Archive for the ‘Astoria’ Category
known specie
The Forbidden Northern Coast of Queens, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Luyster, or Steinway, Creek in the shot above. The Steinway factory adjoins the waterway on its eastern side and legend has it that the piano manufacturer used to bring in logs of Mahogany and other hard woods from Long Island Sound via the Creek. On the western side, on a former manufactured gas plant’s grounds, is a Con Ed facility which hosts the shuttered Politi Power Plant.
I call the northern coast of Queens forbidden, because it is. A security cordon controls the shoreline pretty much from the East River to Flushing Bay – there’s power plants, sewer plants, Rikers Island, LaGuardia Airport – about five miles of forbidden waterfront which the general public is encouraged to avoid.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is the case with my beloved Creek on the somewhat forbidden Southern coast of Queens, the waterfront is largely the property of private companies and governmental agencies. Another similarity to Newtown Creek is pollution, as Luyster Creek is blessed with open sewers like the one illustrated above.
Street gravy runs directly into the water, carrying trash and all sorts of horror along with it. You can actually feel your liver swelling up when standing on this spot, which is directly over the sewer outfall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You might recall that a group of teenagers died here at Luyster Creek last year, when they drove off of Queens and into the water at a rather high rate of speed. There’s lots of memorial graffiti scribe on all the concrete bits, and somebody erected this cruciform memorial to their memory.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the corner of Astoria Blvd. and Steinway Street, this unfortunately named hookah lounge was noticed. The lounge was open for quite a while before “Isis” became associated with beheadings and such, and I kind of feel sorry for the owners who must deal with crap all the time because of the name. Isis was, of course, an Egyptian goddess – and an analogue for what would evolve into the Christian “Mary.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering continued through sunset, around the forbidden north coast, and one found himself in “Astoria, Astoria.” That’s how we refer to this still largely Greek and Italian section found north of Astoria Blvd. over on the southern borders of the neighborhood (Broadway etc.) where Newtown Pentacle HQ is found. The whole section is framed by the concrete arches of the New York Connecting Railroad, which leads to the Hell Gate Bridge over at Astoria Park. Western Queens is all about the rail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle was with me on this longish walk, and her roadway interfaces – she calls them her feet – were growing tender from the efforts. At 31st street, it was decided to hire a taxi to carry us the short distance back to HQ, where Zuzu the dog anxiously awaited.
On our return, of course, it was time for another walk – but what happened on that one… that’s between me and the dog. Zuzu is notoriously tight lipped (tight flewed, actually) and insists that her activities be kept quiet.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
shall continue
A few shots from the late summer, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As of this writing, my Mac is still in the shop getting repaired, so a humble narrator finds himself reduced to pulling out older shots from my archives. The computer experienced some sort of electrical failure, which is the sort of thing that is beyond my capabilities to diagnose and repair. Software problems I can handle, but component failures require a specialist – much in the same way that I can deal with psychological or emotional problems on my own, but a doctor is needed to sew, or set, or medicate, or even operate when it’s something mechanical that afflicts the chassis.
Spotted this half truck over on the forbidden north coast of Queens back at the end of the summer while incessantly wandering about and exploring, and the shot is somewhat indicative of how I feel without my desktop computer. The desktop remains the “master cylinder” of my work life, and I’m diminished without it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Into each life, a little rain must fall. That’s what my grandmother used to tell me, but she was a Russian Jew, and you will never be able to appreciate the sort of fatalism which people like my “Bubbie” lived with. Her story was like something out of a Dostoyevsky novel, including a mad dash across the Atlantic to America and a quick immersion into the garment industry sweat shops of NYC during the First World War. That was followed by the Great Depression, and the Second World War… you get the idea. Bubbie told stories of a lost brother who was beheaded by drunken Cossacks when he was just 13, which helped to explain her particular world view.
Think you’ve got problems? Drunken Cossacks, ’nuff said.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Regardless of the familial stories involving a world which was literally “beyond the Pale,” this has been a bad year for my gizmos. The camera disaster back in July, which saw my trusty capture device lying shattered on an Astoria street, was a setback. Add in the unfolding computer problems – 2015 has really been a crap year for me.
Bah. Christmas is cancelled. Hang your head down as you walk along the streets, and consider the plight of the world like a good nihilist. Everything is shit.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
strange and roving
Someday, a real rain will come.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An assertion often offered to Our Lady of the Pentacle is that “NYC never looks so good as it does when it’s wet.”
Long suffering, Our Lady is infinitely patient when confronted with pedantic statements and oft repeated phrases like the one above. One recent storm found a humble narrator hanging out at my local pub, Doyle’s Corner at the Times Square of Astoria, and clicking away while enjoying the shelter offered by an awning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big problem encountered in the pursuit of photographing weather events is obvious. Keeping your lens clean and avoiding the infiltration of water into the internal cavities of the camera. My rig enjoys a certain amount of weather sealing, but a soaking or immersion would be ruinous. It’s always a challenge, and positioning yourself so that the wind is at your back is critical to the operation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the little tricks I’ve learned over the years is to find “rain shadows.” Manhattan, particularly lower Manhattan, is a good place for this sort of thing. The canyon walls, construction sheds, and narrow streets offer the pedestrian several opportunities for temporary shelter from storms. When I’m walking, my naturally quick pace allows me to walk around the rain drops, but some still inevitably find the camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Umbrellas are an obvious choice, but operating the camera with one hand whilst struggling against wind and rain with the other makes for a dicey proposition. Ponchos are more trouble than they’re worth, and do little to protect the equipment.
A few people over the years have asked me how I achieve the “sharpness” apparent in my photos, and they’re all hoping that I can pass on some sort of technical trick or camera setting they can use when they ask. The simple fact is that I’ve read about and adopted a series of techniques which military snipers employ governing posture and body position. Snipers don’t use umbrellas, or at least they don’t mention them in the army and marine training manuals.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Snipers and photographers are essentially preparing for their respective tasks in the same manner. You assume a stable position, ready your equipment, look through a view finder, and then push a button.
In the case of photo gathering, you’re collecting light reflecting back from a farway target, whereas snipers are trying to embed a piece of metal in theirs. Regardless, you breathe out before triggering your device to reduce metabolic interference in the process and posture yourself in a manner designed to steady your device.
You’d be surprised at how much you’re actually moving around, even when you believe yourself to be still. On long exposures (anything over 1/60th of a second in my case, although I’ve know individuals who can do hand held 1/30ths) you can actually discern the seismic shocks rippling through the arterial system as caused by the stertorous motion of the heart, necessitating the usage of camera supports such as a tripod.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the hazards and problems introduced by rain and the lack of light it brings – airborne water droplets, wind, etc. – a humble narrator irregardless stands behind his assertion that “NYC never looks as good as it does when it’s wet.”
Stormy weather adds a dramatic sense of latency to an otherwise pedestrian capture, and should you see some mendicant wandering alongside the road in a filthy and quite saturated black raincoat during a storm somewhere in Western Queens or North Brooklyn – you very well might have spotted me trying to conquer the weather. Maybe the world too, depends on how much coffee I drank that day.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
another would
Rain, cold, and darkness in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Holiday season is upon us, I fear. Already have I been compelled to reminisce with old friends, commiserate over drinks with acquaintances, and discuss plans with Our Lady of the Pentacle for winter holiday feasts. One has never had too much trouble maintaining long term relationships, as I am too lazy to go out and make new friends. Admissions of my curmudgeon like tendencies notwithstanding, the seasonal holidays seem important to people whom I will admit affection for, so I play the game but it feels as if my brain is wrapped up in cling film during this time of the year and that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The shoe did drop in Paris last Friday, a reminder of the realities of the “new normal” and that the Terror Wars continue to rage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It has long been my contention that the most dangerous collection of people on the planet are the Europeans. America, Russia, and China are the big kids on the block – of course – followed closely by the Japanese. Europe has been tamed for much of the last seventy five years, with their imperial cultures and natural tendency toward conflict and the subjugation of everybody else having been chastised down via the lessons learned during two world wars. Viewing Europe through a historical lens, the modern day residents of Eurasia’s western peninsular enjoy a level of security from conflict, freedom of conscience, and an enviable level of economic stability which their grandparents could only dream of. A lot of this is due to the fact that the United States has a gigantic military footprint in Europe, which has allowed the governments of the EU to spend their money on different things than tanks and fighter jets. The U.S. has always been pragmatic in this regard, as the lack of large standing armies in France and Germany (call them the Normans and the Teutons, or the Gauls and the Visigoths, or the Romans and the… you get the idea) is considered a guarantor that the two ancient enemies won’t throw down unexpectedly and start a Third World War if the United States is standing between them.
The attacks on Paris, I fear, might have roused a great beast from its slumber, and the U.S. can’t do anything about getting this one back in the cage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The French, in particular, have a lousy military reputation, which is based on the thorough and scientific attempts of the German military to degrade and annihilate them in the early 20th century. The word “decimate” would indicate that the Germans killed one out of every ten French soldiers during the world wars, but it’s actually closer to four out of ten. Two lost generations put France on a path towards a peaceful existence throughout the latter half of the 20th, and the first decade and a half of the 21st centuries.
In the United States, we joke abut the French tanks which can only go in reverse, but that’s a dangerous bit of historical subterfuge which does not acknowledge the history of France. In terms of the last 2,000 years, really right up to 1915, you are talking about the country which possessed the most powerful army in history. If you started a land war with France, you lost – ask the English about that one, or the Spanish, or the Italians. It took the Kaiser’s Wehrmacht to change that, and even then, the French cost the Germans hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Long story short, you don’t screw around with the French, and you especially don’t want to piss them off.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My fear, this holiday season, is that the European monster has awoken. In the same way that the American season of military restraint was shattered by the attacks of September 11th, the Europeans are likely to assume a more aggressive posture. Remember, the clowns who shot up a night club and concert venue, and who lit off suicide vests in Paris killed civilians who numbered in the hundreds. By European military standard, this is a failure. When Europeans decide to start killing civilians, they set up factories to do so. They use drumroll artillery tactics to suppress and destroy whole cities, employ weapons of mass destruction, and generally give no shits about committing genocide.
2016 is going to be an ugly year, I think, and our world is descending into the sewer. That’s why, despite my antipathy towards teary eyed holiday gatherings, I’ll gladly attend and play along with the season. You never know when it’s the last time you’ll see someone, so rather than crying out “Bah” or “humbug” this year – raise a glass with friends and family I say. Life’s too short.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
grotesque night
Vampires be damned, I’m going out!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you might recall, last Thursday saw the Newtown Pentacle experiencing a temperature inversion whose unseasonable warmth generated a not insignificant amount of mist and fog. Atmospheric humidity was measured in the high end of the ninetieth percentiles, and the air temperature – even at night – never dipped below seventy degrees on that scale which was offered by and named for German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724. Accordingly, one decided to stay up and go out into the fuligin.
After preparing and quaffing several decanters of caffeinated beverages, and having slavishly outfitted the camera bag for “night shooting,” I left Astoria at four in the morning, with a certain destination in mind, and my full kit on my back (including tripod). The tripod wasn’t deployed for a while, however, and all of the shots you’ll see over the next couple of days are handheld.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One decided on 48th street as offering my best southern path from “a” to “b,” with “b” in mind as being the lugubrious Newtown Creek. This is essentially one long incline, passing from the former marshlands of Northern Blvd., over the ridge into which Sunnyside Gardens was embedded, and continuing up the crest of Laurel Hill whereupon a gradual descent to the elluvial flood plains of the Newtown Creek and its tributaries once suffused a vast and mosquito breeding wetland environment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thickening of the atmosphere – due to the high humidity – and combined with ascending the gradual slope, caused a heavy wave of perspiration to start which was soon oozing out of my skinvelope. This occult liquid, thick with secretions, began to soak into my clothing and cause no small amount of discomfort. Of more concern was the effect which the atmospherics might be having on my camera, which – unlike the meaty carriage utilized to carry my brain around – was functionally the same temperature as the surrounding mass of air so accretions of airborne moisture sought to coat it. I had long ago stored away my eye glasses, as their continual fogging made them more trouble than they were worth.
High humidity plus air temperatures in the chillier range, to the glassy parts of a lens, are a terrible combination. Condensation is ruinous. The prophylactic measure is to hold the camera close to my body, which warms it up a bit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Passing over Queens Blvd., and under the elevated concrete viaduct of the high flying IRT subway tracks, one began to feel a bit creeped out. It is an odd sensation moving through a City in the dark, knowing full well that any of the humans encountered will likely be inebriated or possessed of malign intent – or possibly some combination. Sex criminals and burglars are out at 4:30 in the morning – as well as photographers, it would seem.
As always, my headphones were in place, and the playlist of audio books employed for my night time jaunt were exclusively the writings of H.P. Lovecraft – as read in unabridged form by Wayne June.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maybe it was the Lovecraft, or June’s basso performance of the material, but one found himself looking over his shoulder a lot. In the shadows and mist, unccommented upon men – if men they were – moved about in a manner which suggested that some series of neighborhood bacchanals had been well attended. All around me were cemeteries, ancient burying grounds locked away behind high iron gates. The desire to trespass was cut down by the sure knowledge that there are some things one does not wish to know.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the height of Laurel Hill, the darkened streets began to brighten as the phosphorescence and sodium lighting of industrial West Maspeth began to illuminate the fog and mist. A quickness of step began to sharply increase my pace, which unfortunately began to increase the levels of perspiration one was experiencing.
Realization that my hair and clothing were saturated, and that although I was perspiring heavily, there was no way that this amount of liquid could have emerged out of me caused me to wonder – and more than wonder – why I was so moist.
The fact that I was walking through a gaseous vapor, a grounded cloud as it were, occurred when a casual touch revealed that my camera bag had become somewhat moistened as well. The closer I got to Newtown Creek, the more that an obsequious combination of automotive exhaust combining with the fog began to roil the olfactory senses, and my eyes began to sting. Regardless of discomfort, one had come this far, and the creeklands awaited.
Tomorrow – more.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 