Archive for the ‘Manhattan’ Category
chill currents
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gaze in terror at the ice breaking tug Morro Bay, stalwart arm of the United States Coast Guard, as it maneuvers about the Hudson River. In terror that is, if you mean harm to the mariners or coastlines of the United States. It is maritime Sunday at the Newtown Pentacle once more, and this time around it’s a Coast Guard vessel in the spotlight.
from uscg.mil
USCGC MORRO BAY (WTGB-106)
Abstract
The USCGC MORRO BAY was commissioned 28 March 1981 at the Reserve Training Center in Yorktown, VA and served here until 1998. The MORRO BAY was the sixth of her kind in the Coast Guard. While stationed at Training Center, the MORRO BAY was involved in training and operations on the Chesapeake Bay. The MORRO BAY is currently home ported in New London, CT.
Ship’s History
The 140-foot Bay-class Cutters are state of the art icebreakers used primarily for domestic ice breaking duties. They are named after American Bays and are stationed mainly in Northeast U.S. and Great Lakes. Although specifically desinged for ice breaking duties, they also perform law enforcement, environmental protection, search & rescue operations and support for aids to navigation activities.
WTGBs use a low-pressure-air hull lubrication or bubbler system that forces air and water between the hull and ice. This system improves icebreaking capabilities by reducing resistance against the hull, reducing horsepower requirements.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While researching this post, an interesting factoid about the Coast Guard emerged: the hull colors of Coast Guard vessels indicate their missions. Black hull- aids to navigation, White hull- maritime law enforcement and other safety-at-sea missions, Red hull- icebreaking.
Who knew?
Of course, the “Response Boat Medium” and “Response Boat Small”– both “SafeBoats“- are orange hulled, but the color scheme indications I found at the Coast Guard website do not discuss this hue.
from uscg.mil
The 140-foot Bay-class Cutters are state of the art icebreakers used primarily for domestic ice breaking duties. They are named after American Bays and are stationed mainly in Northeast U.S. and Great Lakes.
140-foot WTGBs in Service:
- BISCAYNE BAY (WTGB 104) St. Ignace, MI
- BRISTOL BAY* (WTGB 102) Detroit, MI
- KATMAI BAY (WTGB 101) Sault Ste. Marie, MI
- MOBILE BAY* (WTGB 103) Sturgeon Bay, WI
- NEAH BAY (WTGB 105) Cleveland, OH
- MORRO BAY (WTGB 106) New London, CT
- PENOBSCOT BAY (WTGB 107) Bayonne, NJ
- STURGEON BAY (WTGB 109) Bayonne, NJ
- THUNDER BAY (WTGB 108) Rockland, ME
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Morro Bay, like all members of its class, looks smart and sound. An attractive boat, it nevertheless looks pretty fast and capable. These shots were taken at the Metropolitan Water Alliance’s “Heroes of the Harbor” gala last fall, where Morro Bay was performing the sort of political or parade duty which occupies its time during warm weather. During the cold months, it’s tasked with weightier matters, as a front line warrior battling the winter, and as a life line for stranded mariners.
Greetings to the crew, a hearty thanks is offered for their service, sacrifice, and skill. Stay safe, and hopefully we’ll see you in the City again when it warms up.
from wikipedia
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the US military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission (with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters) and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its mission set. It operates under the Department of Homeland Security during peacetime, and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy by the President at any time, or by Congress during time of war.
Founded by Alexander Hamilton as the Revenue Cutter Service on 4 August 1790, it is the United States’ oldest continuous seagoing service. As of August 2009 the Coast Guard had approximately 42,000 men and women on active duty, 7,500 reservists, 30,000 auxiliarists, and 7,700 full-time civilian employees.
Project Firebox 32
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This poor bastard has been standing out in the weather across the street from the Brooklyn Bridge for a long, long time with no relief. It’s not the outrageous fortune of having been stationed in the land that time forgot, a relict section of centuries old buildings long since relegated to “gentrification”, it’s the ignominy of being adorned with fey missives and ironic graffiti tags by the so called gentry that inhabits the neighborhood which just burns. Protected from nearby construction, it nevertheless fears the worst and is ready to summon the city guard should trouble strike.
thickening twilight
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sickened by weariness and a youth misspent, your humble narrator nevertheless has been tormenting himself lately with regret and guilty nonsense. “Not working hard enough” is omnipresent in my mind these days, and accordingly, the length and depth of my wanderings through the Creeklands have expanded. A lack of physical exercise is deadly to a poor specimen like myself, something which is difficult during the winter months due to that certain allergy to cold which has manifested – and which has become amplified- in recent years.
It’s amazing the ways that your body changes as you grow older, sometimes it seems as if there’s some feeble alien creature within that is pushing and tearing a path to the outside world through your very flesh.
from hplovecraft.com
Y’ha-nthlei was not destroyed when the upper-earth men shot death into the sea. It was hurt, but not destroyed. The Deep Ones could never be destroyed, even though the palaeogean magic of the forgotten Old Ones might sometimes check them. For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved. It would be a city greater than Innsmouth next time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Carrying forth, however, is something compelled rather than desired. My team of doctors has advised me of decaying homeostasis, entropic processes, and general decline. Their suggestions are to step up, exert more effort, and seek even greater frequency for these long walks while avoiding the pleasures and poisons of the west. Luckily, the ancient pathways and avenues which surround and inform that nearby slick of languid infamy known as the Newtown Creek supply ample locations to inspect, never failing to intimate some hidden meaning or vaguely shadowed terror.
Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
from hplovecraft.com
“The nethermost caverns,” wrote the mad Arab, “are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Paranoid wonderings, lunatic ideations, unnameable desires- all haunt me during the seemingly aimless steps. Delusions of self importance, hubris, and vast ennui are my only companions on these often cobbled streets. A discarded landscape with a lost history, this is a place given to the dead, the diseased, the barren… a perfect home for one such as myself. There seems to be a current in the air, a taste of anxiety on the tip of my tongue which is all pervasive, and it feels as if something is about to happen.
Ahh… I’m all effed up.
from hplovecraft.com
I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.
Hermes Trismegistus
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Jules-Felix Coutan designed “Glory of Commerce” for Grand Central Terminal in 1911. A neat contemporaneous account of the construction of this statuary, which was carved in Long Island City I would add (by the firm of William Bradley & Son, 547 Vernon Avenue, which I suspect to have been located somewhere around Queensbridge Park), and can be accessed at nytimes.com.
from wikipedia
The Hermetic literature added to the Egyptian concerns with conjuring spirits and animating statues that inform the oldest texts, Hellenistic writings of Greco-Babylonian astrology and the newly developed practice of alchemy (Fowden 1993: pp65–68). In a parallel tradition, Hermetic philosophy rationalized and systematized religious cult practices and offered the adept a method of personal ascension from the constraints of physical being, which has led to confusion of Hermeticism with Gnosticism, which was developing contemporaneously.
As a divine source of wisdom, Hermes Trismegistus was credited with tens of thousands of writings of high standing, reputed to be of immense antiquity. Plato’s Timaeus and Critias state that in the temple of Neith at Sais, there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for 9,000 years. Clement of Alexandria was under the impression that the Egyptians had forty-two sacred writings by Hermes, encapsulating all the training of Egyptian priests. Siegfried Morenz has suggested (Egyptian Religion) “The reference to Thoth’s authorship…is based on ancient tradition; the figure forty-two probably stems from the number of Egyptian nomes, and thus conveys the notion of completeness.” The Neo-Platonic writers took up Clement’s “forty-two essential texts”.
The Hermetica, is a category of papyri containing spells and initiatory induction procedures. In the dialogue called the Asclepius (after the Greek god of healing) the art of imprisoning the souls of demons or of angels in statues with the help of herbs, gems and odors, is described, such that the statue could speak and engage in prophecy. In other papyri, there are recipes for constructing such images and animating them, such as when images are to be fashioned hollow so as to enclose a magic name inscribed on gold leaf.
waxen mask
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering aimlessly, that agglutination of wounds, phobias, and general wreckage which you might describe as a humble narrator recently found himself on the acclaimed Borden Avenue Bridge. The existential issues of life in the Big City are quite bothersome, and distract from pursuits of finer cast and higher intellectual firmament, but a fellow must eat (or be eaten). “Bucks, burgers, and beer” after all… it’s just the cold has gotten me down.
Problems maintaining biological homeostasis and personal comforts plague one’s patience during the winter months, for my dynamic equilibrium adjustment and regulation mechanisms are all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hand wringing is a necessary pursuit for me during the frosts, as my feeble circulatory system cannot combat the normal vasoconstriction of extremities exposed to freezing temperatures, causing my fingers and hands to grow wan and bloodless. Looking like nothing but the curled and grasping claws of a cadaver, nervous feedback becomes intermittent, and it feels as if an amputation would bring nothing but minor discomfort.
Despite all this horror and ennui, I’m nevertheless compelled to wander the earth, and often find my steps have carried me to that sundering of natural law known as the Newtown Creek- or one its tributaries.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The great thing about the Creeklands, and what always draws me back (and causes me to stop my whining self narrative and soliloquy of self pitying sophistry), is that there is always something you haven’t noticed- like the so called Freedom Tower rising over the two LIRR bridges which cross Dutch Kills. Wow.
This is the kind of thing that just keeps on bringing me around this place, despite the ravaged and ruinous condition of my physical incarnation.
The Newtown Pentacle 