Archive for the ‘Astoria’ Category
with astonishment
I’m not being paranoid, everybody hates me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everywhere a humble narrator goes, people point and laugh. Some grasp at their purses, or point me out to their children as an example of what can happen if you don’t do your homework and behave properly. Sometimes, a mocking crowd will gather and hurl garbage collected off the street. The names I’m called by these assembled strangers are hurtful, because more often than not there’s a kernel of truth to their accusatory defamations. The guy above told me “You stink.”
The whole world is against me, I’m telling you.
from wikipedia
According to the DSM-IV-TR, persecutory delusions are the most common form of delusions in paranoid schizophrenia, where the person believes “he or she is being tormented, followed, tricked, spied on, or ridiculed.” They are also often seen in schizoaffective disorder and, as recognized by DSM-IV-TR, constitute the cardinal feature of the persecutory subtype of delusional disorder, by far the most common. Delusions of persecution may also appear in manic and mixed episodes of bipolar disease, polysubstance abuse, and severe depressive episodes with psychotic features, particularly when associated with bipolar illness.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sometimes, I’ll innocently greet a person whom I’ve met before. Instantly they will begin to offer excuses as to needing to be somewhere else, describe a sudden onset of nausea, or begin to speak in a different language. Shock and horror greet my arrivals, it seems. Often it seems as if groups of people have organized around ostracizing a humble narrator, forming into whispering circles with their backs turned towards me.
I don’t think I smell particularly bad, or at least no worse than other people.
from wikipedia
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself (e.g. “Everyone is out to get me”, which is an American parochial phrase). Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame. Making false accusations and the general distrust of others also frequently accompany paranoia. For example, an incident most people would view as an accident or coincidence, a paranoid person might believe was intentional.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One loves to argue, to be fair. A humble narrator will take on any argument, anytime, and if I had the funding to keep a legal professional on staff I would be constantly in court pursuing frivolous lawsuits over minor points. It’s my right to complain to anyone who will listen, after all, and especially so to government employees and officialdom. One did not like “the look” which a deputy commissioner of the DEP gave me one time back in 2011, and I’ve been saving up in my penny jar since to hire an attorney to pursue the slight.
Best served cold? Pfahh, what kind of revenge is served cold?
from wikipedia
In the legal profession and courts, a querulant (from the Latin querulus – “complaining”) is a person who obsessively feels wronged, particularly about minor causes of action. In particular the term is used for those who repeatedly petition authorities or pursue legal actions based on manifestly unfounded grounds. These applications include in particular complaints about petty offenses.
Querulant behavior is to be distinguished from either the obsessive pursuit of justice regarding major injustices, or the proportionate, reasonable, pursuit of justice regarding minor grievances. According to Mullen and Lester, the life of the querulant individual becomes consumed by their personal pursuit of justice in relation to minor grievances.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One spends a lot of his time wringing hands and gnashing teeth, which partially contributes to the sorry state of my dentition. Acquaintances such as the fellow pictured above have counseled me to just relax and forget about the slings and arrows lest I be branded a contrarian lunatic. He also suggested that I invest in some decent aftershave or cologne to cancel out the stench of sewage and garbage which I carry about my person.
from wikipedia
Stigma is a Greek word that in its origins referred to a type of marking or tattoo that was cut or burned into the skin of criminals, slaves, or traitors in order to visibly identify them as blemished or morally polluted persons. These individuals were to be avoided particularly in public places.
Social stigmas can occur in many different forms. The most common deal with culture, obesity, gender, race, illness and disease. Many people who have been stigmatized, feel as though they are transforming from a whole person to a tainted one. They feel different and devalued by others. This can happen in the workplace, educational settings, health care, the criminal justice system, and even in their own family.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This stimatization and social suffering sucks. It’s gotten so bad that a humble narrator recognizes facial postures such as the one above as being one of normal greeting. I’m not just paranoid about being socially isolated and rejected, it’s getting to the point where I’m not even sure of whose face it is staring back at me from the bathroom mirror at three in the morning, after my nightly hysterical fit. There’s some old guy in the mirror, where I’m supposed to be.
What’s real? I’ll tell you what’s real, people suck, and I don’t smell that bad.
from wikipedia
The most distinguishing symptoms of BPD are marked sensitivity to rejection or criticism, and intense fear of possible abandonment. Overall, the features of BPD include unusually intense sensitivity in relationships with others, difficulty regulating emotions, and impulsivity. Other symptoms may include feeling unsure of one’s personal identity, morals, and values; having paranoid thoughts when feeling stressed; dissociation and depersonalization; and, in moderate to severe cases, stress-induced breaks with reality or psychotic episodes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Numbed to such pain and rejection, what one truly worries about are the sometimes violent reactions people have when I’m near. When I say “I got stoned this afternoon,” it’s not a story of ingesting some cannibinoids instead it’s a report that people hurled chunks of masonry and rock at me. The whole world is out to get me, and not invite me to parties.
The fellow above, after accusing me of taking his picture, which I denied – punched me in the neck. Hard.
from wikipedia
Social anhedonia is defined as a trait-like disinterest in social contact and is characterized by social withdrawal and decreased pleasure in social situations. This characteristic typically manifests as an indifference to other people. In contrast to introversion, a nonpathological dimension of human personality, social anhedonia represents a deficit in the ability to experience pleasure. Additionally, social anhedonia differs from social anxiety in that social anhedonia is predominantly typified by diminished positive affect, while social anxiety is distinguished by both decreased positive affect and exaggerated negative affect. This trait is currently seen as a central characteristic to, as well as a predictor of, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, as it is seen as a potential evolution of most personality disorders, if the patient is above age 24, when prodromal schizophrenia may be excluded.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Social isolation, punches to the neck, hatred and thwarted vengeance, accusations of stink and carrying the odors of the tomb about wherever I go… I’m not sure why I leave the house sometimes. How do you think you would smell, if children were always hurling rotten eggs at you? What did I ever do to deserve all of this?
Maybe, I should get some aftershave? I’d have to shave more, or at all, then.
from wikipedia
In humans, the formation of body odors is caused my factors such as diet, gender, health, and medication, but the major contribution comes from skin gland secretions and bacterial activity. Humans have three types of sweat glands; eccrine sweat glands, apocrine sweat glands and sebaceous glandss. Eccrine sweat glands are present from birth, while the two latter becomes activated during puberty. Between the different types of human skin glands, the body odor is primarily the result of the apocrine sweat glands, which secrete the majority of chemical compounds needed for the skin flora to metabolize it into odorant substances. This happens mostly in the axillary (armpit) region, although the gland can also be found in the areola, anogenital region, and around the navel. In humans, the armpit regions seem more important than the genital region for body odor which may be related to human bipedalism.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
in cipher
On this day in 1898, the City of Greater New York was born.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy New Year.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
peeling coats
It’s National Chocolate Candy Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s amazing, the way people can find a way to form up battle lines around just about anything these days. At the moment, I’m really enjoying the farcical arguments playing out in NYC regarding bicycling. How, on earth, anything as simple and wholesome as riding a bike has became so politicized is symptomatic of everything wrong with us as a society. A) Bikes aren’t the answer to everything transit, and B) Bikes aren’t the reason that were all going to hell in a handbasket. This one, it ain’t that complicated.
It vexes, you’ll have to understand.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First, everybody in NYC orders in food periodically – Pizza, Chinese, whatever. Generally speaking, the person doing the delivery will likely arrive at your house on a two wheeled vehicle of some kind. Might be one of those newfangled electric jobs, or it could be a human powered bicycle. Could even be a velocipede, depending on whether or not you live in a hipster neighborhood. Let’s refer to the delivery people, the messengers and so on as “working bike riders.”
There’s a place which the politicians have been leading the vociferous and quite vocal “bicycle lobby” towards for several years now, by the way, and the working bicyclists are going to get there first.
Inevitably – there will be a municipal requirement for every bike and bike rider to be able to produce an operators permit, insurance, and display tags (license plates) – just like every other vehicle in NYC – when they interact with the NYPD. The politicians will eventually be setting up a fee based regulatory environment around bike riders soon enough, and it’s just a matter of time before they start hitting bicyclists with the sort of parking tickets and fines they do motorists to pay for the regulatory system.
Ten years at the most, in my opinion, before you need a drivers license to ride a bike in NYC. The Mayor is currently having the NYPD blitz the delivery riders with tickets as you read this, and a scheduled period of confiscation for the electric bikes is coming in the New Year. It’s already begun.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Secondly, bikes are a pretty good choice to get around in fair weather, if you’re young and healthy enough to use one. Part of the argument which biking proponents miss is that for some of our neighbors, the only way to get around is by automobile. Your walking or stair climbing abilities may be compromised by any number of random medical factors, after all, and it’s not appropriate for many of us to show up at work slaked with sweat after a summertime commute.
You miss that sort of detail if you’re a member of the landed gentry who has decided to do a course of “public service” at City Hall, where the taxpayers maintain shower stalls for you to rinse off with before sitting down in front of your mahogany desk. Speaking of – I haven’t observed many of the City Hall people riding bikes to work, they use the train or drive City vehicles.
Practice what you preach, I always say, and as to that time I saw a former DOT Commisioner ask a limo driver to pull her bike out of the trunk a few blocks away from a press event (she wanted to be seen riding a bike to it) still ticks me off.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Third – the anti bike people would point out the sort of dumbass behavior on display in the shot above as being emblematic of all bicycle enthusiasts. Bicycle proponents will describe stories of automobiles running roughshod throughout the City, purposely squishing and fracturing the populace. Both of these narratives have truth to them, but are overstated.
Why do we always jump to absolutes, and proclaim the impending arrival of the apocalypse over every little issue?
The “protected bike lanes” which the NYC DOT are pushing on us all are another one of those political terms, as they are not at all protected from other vehicles and still spit naked bike riders out into heavily travelled intersections. Given that bicyclists generally ignore traffic signals…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These days, I’m a dedicated pedestrian, but I used to ride my bike all over the City just like any other Brooklyn kid. I was the worst kind of biker, incidentally, riding at speed both on and off the sidewalks and blowing through lights. Saying that, one was always fully in control of the thing, and never found myself in “trouble” with other moving objects on the road. That’s because, just as I do when I’m walking around, attention is paid to my surroundings. This is what is known as confirmation bias, incidentally. Just because you’ve done something risky once – or a hundred times – and gotten away with it, doesn’t mean your luck will continue.
You don’t want to be shooting selfies while riding along a busy street in LIC, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If you are indeed hell bent on selfie shots, I’d point out the hundreds of so called “ghost bikes” which the Bicycling advocates have installed along our city streets, which are meant to memorialize those who have lost their lives in collisions with motor vehicles and chide the populace. The one above is on Rust Street in Maspeth nearby the Newtown Creek industrial zone, which is notorious for heavy trucking and is a poor choice to ride a bike through. It’s one of the few places in the City that I literally beg people to use the sidewalk when riding their bikes.
Thing is, a lot of these new bike lanes are actually accelerating the amount of interaction between human powered and motor vehicles – especially around the industrial areas. As a note, I’ve observed that a LOT of the lower pay scale laborers in these areas ride their bikes to work. Bosses drive, workers pedal, it would seem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In western Queens, the ghost bikes aren’t even safe on the sidewalk, nor is the signage admonishing vehicular operators to slow down or obey some of the rules of the road. This particular one sat alongside a “protected bike lane” sited on the LIE overpass at Greenpoint Avenue in Blissville. The turn lane for westbound traffic exiting the highway, as well as the turning lane for entering the east bound section, exists on this short block. It’s always a nightmare spot for traffic with 24/7 congestion, but despite this, the DOT decided to delete a traffic lane for bike usage. Bikes don’t actually use the lane, they wisely utilize the sidewalk instead, and there’s ghost bikes on both the north and south corners.
An anecdote: A few years ago, when a party of NY State environmental officials were queried as to why there weren’t any “No Fishing” signs along Newtown Creek, they said “well, you can’t fish there without a license, that would be illegal.” I asked them how the war on drugs was going, and reminded them that literally everything is legal in NYC if there aren’t any cops hanging around. The Albany people were aghast.
This sort of narrow bureaucratic thinking is precisely how we’ve found ourselves in the societal spot we’re in, arguing about everything in apocalyptic tone, because there aren’t gray areas anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d point to the very expensive solution DOT installed on the Pulaski Bridge as being what a protected bike lane should look like. Concrete barriers were set up to keep bikes, pedestrians, and trucks away from each other in distinct lanes. Thing is, just like every other half hearted process undertaken by officialdom, these “jersey barriers” end where the bridge ends in bothe LIC and Greenpoint, where turn lanes for vehicular traffic leaving the span cross right through the bike lanes and the helter skelter rules of NYC traffic begin. I guess this is the NYC way, however, lulling you into a false sense of security before dropping an air conditioner out of an eighth story window on you.
I’m also a fan of the experiments in Manhattan, along Broadway in the 30’s and 20’s, where the parking lane has been relocated to about 15-20 feet from the curb and the parked cars serve the purpose of protecting the bike lane. This particular plan has not been popular with drivers, however, who have lost a lane of travel and gained even more congestion at what has always been a traffic choke point between Herald Square and the Flatiron district.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I was a kid in Canarsie, one of the neighbors was an old sailor (part of the fishing fleet at Sheepshead Bay) named Joe who had one of the most well developed Brooklyn accents I’ve ever encountered. Now, my Dad’s mutterings often included “terlet,” “icewhole,” “boid,” and “glass a whatah,” but this old Irish guy named Joe next door was just magic. Joe would often opine “dat opinyeons ahrr likes iceholes, evrie botties gots one’s.” Personally, a humble narrator has little skin in this particular bicycle game, and as my old neighbor would have said – “koodint gives toose chits, one ways orz da uthher.”
Be like Old Joe, and share what ya got in the comments? What’s the way forward on this bike argument? Want to argue with other Newtown Pentacle readers? Click the comments link below and spout off.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
evidence itself
It’s National Candy Cane Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Things have gotten a bit weirder than usual here in Astoria, as will be elucidated upon in today’s post. Pictured above, and submitted for you consideration is a single shoe whose sudden appearance thrust a cold dagger of latent terror and existential dread into the holiday season for Our Lady of the Pentacle and a humble narrator.
Even our little dog Zuzu has been displaying apprehension and nervous tics…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, upon exiting the domicile, a single shoe bearing a hand drawn scrawl was observed on the ornamental fence which defines my landlord’s property line. The message on the shoe, which was of the “Oxford” style and manufactured by a company called “Ecco” read “Season’s Greetings Mitch!” and continued on with “The Queens Cobbler, Ho Ho Ho.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been talking about the Queens Cobbler for several years at this point in time.
The first time I used the term was way back in 2014, and there have been posts mentioning the monster since then. Halloween of 2014, this one from March of 2015, another from April of 2015, and from the same month – the appearance of a potential copycat Cobbler was mentioned in this one. June of 2015 saw more evidence appear, and shoes continued to drop right on through 2016. 2017 brought more macabre trophies to the fore, and it seemed like the Queens Cobbler began to grow haughty. All through the summer of 2017, single shoe sightings began to grow in frequency. Even children aren’t safe from the Cobbler, and I should have taken the message when a singular shoe was found at my local saloon in October. Halloween of 2017? As late as middle December of 2017? Yep.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the name of creating some sort of evidentiary documentation for local, State, and possibly Federal authorities to analyze – the shoe was carefully transported upstairs where “studio shots” of the thing could be created. Additionally, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself activated all of our passive and active household defense systems and spent Christmas in the apocalypse bunker which we’ve been scratching deep into the loam of Western Queens for quite some time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One should have realized that the shoe pictured above, which was observed in October of this year at the neighborhood saloon I frequent, was a warning to not inquire too deeply into the Queens Cobbler’s nefarious purpose.
Should I disappear one day whilst scuttling along the bulkheads, I’d ask for all of you to search for a size 11 Merrel hiking boot at Newtown Creek, as that’ll be all that’s left of me to bury.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
cupboard linings
It’s National Sangria Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
File this one under “Old Man shakes fist at passing cloud.” We really have to do something about these utility wires here in Western Queens. You’re looking at an amalgamated twenty five to thirty years of wire in the shots today. Somebody moves in to an apartment, they order cable or internet service, and next thing you know – there’s a new lead coming off of the utility pole that gets tacked loosely onto their wall.
Thing is, the cable people never seem to remove the old wire, and just leave it in place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s when it snows that you can really discern the clot of coaxial cabling which owns the sky here in Astoria. The scene hereabouts is reminiscent of those old photos of Manhattan, the ones from the late 19th century when the telegraph and telephones had just come to town.
There has to be close to a ton of cable criss crossing back and forth on every single block in Western Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I say Western Queens, I really mean the totality of it, incidentally. I see this mess everywhere that the local community board didn’t force the cable people to put their wires underground, as they are in Sunnyside Gardens and other parts of Community Board 2.
It’s not just the cable folks either, Verizon and Con Ed can boast rather impressive bundles of electronic spaghetti mingling with the street trees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve witnessed a couple of disasters, and a few near disasters associated with this utility wire situation. Thanks to the intervention of Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer, the NYS Utility Commission compelled Cond Ed to replace a bowing utility pole on Astoria’s Broadway last year. Saying that, neither RCN nor Spectrum have bothered to move their wire hookups to the new pole yet, and their conductive tonnages are still being supported by the ancient wooden one.
Additionally, as a note, the Spectrum Installers Union strike is still going on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A summer ago, the entire RCN grid began to simmer and smoke on the poles. To their credit, the company brought in extra crews and got their customers back online in a day or two. To their detriment, they left all the damaged cables in place. One hopes that at some point in the future, a cohesive plan to rationalize this situation will be undertaken wherein Government officialdom will compel the utilities…
Aww. Crap. Forgot the Borough motto. “Welcome to Queens. Now go fuck yourself.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nothing will be done, and everything will get worse. Storm clouds will gather, rain will fall, and the puppies will be unhappy all about the neighborhood. The cables will fall and randomly kill us all, falling like asps from the sky. Ruination and death will be answered by calls for a rezoning by City Planning, with increased height and residential density in mind.
That’s when the wires will disappear into the ground.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All is ruination and death. Everywhere you look.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 