Archive for the ‘Pickman’ Category
with an atomic, or molecular, motion
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another interesting event set to occur on May 21st, which has been scheduled against my Newtown Creek Cruise- I would add, seems to be the apocalypse.
On my way to a meeting at Greater Astoria Historical Society on Sunday, the purpose of which was to discuss the upcoming Forgotten-NY tour of Staten Island’s Livingston neighborhood, I came across this pamphleteer who was proselytizing passers by to prepare for the coming tribulation and offering advice for making it through the end times which are meant to begin on a specific date not far in the future.
from wikipedia
The 2011 end times prediction is a prediction made by Christian preacher Harold Camping that the Rapture (in Christian belief, the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will take place on May 21, 2011 and that the end of the world as we know it will take place five months later on October 21, 2011. These predictions were made by Camping, president of the Family Radio Christian network, who claims the Bible as his source. Believers claim that around 200 million people (approximately 3% of the world’s population) will be raptured.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This sort of millennialist doom saying is nothing new, remember the UFO people in California, the Branch Davidians in Texas, and the Solar Temple cult in Switzerland, just to refresh somewhat recent memories.
At the turn of the last century, one needed to have looked no further than the so called Millerites to find the originators of this sort of proclamation.
from wikipedia
The Great Disappointment was a major event in the history of the Millerite movement, a 19th century American Christian sect that formed out of the Second Great Awakening. William Miller, a Baptist preacher, proposed based on his interpretations of the prophecies in the book of Daniel (Chapters 8 and 9, especially Dan. 8:14 “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed”), that Jesus Christ would return to the earth during the year 1844. A more specific date, that of October 22, 1844, was preached by Samuel S. Snow. Although thousands of followers, some of whom had given away all of their possessions, waited expectantly, Jesus did not appear as expected on the appointed day and as a result October 22, 1844, became known as the Great Disappointment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator would hope that if the world does indeed end on the 21st of May, that you can enjoy the view of Manhattan disintegrating from those vantage points which the scenic waters of Newtown Creek offer with me. Destruction not withstanding, there is still a heck of a lot to see.
Assuming that some multi headed dragoness isn’t raining brimstone down upon us by then, I would also remind you of a Magic Lantern Show on the subject of Newtown Creek I’ll be presenting at the aforementioned Greater Astoria Historical Society on June 6th ($5- cheep).
colossal and protuberant
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There I sat, broken hearted…
Somehow that old Brooklyn Public School aphorism was on my mind as I scuttled along the street ends of Greenpoint. These shots were attained at India Street’s junction with the East River and depict the shield wall of a Shining City as viewed from the collapsing pierages of an ancient and crumbling competitor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s difficult for us to think of the Boroughs as separate cities… well, it’s hard to imagine Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx as separate while with Staten Island it’s quite easy… but they were. This location upon which I was standing was, until quite recently (from a historical perspective), heavily industrialized. A workshop, this section of Greenpoint is in many ways responsible for the ascendency of Manhattan over not just it’s local competition but the Nation itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is another of the zones which the City fathers has designated for whatever they call “urban renewal” these days, and plans are both afoot and underway to convert certain structures to residential use (such as the “Pencil Factory”) or to clear away the existing building stock to make way for new construction.
The good news, or bad depending on your perspective, is that a condition set forward to the real estate interests by the City is that a waterfront pedestrian concourse not unlike the one nearing completion across the Newtown Creek in Long Island City must be built in return for certain laxities of enforcement regarding the zoned height of waterfront development.
At least there’ll still be a place down by the water where the kids in Greenpoint can go and dream of an age when you needn’t have to commute to get to work.
Additionally, the following event will be happening in Greenpoint on May 4th, 2011. I’ve met Shawn Shafner and he’s got a LOT of good stuff to say about some very bad stuff indeed. I’ll be there- at the Temple of Cloacina- how about you, Citizen?
Text from the flyer with links:
Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge*
Moderated by Shawn Shafner of The People’s Own Organic Power Project www.thePOOPproject.org
Wednesday, May 4th 2011 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm Talks followed by a panel discussion
Visitor Center at Newtown Creek 329 Greenpoint Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11222
The Speakers are: Frederik Pischke Interagency Water Advisor UN-Water, Vyjayanthi Rao Assistant Professor of Anthropology New School for Social Research, New York, Jennifer Farmwald Project Manager Water Supply Infrastructure & Watershed Assessment NYC Environmental Protection.
Visit DEP’s website at www.nyc.gov/dep Follow us at www.facebook.com/nycwater
The Bowie effect
-photo by Mitch Waxman
There are those who like to tell your humble narrator that he is given to hyperbole if not outright fraud, and although I will admit to a weakness for theatrical effect, the odd subjects and situations described in these posts are not contrivances or banal set pieces. When I tell you of the odd polydactyl cats around the Grand Street Bridge or the eyeless things that wriggle in the mud during low tide at Maspeth Creek, rather than smile kindly and nod your head, shudder audibly at the terrible implications arising from their existence- which, if generally known, might herald a turning away from science by a beaten human race gladly retreating into a new dark age.
Here then is one of the curiously heterochromiatic cats found in hoary Greenpoint, which is one of the “you just make this stuff up” sore spots for a humble narrator.
from wikipedia
In anatomy, heterochromia refers to a difference in coloration, usually of the iris but also of hair or skin. Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited, or caused by genetic mosaicism, disease or injury.
Eye color, specifically the color of the irises, is determined primarily by the concentration and distribution of melanin. The affected eye may be hyperpigmented (hyperchromic) or hypopigmented (hypochromic). In humans, usually, an excess of melanin indicates hyperplasia of the iris tissues, whereas a lack of melanin indicates hypoplasia. Heterochromia of the eye (heterochromia iridis or heterochromia iridum; the common wrong form “heterochromia iridium” is not correct Latin) is of two kinds. In complete heterochromia, one iris is a different color from the other. In partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia, part of one iris is a different color from its remainder.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
This was just one member of a colony of cats living on Commercial Street, and the rest scattered before the coloration of their ocular organs could be ascertained. Luckily this stalwart maintained a steady position, and despite the clear annoyance displayed at the horrible scuttling thing waving around a camera before it, stood it’s ground. As a fellow child of infinite Brooklyn, such tenacity did not go unnoticed. Odd eye colored Cats are special, from a symbolic point of view, and have no small amount of mythic significance – even the prized cat of the prophet, called Muezza, was odd eyed.
from wikipedia
The Cat Sìth (Scottish Gaelic: [kʰaht̪ ˈʃiː]) or Cat Sidhe (Irish: [kat̪ˠ ˈʃiː], Cat Sí in new orthography) is a fairy creature from Celtic mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its breast. Legend has it that the spectral cat haunts the Scottish Highlands. Some common folklore suggested that the Cat Sìth was not a fairy, but a transformed witch.
The legends surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish folklore, but a few occur in Irish as well.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
There are many odd things around the Newtown Creek, hidden away beneath the cracked cement and amongst the dripping masonry walls of those long buried and forgotten building foundations which lie just below the facade of modernity. Here you are then, the “Bowie Effect” of the Cats of the Creek is offered. Still working on getting the six toed critters in DUGSBO though…
Who can guess what other anomalous and unwholesome alterations our common urban fauna might have undergone, or are undergoing, in some runaway Darwinian reaction to those environmental stressors they have suffered over the centuries at Newtown Creek?
from wikipedia
In Irish mythology, the aos sí (Irish pronunciation: [iːs ˈʃiː], older form aes sídhe [eːs ˈʃiːə]) are a supernatural race comparable to the fairies or elves. They are said to live underground in the fairy mounds, across the western sea, or in an invisible world that coexists with the world of humans. This world is described in “The Book of Invasions” (recorded in the Book of Leinster) as a parallel universe in which the aos sí walk amongst the living.
In the Irish language, aos sí means “people of the mounds” (the mounds are known in Irish as “the sídhe”). In Irish literature the people of the mounds are also referred to as the daoine sídhe (“deena shee”), and in Scottish Gaelic literature as the daoine sìth or daoine sìdh. They are said to be the ancestors, spirits of nature, or goddesses and gods.
note: The large blue box in the background of these shots seems to have been designed to act as some sort of feral cat shelter rather than a Tardis, and bore a screed proselytizing the curious to visit the website found at neighborhoodcats.org/
roughly hemispherical
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Good news permeates the City of Greater New York, as a remedy to the various financial crises has emerged. To begin with, the Mayor and City Council have voted to eliminate the wasteful practice of running mostly empty buses during non peak hours, and replacing them with smaller and more efficient vehicles like the one pictured above. Ergonomic and comfortable, the fare has been waved for these new conveyances, in order to encourage ridership and acceptance of the new scheme. Your humble narrator looks forward to “scooping” around the borough, although calling the driver “a backhoe” will be considered a hate crime and socioeconomic slur leveled against a City employee and will be punishable by 15 years forced labor at the Ratner trash mines in Pennsylvania.
Savings- $385 million!!!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in Brooklyn, the “Williamsburg Financial Corridor” has proven to be such a success that the entire Third Ward has been designated an outlying district of Manhattan. Brooklyn will miss it’s emo child, but Manhattan welcomes the “Lower, extremely East Side” (LEES) to it’s family. Win Win for the City, although Brooklyn will still have to fund the schools, hospitals, and other facets of Williamsburg’s municipal infrastructure. The good news is that Billyburgers can now report that they have a Manhattan address to their families back in the Mid-West.
Benefit to Manhattan- 3 billion in property taxes!!!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Never let it be said, though, that Manhattan doesn’t share the load. In another daring and data driven decision, the Mayor and City Council have agreed to sell the Empire State Building to Dubai. The Sheikhs of that far off desert land have announced their plans to lift the iconic structure from its foundations via the use of a fleet of Skyhook helicoptors and dirigibles. The scheme involves transporting the luckily aerodynamic skyscraper to the shores of Arabia via the heavy lift capability of its Al-Zeppelins, all the way to their exotic Emirate just south of the Persian Gulf.
The City is the big winner in this story however, as both Mayor’s office and City Council members and staff will receive free vacations at the desert resort, during which time they can forget all about April 1st, and the fools they govern over back in New York.
little memories
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Primarily stated, I really have no idea just what it is you’re looking at right now. Was it sitting on the corner sidewalk of 43rd street and Broadway in Astoria on March 5? Yes. That’s the only factual thing which can be presented about it, along with a studied opinion that it’s some sort of ritual object.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the local gentry had shown me a cell phone photograph of something similar last year, which matched the style and workmanship of this object in substantial ways. The figurines seemed to be composed of some sort of dough, which brought to mind the exquisite and artistically evolved sculptural artifices of “Dia de los muerte” or “Day of the Dead” celebrations that emanate from the near equatorial cultures of North and Central America (Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras etc.).
Those objects, however, are stylistically differentiated from this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What we’re looking at here, and we’ll take a closer look in the following shots, had obviously been intruded on roughly by the hustle and bustle of Broadway with its teeming multitudes. Doubt is expressed that this was the original configuration of these objects, which obscures its meaning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, the obviously hand molded pieces appeared to be composed of dough. Notice the central figurine with the drawn in hair and face, and the torn lottery ticket. Notice also the grains of rice and coins.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Isolated to specific areas, various odd components seem to contrast each other, which is a standard technique in selecting ritual offerings.
The yellow orange powder in the North East corner had the appearance of having been machine milled, and looked a great deal like a saffron powder of some sort. There’s also a bead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
South East featured a rough hewn clump with a cocktail sword sitting in it and some unidentifiable brown organics which might have once been fruit or flowers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
South West had this composite clumping, with another hunk of brown mystery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
North West featured variegation, with a bisected lime, several raw chile peppers, what appeared to be a piece of meat, coins, and rice.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long time readers know the ridiculous lengths normally gone to at this- your Newtown Pentacle- to explain and detail the meanings of these ritual sites and objects which may be found around the City of New York. Remember the weirding works at St. Michael’s Cemetery, the Grand Lodge of the Freemasons in Manhattan, or the witch knots at Calvary?
This one, however, has me stumped. Anybody out there have any idea what we’re looking at beyond the material and obvious?
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