Archive for the ‘Manhattan’ Category
impelled to
As promised, shots from the Tug race in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Sunday, the Working Harbor Committee organized this years iteration of the Great North River Tug Race and Competition. A multi pronged assault on the brain’s fun center, it starts with a race that begins at the 79th creek boat basin on the Hudson River. The finish line is at 42nd street, and this year the Robert McAllister tug won. Someday, I’d like to win something, but the only thing I’ve ever been good at winning is being a good loser.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fun center of the brain is something which I’m fairly sure has withered away within my own skull, likely due to some unheralded ischemic event. Suspecting that my fun center has been “stroked out” of operation, it’s no surprise that the dull and quite existential horrors which typify my days were only briefly punctured by the “tug of war” nose to nose pushing competition segment of the event. It’s all so depressing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once, this sort of thing would have caused my mouth to form into a horrible gap toothed shape which could be roughly interpreted by others as being a smile. Now, there is only a flat affect and an abundance of dull eyed staring, I’m afraid. At least I can still work the camera, but can’t seem to distinguish the difference between sweet and sour tastes anymore. It takes sewerage or burning plastic for me to take notice of smell or taste these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The part of the Tug Race which I’ve always loved photographing, if that’s an emotion I can still experience, is the line toss. The various tugs form a queue and then hurtle at the pier, whereupon they hurl a rope at a bollard. The goal is to loop the rope onto the bollard and the throwers are rated for time and accuracy. I wish I could tell you who won, but a group of teenagers scared me so I headed home and locked my doors securely, back in Astoria where I belong.
The entire race set can be viewed at this flickr page.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
This weekend-
Saturday, September 6th, The Insalubrious Valley of the the Newtown Creek
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
solitary presence
Loathsomeness awaits, in the deep.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is never more alone than when waiting for a Subway to arrive. Swaddled in stifling clouds of fungal spore ejaculate and those desiccated airborne particulates of rodent excrement which lend the dripping concrete caverns their particular perfume, the “system” must be the loneliest place on earth, despite the abundant representation of the human infestation whom are found therein. Depersonalization is a specialty of the “system,” which redefines individual personages as “ridership” and let’s everybody who uses it know that there is nothing special about them, whatsoever, despite whatever status they hold in the radiant world above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In forgotten side tunnels and hidden chambers, all throughout the system, what might lurk? One does not forget the 1980’s, when rumors of a population of indigents who set up housekeeping in these antechambers abounded amongst the above ground population. Stories of grasping hands reaching up from sidewalk grates at small dogs and women’s ankles tantalized with latent horror, during that particularly dark age in the history of the megalopolis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Jackson Heights, mothers assure their children that the Rakshasha do not hide in the tunnels, as do the folks in Flushing when they tell their kids that there is no È Guǐ waiting to carry them off into the darkness down here. So too do parents console, on the south side of Williamsburg and all along the G and F lines, instructing that there are no Comprachicos hiding in these vaulted tunnels of rotting cement, waiting to make a meal of some toddler or small child. It should be pointed out that MTA workers never go anyplace alone in the system, and instead prefer to move in large groups.
Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down here?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
inspired dreamer
124 years ago today, an outsider was thrust roughly into the world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If the squamous gods of our own world do not care about you, what causes you to believe that those whose realm is cosmic would even take notice of an unimportant mortal speck living on a muddy world which – from their unknowable and unguessable point of view – has only recently coalesced from star stuff and debris? Were you to find yourself lying prone, naked, and cowering before some galactic, universal, or pan dimensional deity whose regency includes whole galaxies – realizing the true horror of the universe in that moment, and the inconsequential role which terrestrial life plays in it – would you go mad with the realization of the futility of life itself or would a blood vessel burst in your brain? Would you rise to your knees, begging to join some hidden cult which worships the titan, or stare unblinkingly at its manifest radiance until your eyes boiled away? One is incapable of anticipating what ones reaction to a pulsing nucleonic horror found at the center of our universe that is called Azathoth would be, nor what beholding the so called “goat with a thousand young” which is both the gate and the key called Yog Sothoth might do to you, but one would certainly be forever altered and held under their sway afterwards. We are but men, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These star born – or Elder Gods – whose machinations stretch back billions of years and into other dimensions and realities where our paltry notion of the constancy of physics and the true nature of the universe are revealed as childish fantasy – enjoy the devotion of uncountable servitors. Their servants, who are the true rulers of the earth, are in the air and the water and burrow into the ground unmatched and unheralded. None inquire as to their purpose, for none have realized that theirs is a plan which has survived more than one extinction event. The cities of the Old Ones, at the so called Mountains of Madness in fabled Antarctica, and those of the ruggose cone shaped Elder Race (which drifted into their current position as the continents formed) in the deserts of Arabia and Australia demonstrate that at the end of all things – only the Conqueror Worm claims victory. The so called insects have a plan, and they created this biosphere of ours only to increase their food supply, as a stock yard. Deep below the Pacific Ocean, their paymaster lies not dead but dreaming instead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hundred and twenty four years ago, a set of ideas was born at 194 Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island. The product of Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft and Winfield Scott Lovecraft, the child grew into a strange and lonely but quite erudite man who always considered himself an outsider in the world to which he was born. His name was Howard. His pen name was H.P. Lovecraft, and today (all this week, actually) we celebrate the day of his birth at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
spectral summer
Damnation, hell, and other allegories plague my days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a gull catching the free ride on the Staten Island Ferry, a critter smarter than me who says “why walk (or fly) when you can ride?” Severe fatigue marks this day for a humble narrator. A freelance assignment carried one out to storied Red Hook yesterday, a trip made remarkable by the atypically wonderful weather. Having clicked the shutter while pointing the camera at my intended targets, and not having much else to do for the afternoon, one decided to walk home to Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above depicts what the City looks like from the water, at night. Walking from Red Hook to Astoria sounds insane, I know, but it’s only about 10 miles from A to B. Along the way, one gets to witness the majesty of the East River while moving out of Red Hook, into Brooklyn Bridge Park, through Vinegar Hill, past the Navy Yard, into Williamsburg and Greenpoint, over the Pulaski into Hunters Point, and then the Queensbridge, Ravenswood, and finally Astoria neighborhoods are encountered in Queens. It takes around four to five hours to do this section of the western coast of Long Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My beloved Dutch Kills, above. When you return home, a little puff of steam is released as you doff your shoes. You really do feel it the next day, mainly in the lateral part of the hips, which is where my feeling of fatigue comes in.
It’s actually so silly cool a walk that I’m considering organizing a free event on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, the 29th of November, and calling it the “Red Hook to Astoria Challenge.” This won’t be a tour, per se, it’ll be more of a hang out. More to come on this.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
This weekend-
Saturday, August 16th, LIC’s Modern Corridor
With Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
lie outstretched
An evening trip to Staten Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For reasons that will become clear in later postings, last Saturday night, one had to get out to… Staten Island. The near to final leg of the journey is quite straightforward, as it occurs on the most reliable of all of NYC’s mass transit systems – the Staten Island Ferry. Manifest joy, however, is repeatedly encountered when negotiating the weekend subways with their schedule of FastTrack repairs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may recall, the weather was threatening all day, and began to clear up in the afternoon. The folks who control and steward my eventual destination gave the green light for a visit, based on meteorological advice from NOAA, and off a humble narrator went. The views from the ferry never disappoint, there’s always something going on in NY Harbor worth pointing a camera at.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having made my way to Staten Island, the St. George Ferry Terminal is pictured above, one had a few moments of panic while looking for the next connection I needed to make – to a waiting automobile which would take me the rest of the way. Hold tight, lords and ladies – for tomorrow I’ll bring you to someplace entirely new.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 