, in all of Yahweh’s compounds and elements. Gasoline, by weight, holds a higher potentiality than a similar amount of wood or stone. It also doesn’t take too much in the way of added energy to get gasoline to begin releasing its chemically stored energy – just a spark will ignite it and get the process going. You want to burn wood, or stone? Both require significantly higher amounts of energy to get the ball rolling. Theoretically, the universal “Big Bang” started when a single particle encountered a spark powerful enough to detonate its chemical bonds. (I know it’s a lot more complicated than that)
This is why gasoline is good to use as fuel. Since this relationship between matter and energy – from a believer’s point of view – is all part of god’s plan, that indicates that the law of thermodynamics and the other theoretical underpinnings of Empirical thought are also revelatory as far as how that extra dimensional creature’s design for the universe was intended to operate. As mentioned above, the book which many say chronicles humanity’s interactions and observations with this supreme being backs up the idea that within the confines of its created universe – at least – Yahweh follows its own set of rules. Water is wet, fire is hot, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, objects set into motion will continue to move until another force acts on them. It’s quite simple, really. Newton was a deist, and the Catholic Church actually does fairly interesting Astronomy work these days, so I’m not wandering too far afield of the prelates here.
The homunculus which Yahweh spawned and was incarnated as within a human woman, presuming the virgin birth storyline is accurate, would have required a lightning bolt worth of introduced energy to begin gametogenesis, but that could have been redirected from atmospheric static electricity or universal background radiation – child’s play for the architect of mountain ranges and oceans. After the crucifixion, however, reanimating what was likely 130-150 pounds of dead human tissue would require nuclear bomb levels of energy to achieve a state of fine fettle. Factor in Jesus transporting around the Middle East to visit the apostles after the resurrection and it’s easy to explain why they all said he was glowing and that they smelled roses.
Since Yahweh sits “outside the fishbowl” as it were, this wouldn’t be too much work. After all, this is the entity that created the magnetic bubble containing the sun and who set the planets and asteroids traveling in interdependent helixes. Back then, Lucifer still worked for Yahweh, of course. You can get a lot done when the sons of fire are your construction crew, especially so when your foreman is Lucifer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fire fixes everything – I say that a lot. The only way to make sure something is totally gone is to burn it. Saying that, when you set your car on fire you’re not actually getting rid of it, rather you’re converting matter from one form to another by releasing the energy contained in its chemical bonds by introducing thermal energy into its equation. The matter disincorporates, forming particles of smoke. Again, this is consistent with empirical thought. The materials in your car which have chemical bonds too strong to break with the relatively paltry amount of energy represented by an oxygen based fire stay behind. You’d need a fantastic amount of introduced energy to vaporize or particalize iron and steel. I think it needs to be nuclear detonation, or even “reanimate Jesus” levels of energy.
In information technology circles, you encounter the concept of a “super user” or system administrator. As a regular “user” you’re logged into the system and have certain permissions associated with your login password. Most corporate systems allow the user to operate with some freedom, but there’s certain things which only the super user or admin can do. This is sensible. The admin sits outside the fishbowl, and has a mechanism for compiling complaints and requests for help from the regular “users.” Everything the admin does has to be internally consistent with both maintaining the users and underlying technologies which allow them to perform their various functions. Often, a system administrator will set themselves up with a user account to test their setups in a protected partition called a “sandbox.”
Since Yahweh is thereby effectively a system administrator for the universe, perhaps the reason why certain sects of Christians build their churches to look like fortresses is because they’re sandboxes? Is Lucifer thereby a hacker, trying to hijack the system?
Think about that this Easter weekend, since the doors of St. Peter’s chapel in Rome will be locked as they always are between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, as the throne of heaven sits ritually empty on Saturday. Easter Saturday is the devil’s day, according to occult tradition.
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“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.
uncertain outlines
Scry, Thursday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just saying the words “Hells Gate” is fairly thrilling, ain’t it? Pictured is the East River suspension bridge section of the 1936 vintage Triborough Bridge complex, a span owned and operated by the MTA Bridges and Tunnels division. You’re not supposed to photograph the bridge, whether on it or around it, according to this management group who “strictly enforce” the prohibition against camera use. It’s good to know that they’ve solved all of their other problems so they can focus in on suppressing our first amendment rights. But… terrorism…
A fairly recent short walk found me on Shore Blvd. nearby Astoria Park, breaking the rules like the rebel I was born to be. Robert Moses would have found a way to charge me for photography access, which I’d gladly pay if only the folks at MTA would take it. That’s one beautiful artifact of the New Deal right there. Funny that a group of faceless bureaucrats have decided you can’t take a picture of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One scanned the water for evidence of something clearly impossible, fantastic in implication, and hard to believe. There are stories, some of which I’ve passed on over the years, of oddities in the water. The largest intentional detonation in human history, until the Hiroshima Bomb, was set off here by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. They claim it was to aid navigation, but…
Every Mayor since Franciso Wood was made aware of the rumors, and Wood’s advice to do nothing about what lurks in the turgid waters of Hells Gate and disavow any knowledge thereof has been passed down to every subsequent Mayor, who have all followed his lead since. LaGuardia added to the Wood maxim the official denial that the Triborough Bridge wasn’t actually built to lock something down to the bottom of the harbor and keep it from escaping.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps the reasoning behind MTA Bridge and Tunnel’s prohibition on photography is the institutional fear that if atmospheric conditions are just right, and the waters are calm enough, you’d be able to get a shot revealing the hidden truth of Hells Gate to the world. That image would be psychoclastic, rendering viewers of it hopelessly insane. Ripples of chaos would dapple through the City in the manner of a heavy snow, wreaking bloody chaos.
Who can guess, all there is, that might be hidden down there?
“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.
unnameable devourers
Rue, Wednesday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long walks, short walks, all around the town. The shot above was gathered at the end of a long one, as I scuttled towards home. The swirling of a filthy black raincoat, caught in the atmospheric bluster of late winter, obscured this wandering mendicant from casual view. Most would have noticed a discard piece of black fabric loosed to the urban void, and carried on a climatologically dynamic firmament. Some would notice the decaying anthropoid contained within the wind blown shape, spying an over fed and shaved head goblin, but only a few would notice the camera and the purposely steeley gaze.
That’s the intersection of Queens Blvd. and Greenpoint/Roosevelt Avenue. This is yet another one of the colonial era holdouts in Queens, as a note. Greenpoint and Roosevelt Avenue sit in the path of the post road which once connected the Dutch colonies of Bosjwick in Breuklyn with Flisling in Nieuwtown. That’s Greenpoint’s waterfront and Flushing. Btw – if I misspelled the Dutch names, oops.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A different night, a different and shorter walk found me heading towards the Triborough Bridge here in Astoria to actuate the camera’s shutter at something visually interesting. At Steinway and 30th Avenue, this food truck was encountered. The puddle of light created by the truck drew me in.
A drug store chain occupies a former movie theater location here. I’m informed that back during the juvenile delinquent era of the 1950’s and 60’s there was a local “gang” whom considered this to be their corner. The Astoria Gents, apparently. I’ve seen the silky baseball jackets they used to wear. Talk about a sparsely documented subject, the local neighborhood JD era gangs are barely mentioned.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned several times and to different audiences, I’m a big fan of the train station redo that MTA and Darth Cuomo instituted along the 31st Street corridor. This is a dark and often scary set of streets, between Northern Blvd. and Ditmars. The new stations provide for an abundant scattering of light into the environ. Street lighting is critical, in my mind, as far as public safety goes.
More tomorrow at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
cryptical fragments
Tuesday has battered its way in again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, the shots you’re looking at in this week’s posts were gathered in the beginning of February, during that cold snap that dumped a bunch of nasty snow onto the milieu. I like these snowy intervals, since it allows me to discern which properties in Astoria and Long Island City are operated under the purview of the City of New York itself. Is the sidewalk shoveled? Then it’s private property managed by someone who fears the fines and tickets of the Sanitation Dept. Does the sidewalk sport three inches of rotting plate ice? That’s a City owned property, whose stewards haughtily dismiss the bother of snow cleansing with zero consequence since the City doesn’t give tickets to itself.
Want to change the world? Let’s start by making City employees subject to the same rules they enforce on the gentry. Cops can’t park on sidewalks, the Mayor has to use the Subway, City owned vehicles no longer have unofficial parking rights for no standing zones… you get my drift. One set of rules, which apply to everyone – even those benighted public servants squatting in front of the mahogany desks that proliferate in the air conditioned offices of City Hall – that’s what I want. People talk about “privilege” a lot these days, the “privilege” I like to point at is of the political variety. If you are politically privileged, why do you insist on eating the first and biggest slice of cake every freaking time? Also, what’s with those golden shovels you spent my tax money on, EDC? Can we sell those?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Endeavor, on a particularly frigid evening in February, found a humble narrator shambolically scuttling across the Koscisuzcko Bridge in a generally southern direction. Communion with the fabulous Newtown Creek was my singular goal. The queer iridescence and colorful radiates of the Kosciuszko’s lighting system painted the surrounding landscape in garish fashion, accentuating the strange wonder of the place.
The pedestrian and bike path of the bridge has been discovered by many during this past “Annum Pandemica,” but I cannot recommend it highly enough if you’re in need of a brisk bit of exercise that offers genuinely interesting and grandiose views.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The path on this particular evening found one trudging through the ice and snow all the way to the eastern half of Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section, and then back to the grease stained sidewalks of Long Island City’s Blissville. The paradox, often encountered, that a photogenic atmosphere is usually one inimical to any sort of physical comfort was in play this evening. I was freezing my yahooties off when shooting these shots, and was glad of the COVID mask for once since it was keeping my face warm.
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, March 15th. 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.
puerile extravagance
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of several great things about the new camera system I’m working with is that I can pretty much leave the tripod at home when going out for a night time walk. What’s cool about that is that the somewhat laborious process of “stop/set up/shoot” has now been replaced with “hey, look at that, take a picture.” I still use the tripod occasionally, but it’s kind of an intentional thing rather than a necessary thing. For those of you who might not be photography obsessed gear heads, carrying less and doing more with it is kind of the name of the game when you’re on the street. Studio photography, as in the standard three light portrait shot you were likely the subject of during school photos or family portraits, still requires a bunch of gear. Saying that, you can’t instruct a passing Q104 bus to hold still, smile, or say “cheese.”
So, when do you need a tripod or other camera support when packing one of these very modern mirrorless cameras? When you want to do a long exposure, or a time lapse, or any number of photo genre’s that you want to play with which require an absolutely static relationship between camera and composition – that’s when.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Forgive me for rattling on about this at least once a week, but I’m still absolutely astounded by the set of capabilities which Canon has baked into this new gizmo, and am still exploring its limits. Hell, the biggest feature and selling point on this new generation of Canon cameras is face and eye based autofocus tracking and I haven’t even turned that one on yet due to the pandemic and my avoidance of other people. Just the other night I found a tiny button on the thing by accident – that I didn’t even know was there – that allowed me to toggle back and forth between manual and automatic settings. The only reason I found that was because I was wearing gloves and accidentally activated the thing.
The gloves are a step up for me as well, as I’ve finally found a pair that incorporate some sort of material into the finger pads which smart phone and other touch screens can acknowledge. If this process continues to its logical conclusion, I’ll be wearing an Iron Man suit by July.
Actually, I’d love an Iron Man suit, but they don’t have them in the husky department at Alexander’s. Now, how’s that for an obscure reference?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, while presenting a Sunnyside Yards shot gathered at a fence hole I refer to as the “old reliable,” I mentioned that whomsoever it is at Amtrak that’s been put in charge of fence holes at the rail complex during the Biden era has been busy. A couple of new ones have appeared, including one that allowed the shot above, depicting a Long Island Railroad train heading towards Manhattan.
Now, that’s a shot which my older camera would have categorically required a tripod to get. What I would’ve been unhappy about would have involved the train being motion blurred due to the shutter speed. The new unit had zero problems operating at low light and offers the use of a shutter speed which allowed me to produce a sharply defined and quite frozen moment.
See y’all tomorrow at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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, March 8th. 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 