Archive for the ‘NY 11101’ Category
ghastly stillness
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst scuttling across Jackson Avenue in the venerable section of Long Island City recently, the ebb tide of traffic emerging from infinite Brooklyn carried a small vehicle which caught my eye. It was an Italian motor scooter, the perennially in fashion Vespa, but this one had a sidecar.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator has a soft spot in both heart and head concerning the subject of attaching sidecars to any sort of two wheeled transportation devices, as well as an acquired appreciation for the finer points of Italian vehicle design. I’ve never owned one, but were I to purchase such a conveyance, a sidecar for my little dog Zuzu would be part of the deal. I suppose Our Lady of the Pentacle could ride around in it too, but this desire is really built around seeing the dog in a leather aviators cap and goggles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Practical transportation like this is commonplace in Europe and Asia, where streets are Medieval in size and scope, and the price of Petrol makes even the outrageous modern rate of $3-4 a gallon seem cheap. One of the things which future generations of Americans will never experience, and this may or may not be a bad thing, is cheap gasoline.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
smaller detail
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The continuing saga of the single shoes shows no sign of surcease. All about the Pentacle, this singular displays of just one half of mated pairs continues, and my suspicions of some malign operation and intent are extant and growing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This sporty number was observed on Skillman Avenue, alongside the titan Sunnyside Yard. A concentration point of sorts for the phenomena, many of the castoff examples of footwear have been observed here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mention should be made, for new readers and old, that your humble narrator never poses a found object or alters the scene from the condition in which it is found. What you see is what I saw, in exact situ.
grisly alliance
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Omens abound, here in the Newtown Pentacle, if only one is sensitive enough to notice their presence. It is not enough to merely cast off the callous of vision which develops during repetitions of the daily round, instead one must listen carefully to the suffering land of Queens which bears the terrible burdens of historical indignity and modern aspiration. Somewhere beneath the concrete devastations of industry and the vainglory of the urban planners exists a variegated and buried wetland.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once- salt meadows blessed with endless acres of coastal grass swayed in the Newtown breeze beneath the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself here, nourishing and maintaining a vast ecosystem. Birds existed in numbers great enough to blot out the sky, and the shallow streams and ponds sustained a teeming population of fish and invertebrates. When the Dutch came, they saw naught but swamps, and their English successors applied the term “Waste Meadows” to the place. It wasn’t until the period between the American Civil war in the 1860’s and the early 20th century, via the practice of landfill, that the area was fully opened for exploitation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This unfortunate avian, observed alongside the Sunnyside yard, would be viewed by the dross masses as merely another casualty of the modern age. Your humble narrator, with his eyes dilated by the absence of sleep and the concurrent intoxication of caffeine, sees dire portent instead. Mesmerized Valdemar, whom Poe described, might be able to offer some compact meaning to such omens- but one as wholly inadequate as myself is unfortunately incapable of such interpretation.
otherwise unnavigable
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the top of a fifty three story sapphire dagger plunged into the neck of a Long Island dwells an impossible thing gazing down upon the human hive via a three lobed burning eye, except that such a thing cannot possibly exist and to suggest so is madness. How could an intelligence of malign intent exist in bodiless form, and be granted the rights and privileges of citizenship with few of the obligations concurrent with such status?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An ancient path, Jackson Avenue was once a trade route connecting the grist mills and farmlands further east with the docks and wharves to the west that allowed local merchants to trade with other cities along the East River. Over the years, it has seen mule paths give way to wagon, and street car, and eventually automotive traffic. Its purpose in modernity is unclear, a secondary truck route which allows passage from Queens Plaza to Hunters Point and the Pulaski Bridge, or a residential corridor destined for bistros and cultural institutions?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent surge of building activity in the area has forced your humble narrator to consider that a bit more time must be spent here in Long Island City this year, an area which had fallen off my radar a bit in the last year. Inattention had little to do with a lack of interest, instead my time was spent “working” the zones found along Newtown Creek in Maspeth and Bushwick, two other colonial era centers seldom mentioned by the “manhattancentric crowd.”
learnt tongue
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cruelly downtrodden, your humble narrator suffers from his own company. Often has one been told that he is best taken in limited dosages, but for me there is no escape, and I am forced to live with myself. Like a canine with too much zeal, accordingly, efforts are made to tire myself out on long walks in an effort to save the furniture from being chewed on. Recent endeavor carried me through Long Island City on a particular and brightly lit day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cruelly erected by the scions of the Real Estate Industrial Complex, the glass and steel horrors which loom like Polyphemus over the ancient buildings of the neighborhood nevertheless act as reflectors and illuminate the shadowy warrens of a post industrial landscape. Refraction and specular effects throw arcs of cold light about which change by the minute.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cruelly envisioned, the master plan for this part of the universe demands that these towers shall rise to challenge the clouds. Someday, perhaps only a decade away, the sky will be occluded by these oblique residential boxes of glass. When the shadow falls, and a permanent pall overlies the ancient streets of Western Queens, where will one bathe in the light of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself? What succor will there be found in Long Island City save that of artisanal baked goods and from the purveyors of craft beers?
The Newtown Pentacle 