Archive for the ‘Queens’ Category
singularly heavy
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, nowadays one finds oneself hanging off bridges late in the evening attempting to capture “time exposures” after realizing that there aren’t all that many “night shots” in the library. Honestly, even I find this behavior suspicious, which is why there aren’t that many “night shots” in the aforementioned library. When the thermonuclear eye of god itself shines not upon the Newtown Creek is when a lot of the really “fun stuff” happens around these parts, only a small part of which involves a rodentine army which emerges and swirls out from hidden apertures in the concrete devastations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first and second shots featured today are captured from the Pulaski Bridge, specifically the staircase which carries pedestrian traffic to Borden Avenue from the elevated path. The shot above looks toward Greenpoint with Manhattan behind it. The shutter was open something like eight seconds, which is why the water appears glassy and the artificial lighting of parking lot and lamp posts have taken on a star like halo. The halo is caused by the iris shutter mechanism within the camera, and is shaped by the blades of the device.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big problem I’m having with gathering this sort of material is actually the pedestrian nature of my movements. As automotive conveyance is a luxury which I currently do not enjoy, there are large sections of the Creeklands which I just don’t want to walk through at night. A vast physical coward and feckless quisling, the problems your humble narrator is experiencing are dual.
First- I am simply too meek and bookish to trust that the cruelty of the nocturne streets will leave me unmolested, and second- I fear that which may be revealed in the result. Who can guess what it is, that might march about the deserted industrial lowlands of the Newtown Creek when free from the tyranny of casual observation?
slumbering watcher
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inconsistent and odd by nature, your humble narrator finally feels quite in tune with the current season, an unpredictable mélange of pendulum swings. No matter what it is that is causing this wild series of climactic shifts, the light has been absolutely glorious for the last few weeks. Whatever shape or opacity which the atmospheric filter has taken of late, the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself have been suffusive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, my wanderings have increased, as has the geographic scale of them. During the dark and cold of the winter, even as mild a one as we have recently experienced, my various weaknesses and physical inadequacies contain me within a small area. Now that the warmth has returned to the air, a humble narrator is unbound, and free to cause trouble across not just the Greater Newtown Pentacle but the entire megalopolis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Plaza, (as always) seems to be the central locus by which one such as myself can approach this greater City, and observed recently is this interesting twist on the sophist “if you see something, say something” mantra disseminated by Manhattan elites. This particular motto is a bit more “outer boroughs” in its outlook.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Manhattan, which is the focus of the government and business community, one is encouraged to bring the gendarme in to mediate even the slightest of conflicts. This policy is certainly prosaic, but out here in Queens and Brooklyn, one quickly learns that the cops don’t arrive in time to break up a fight or perform the same duties as Manhattan precincts do. Out here, they arrive well after the blood has been spilt, and as the above motto suggests: you’re largely on your own when “it hits the fan”.
Also from newtowncreekalliance.org
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Earth Day BYO Picnic Lunch at the Newtown Creek Nature Walk
Sunday, April 22nd at 1 p.m.
Come join in for this casual celebration of the victory that is the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. Bring your own brown bag lunch and join the Newtown Creek champions who worked hard for years to win this unique waterfront park.
Sunday, April 22nd at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Nature Walk between 1pm – 2pm.
Finally,
Obscura Day 2012, Thirteen Steps around Dutch Kills
April 28th, 10 a.m.
Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly at this year’s Obscura Day event on April 28th, leading a walking tour of Dutch Kills. The tour is already two thirds booked up, so grab your tickets while you can.
“Found less than one mile from the East River, Dutch Kills is home to four movable (and one fixed span) bridges, including one of only two retractible bridges remaining in New York City. Dutch Kills is considered to be the central artery of industrial Long Island City and is ringed with enormous factory buildings, titan rail yards — it’s where the industrial revolution actually happened. Bring your camera, as the tour will be revealing an incredible landscape along this section of the troubled Newtown Creek Watershed.”
For tickets and full details, click here :
obscuraday.com/events/thirteen-steps-dutch-kills-newtown-creek-exploration
dared consciously
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Loathsome, the only place one such as myself can truly feel at peace is amongst the emerald devastations of First Calvary Cemetery, in the company of the tomb legions. Lousy, my thoughts grow increasingly unordered and chaotic, as melancholy and regret rule my every step. Lost, revelation is sought, as I struggle not to say that forbidden name.
And over all, the thing which cannot possibly exist in the Sapphire Megalith watches bemusedly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Morose, peregrinations of primal fear rack my mind, remembering that “as above, so below” can have many meanings. Monstrous, the consequences of uttering those hateful syllables eat at my thoughts in the manner and urgency of an addiction. Montresor would understand the compulsion, and the nagging hunger to abandon all caution and restraint.
Perhaps I should join with some cult of Arabian Hasish eaters, or develop a taste for the distillates of the poppy, just in the name of finding some relief.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Violent and horrible, the reprisals for resuming the quest would be Jovian in character, striking from the heights with demoniac fury. Vengeance, previously forsworn by those powers and potentates who conspire and corrupt as they sail the endless sea, will undoubtedly be horrible. Victory for them would come if their overt warnings and admonitions were ignored.
The spring has brought violets to the surface, here in Calvary, and their nepenthe like perfume has emboldened me to take a foolish chance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Let them come, for I care not anymore. Lovers of that unholy thing which cannot possibly persist in the cupola of the Sapphire Megalith, these unholy acolytes can stay my tongue no longer with their threats. What can they take which has not already been lost, stripped away, or erased? At long last, the question must be asked out loud, and damned be the consequences.
Also, from newtowncreekalliance.org
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Earth Day BYO Picnic Lunch at the Newtown Creek Nature Walk
Sunday, April 22nd at 1 p.m.
Come join in for this casual celebration of the victory that is the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. Bring your own brown bag lunch and join the Newtown Creek champions who worked hard for years to win this unique waterfront park.
Sunday, April 22nd at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Nature Walk between 1pm – 2pm.
Finally,
Obscura Day 2012, Thirteen Steps around Dutch Kills
April 28th, 10 a.m.
Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly at this year’s Obscura Day event on April 28th, leading a walking tour of Dutch Kills. The tour is already two thirds booked up, so grab your tickets while you can.
“Found less than one mile from the East River, Dutch Kills is home to four movable (and one fixed span) bridges, including one of only two retractible bridges remaining in New York City. Dutch Kills is considered to be the central artery of industrial Long Island City and is ringed with enormous factory buildings, titan rail yards — it’s where the industrial revolution actually happened. Bring your camera, as the tour will be revealing an incredible landscape along this section of the troubled Newtown Creek Watershed.”
For tickets and full details, click here :
obscuraday.com/events/thirteen-steps-dutch-kills-newtown-creek-exploration
Project Firebox 40
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the edge of nowhere in Maspeth, this noble soldier of the realm sits on the truncated remains of the Jamaica and Newtown Turnpike, which was once carried the Maspeth Plank Road over Newtown Creek. A no mans land of trucks, industrial concerns, and desolation, the corner it polices is one seldom travelled except by those of us drawn to the mysteries of the Creeklands. In the distance, one can discern the Freedom Tower rising in the Shining City.
mighty dome
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queensboro beckons as always, when business in the Shining City calls. It is best not to muse about Friday the 13th of April, which is one of those special dates which have been remarked upon in the past at this- your Newtown Pentacle, rather than engage in simple triskaidekaphobia. Simply put, there are certain dates on the calendar during which momentous events just seem to cluster. Births, deaths, the fall of empires. For instance, in 1204 AD, Crusaders conquered Constantinople, eradicating the joy which the date had brought to the citizenry of the Eastern Roman Empire (the Romoloi, as they would have called themselves) as the anniversary of the death of a legendary King of the Bulgars and implacable enemy of the second Rome- Krum the Horrible- who died in 814 AD.
from wikipedia
While Nikephoros I and his army pillaged and plundered the Bulgarian capital, Krum mobilized as many soldiers as possible, giving weapons even to peasants and women. This army was assembled in the mountain passes to intercept the Byzantines as they return to Constantinople. At dawn on July 26 the Bulgarians managed to trap the retreating Nikephorus in the Vărbica pass. The Byzantine army was wiped out in the ensuing battle and Nikephorus was killed, while his son Staurakios was carried to safety by the imperial bodyguard after receiving a paralyzing wound to the neck. It is said that Krum had the Emperor’s skull lined with silver and used it as a drinking cup.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson and Butch Cassidy, and the traditional New Years day in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand- referred to as Chaul Chnam Thmey in Khmer, Songkan in Laotian, and Songran in Thai. Additionally, this is the anniversary of an oxygen tank exploding on the Apollo 13 spacecraft in 1970, while enroute to the moon.
from wikipedia
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command Module depended. Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and the critical need to jury-rig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth on April 17.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Handel’s Messiah was performed for the first time in 1742, Fort Sumter surrendered to Confederate forces in 1861, starting the American Civil War. All of this, and lots more, happened on April 13th, which in 2012 falls on a Friday. None of these events though, explain the crude cruciform graffiti recently observed on the Queensboro Bridge pedestrian walkway.
from wikipedia
The Queensboro Bridge is a double cantilever bridge, as it has two cantilever spans, one over the channel on each side of Roosevelt Island. The bridge does not have suspended spans, so the cantilever arm from each side reaches to the mid-point of the span. The lengths of its five spans and approaches are as follows:
- Manhattan to Roosevelt Island span length (cantilever): 1,182 ft (360 m)
- Roosevelt Island span length: 630 ft (190 m)
- Roosevelt Island to Queens span length (cantilever): 984 ft (300 m)
- Side span lengths: 469 and 459 ft (143 and 140 m)
- Total length between anchorages: 3,724 ft (1,135 m)
- Total length including approaches: 7,449 ft (2,270 m)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps the folks in the Shining City know something about what might be lurking in Western Queens, scuttling about in the night, and have opted to install wards and sigils on the crossing to keep it out of Manhattan.
from wikipedia
The term sigil derives from the Latin sigillum, meaning “seal”, though it may also be related to the Hebrew סגולה (segula meaning “word, action, or item of spiritual effect, talisman”). The current use of the term is derived from Renaissance magic, which was in turn inspired by the magical traditions of antiquity.
In medieval ceremonial magic, the term sigil was commonly used to refer to occult signs which represented various angels and demons which the magician might summon. The magical training books called grimoires often listed pages of such sigils. A particularly well-known list is in The Lesser Key of Solomon, in which the sigils of the 72 princes of the hierarchy of hell are given for the magician’s use. Such sigils were considered to be the equivalent of the true name of the spirit and thus granted the magician a measure of control over the beings.
