Archive for the ‘Pickman’ Category
too vivid
The Brooklyn Queens Expressway, what a gas.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, an assignment I was working on sent me packing back home to Astoria from Red Hook in a Taxi, and one became sublimely bored as the driver negotiated through traffic. As is my way, the camera was deployed to see “if I can get anything worth keeping.” Every time that I see, or cross, the Kosciuszko Bridge these days – a sense of finality kicks in and it occurs that I really should get some shots of it since there will shortly not be a bridge to be shot – rather it will be a construction site.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the camera folks out there, these shots were captured with settings of f1.8 at around 1/250th of a second at ISO 2000+. It’s actually pretty dark up there, something which I’ve never been able to understand given the number of street and vehicle lights, but there you are. I guess there’s a lack of ambient light coming up from Newtown Creek and Calvary Cemetery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator has nearly caught up on a couple of projects which have been weighing heavily, and is anxious to get back to weightier matters around the Creeklands. Another week or so and one should be free of entanglement and distraction. There’s also a couple of autumn walking tours I need to tell you about, but that will have to wait for a day or two.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
healing balm
Cry havoc, and let slip the dog of Blissville…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way to a recent Poison Cauldron tour, wherein a group of overtly curious New Yorkers were guided around neighborhood found in Brooklyn’s DUKBO, a rather large canine was spotted. It is my belief that I have met this dog before, and if I’m correct in my assumption of its identity, all one hundred pounds of slavering canine flesh contained in its skinvelope are overtly friendly and desirous of a good scratch. One way or another, he caught my eye whilst a humble narrator was scuttling toward the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stinging critique is omnipresent in my mind, as always. A novel one has been added to the list over at my Brownstoner Queens column, where someone has characterized a recent post as “classist.” That’s a new one. I’ve been called a lot of things over the last five years or so, but classist ain’t one of them. Just so that you understand where I come from, my Dad called the commode “a terlet” and the conventional wisdom in my family was that the best you could do in life was to pass a civil service exam which would vouchsafe “security” in the form of a job working for the City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dogs are generally good, to me at least. Here in Astoria, where a significant number of the neighbors hail from the near east and adhere to the mores of a Muslim upbringing – they’re not so good. There’s a whole other cultural imperative at work with these folks, and they view dogs as “unclean.” Canines aren’t as “haram” as pigs, of course, and I’ve noticed that there seems to be a coefficient to how unclean they are based on geography. Conversation with the neighbors has revealed that folks from the western side of the near east – Lebanon, Egypt etc. – are fairly tolerant of dogs although they are a bit wary about them (much like the Greeks who hail from the Cyclades). When you meet folks from further east – Bangladesh, India etc. – the sudden appearance of a dog amongst them is tantamount to pulling the pin on a grenade. The dividing line between the two points of view seems to be somewhere around the Arabian peninsula. This is entirely unscientific, of course, and based strictly on conversation with the neighbors.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
idle pursuits
Oh dear gourd, what fresh hell has been loosed?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not too much to report today, lords and ladies of Newtown, so seasonal greetings are offered. Over the weekend, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself decided to spend some idle time carving the family Jack O’Lanterns. One less thing, right? I did the one of the left, and Our Lady carved the right side one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I decided that my pumpkin must have teeth of some kind, and the general outlines and shapes of a human skull were kept in mind.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady, who is a bit of a scamp, decided to go for a mischievous sort of thing. One likes her pumpkin, better than one’s own.
Back tomorrow, with something a bit more substantial, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
long coma
Trucks, trucks, trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moving about as one does, an awful variety of trucks are observed. There are trucks that suck, and trucks that carry. Pictured above is a delivery of automobiles arriving at Northern Boulevard’s “Carridor.” This is a truck which drives cars around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the corner of Meeker and Monitor and at the border of Greenpoint and Bushwick, this rusty number only carries people and a small amount of cargo. A human scale machine if ever there was one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Ash street in Greenpoint, one encountered a truck full of mini tractors. This was a municipal kind of thing, as these tractors were on their way to a NYCHA vehicle maintenance facility. There is nothing human scale about the New York City Housing Authority, of course.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Van Dam Street in Blissville, I found a tow truck of the “wrecker” type with a smaller tow truck on its bed. This was novel, thought a humble narrator, piggybacking one truck onto another. I wondered if the smaller tow truck might have a jack in its cargo compartment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in the Carridor in Queens, a heavy truck was delivering light trucks to a Mercedes dealership one morning. Whimsy demanded that I consider whether or no there might be some of those “Smart” electric mini cars inside the light trucks, but that made my head begin to hurt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, on Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn, a truck that carries ex cars. Its cargo consisted entirely of squished automobiles, which were undoubtedly headed for the SimsMetal pier on the Queens bank of the Newtown Creek.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
tripping on
Glamour, intrigue, concerns about Popeye’s health – that’s what I’m about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Raconteur is not how you’d describe a humble narrator, but I am a man about town. So much so that I find myself positively dizzied from exposure to those malfeasant atmospherics typically found within that nightmare of the claustrophobe which is particularly known as the NYC Subway system. Often, it feels as if one has become detached from reality when below, and has been reduced down to a statistical average. Limbo, indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps it is the unwillingness of Station Managers to activate the exhaust fans at certain stops along the line? The unwelcome dustings of rodent feces and other foul exhalations which signal the arrival of a train? Mayhaps, it is the dripping concrete and smell of rotting masonry? On long trips which require many connections, one such as myself experiences a disordering of thought. If there is a hell, my specific punishment will be an infinite commute.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Often, one experiences his most intriguing thoughts while attempting to ignore the quite possibly dangerous humans who infest the system. All social interaction is fraught with risk, so the humans are best avoided. Instead, one ponders deep thoughts while lost in the labyrinth.
Recently, while considering the appearance of the cartoon sailor Popeye, it occurred to me that the characters peculiar physiognomy might indicate that he is a stroke victim. Frozen expression, swollen extremities, speech impairment – think about it, he’s also a smoker. The spinach might be on advice of medical professionals. Also, Poop Deck Pappy presents the same disabilities, so it might be some form of hereditary arteriosclerosis which affects the mariners.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Time lost, time gained. Down here, where I am useless and bored, is the platform for deciding the right course of action on a series of meaningless points. Often, I find myself just clicking the camera off randomly, turning it at funny angles to the scene. That’s kind of how the shots in today’s post came together. While developing them, I realized that my brain was working really hard working out the angles and perspectives.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unconsiously, my head kept on turning, craning over to one side, as the visual information processing section of my head took over. When I caught myself doing this over and over, autonomiclly, a point was made to pass some of my time in subterranea waving the camera around randomly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s something so odd about this image, and it’s just that it was shot upside down. It’s interesting, neurologically speaking, this “perception thing,” isn’t it? Ever notice that when you see a photo or video of yourself, it doesn’t seem to look right? That’s not the face you see in the mirror every day, is it? Thing is, what we think of as “our face” is actually a flopped mirror image, which indicates… what do I know, I’m on the friggin subway all the time.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 