frenzied letters
Wednesday photos, from the before time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More archive shots, captured during the before times, greet you today. These were captured prior to the Trumpists adopting the banner of the White Hand of Saruman, chopping down the forests at Isengard, and birthing the fighting Uruk Hai. They also predate Antifa joining that rebel army led by that pretty blonde woman with the three dragons, or the sudden revelation that all of the world’s rodents are annoyingly sentient. That press conference led by the rabbits and capybaras blew my mind, yo.
Today, I decided to revisit “Project Firebox.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Project Firebox was something which I spent a decent enough amount of time on when Newtown Pentacle first began to publish. These ubiquitous municipal alarm boxes were under threat back then, in the before time, as the Mayoral administrations of both Giuliani and Bloomberg had decided that the things were unneeded and redundant. After all, “everybody” carries a cell phone now, so why would you need to maintain – expensively – what’s essentially a network of telegraph boxes which are responsible for a high percentage of false alarms?
Both Mayors basically wanted to sack the electricians at FDNY who maintain these pieces of street furniture. Luckily, the current Mayor hasn’t decided that the red boxes are responsible for racism (yet) and thusly isn’t aware of their existence. Of course, the current Mayor is only capable of perceiving things when they fit into his political agendas, and he has not eaten the Eden fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil. This is why he’s often surprised by mundane or common things which the rest of us take for granted.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has moved on from Project Firebox in recent years, thusly.
As a note, last night I was watching a reality TV series called “Alone” which drops it’s survivalist contestants with a very limited set of tools into rugged wild areas to see what might happen. I found this an interesting cultural artifact of the before times. The fellow I was rooting for was an Air Force search and rescue specialist, who had managed to easily surpass the challenges of living in the wild tundra forest within a week and set up a comfortable, secure, and well fed existence using a pocket knife, saw, and a few fish hooks. After a few weeks, he got bored and called for extraction to the show’s producers. The rest of the cast was starving, stabbing themselves accidentally, or burning down their shelters due to careless attitudes towards fire.
If FDNY ain’t close, pay close attention to open flame, I always say.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, July 6th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
momentous talk
Tuesday photos from the before times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more archive shots greet you today, captured during the before times. The shot above was captured prior to Antifa establishing its moon colony, or Jared Kushner’s daily release of a list of newly proscribed citizens to round up for ideological offenses. Good times, back then, in the before times. Bill De Blasio was still quite tall, not having been diminished by hubris, and Andrew Cuomo had not yet displayed his god level Sith Lord persona to the general public. Today is March 129th.
Managed to get out for a walk last night, and had a friend with me, so I didn’t take too many pics. Accordingly, today’s archive post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Is it legal to ride a cop horse while texting? I’ve wondered this since recording the shot above. Do as I say not as I do always seems to be the way with the gendarmes. Double parking, parking on sidewalks, blowing lights… set an example, I always say.
All I can say is that I wish I had a horsey to ride around on right now, as it would make me feel like a grown up fella. I’d gallop, trot, even gambol. That’s what I need… a horse. I’d name it Xavier, or X for short.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Coney Island pictured above. In the before time, a point would have made of performing a visitation to my ancestral estates on this side of Brooklyn but since those ubiquitous lunar based vandals at Antifa stole the ocean to teach us all a lesson – what’s the point?
Back tomorrow, stay cool, yo.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, July 6th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
scarcely envisaged
Monday photos from the before time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been a dirty rotten stay at home for the last few days, which I can blame on a number of factors, but I’ve mainly been lazy. It’s been hot, damnit! Accordingly, a few shots – from 2020 – are on offer today. These are from the before times, when the calendar’s opinion still applied to what day it might be. I’m of the opinion that today’s date very well might be March 128th. Just last night, as the neighborhood gathered around a roaring hearth of fireworks, we told tales of the old days to all the children.
That was before Antifa stole the ocean, of course. Those ubiquitous rascals do make for intriguing right wind bogey men, don’t they? Wasn’t it the Mexicans before them, or the Arabs, or… some woman who wore a turtle neck sweater? Or was it some guy with glasses… I’m sorry it’s all become quite a blur.
I used to have the story straight, in the before times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I told the neighborhood kids about how we used to ride around in metal boxes on tracks, they didn’t believe me. The limited grunting and chirping language, which is the only speech now allowed after the leftist hordes came through the neighborhood and re-educated us all, made it hard to describe the dual contracts era but I did my best. Then Karen showed up, and well… Karen.
In all seriousness, I really am having trouble keeping track of the “outrage of the day” and the post-truth environment we’re living in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One makes fun of the rightists all the time, so some turnaround fair play for my leftie pals is offered on the subject of the ubiquitous and colossal amount of fireworks in recent weeks. Now you want the cops? Can’t have a police state clamping down on laws you want enforced while ignoring the ones you don’t like. Change the laws. You could theoretically force the cops to wear hot pink short sets if you write the law correctly. Cops are automatons when it comes to the law, and have virtually zero ability to interpret justice creatively on the street due to the sort of judicial legislation passed during the drug war, or terror war, or whatever else the politicians have declared war on. Be careful with what you ask Cops to do. For the last forty years you’ve been looking to them to solve every problem we’ve actually got or even the ones we’ve imagined, and those of us warning against worshipping at the pulpit that the Reverend in Blue preaches at have been told to shut up because “child molestors,” “terrorists,” or whatever other bogeyman you fear takes precedence over liberty.
The whole “redefinition of what political terms mean” thing is summed up, for me, by the fact that the fellow who built that bridge pictured above was a Progressive Republican. Can you imagine anybody describing themselves that way today, the way they would in the before times?
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, July 6th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
plastic wrapped
It’s Friday again!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s the 125th of March, so that means tomorrow would have been referred to as the 4th of July during the before times. Recent debate about whether it was Wednesday or Thursday here at HQ has proven Our Lady of the Pentacle correct, as having to put this posting together kind of snuck up on me.
I’ve also spent a day dealing with some unpleasant chores, as my next door neighbor died and I needed to put his friends in contact with his family, which ended up being quite a time consuming chore. Not COVID, instead he had a heart attack.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Observing the response to my friend dying, City services wise, I can tell you that the presence of six uniformed Cops, a pair of Detectives, a Coroner, and two morgue truck workers seemed to be what the regulations call for when somebody dies alone in their apartment. The whole operation took about 7 hours, from the wellness check to the morgue truck. It was one of those ghastly tasks which the City handles, and a part of the Cops’ job that seldom gets mentioned.
Why Cops for this task, you may ask? They are officers of the Court in this role, and have a responsibility to ensure that the deceased is handed off to the Medical Examiners office with as much dignity and discretion as is organizationally possible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy 4th of July, all. The North Remembers.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, June 29th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
arrested vagrant
Thunderstorm Thursday is here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent humidity and heat have contributed to the usual summertime intervals of evening thunder storms which NYC is prone to manifest. Our Lady of the Pentacle kept on asking me if I was going out last weekend, as I had attested to, but it was really a bit too hot for one of my strolls. Also, I don’t mess around with lightning. Instead of braving the torrent of rain and sweating profusely, a humble narrator instead set up the tripod at HQ and got ready for sunset.
Sunset + thunderstorms = cool skies to take pictures of. Why go out when the show is coming to me?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, HQ offers me a few views of the sky, like this one looking southeast captured mere minutes before the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself occluded behind New Jersey. This is the tail end of a big “bubble” of clouds that dumped a prodigious amount of water down onto Astoria. It was quite refreshing, actually.
I was hoping for more lightning, but I like taking lightning pics.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A neat double rainbow set up, and based on where the northern side fo the refractory phenomena manifested, I’m betting there’s a pot of gold somewhere in the vicinity of 80th street and Ditmars Blvd. I’m heading over there now with a shovel and a pick axe.
Back tomorrow.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, June 29th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 