cacophonous pause
6,210 days ago…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yesterday, one spent his day participating in several call in meetings with the various folks I work with. On my last call, with Access Queens, the reopening of the Cortlandt Street MTA station, which somehow took the powers that be seventeen years to rebuild, came up. The seventeen years thing stuck with me, however. It also occurred to me after the call that there’s an entire generation of voters who will, next year, be pulling the levers in the voting booth whose formative years and world view were entirely shaped by the Terror Wars. They grew up in a country that’s now on a permanent war footing, and have never known anything else.
Did 911 really happen seventeen years ago? Seventeen years? On a Tuesday morning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The level of optimism in pre 911 America was total, for those of you who have forgotten or were too young to perceive it. Back then, the politicians and pundits were talking about the end of history after the end of the Cold War with the now fallen Soviet Empire. They gloated about the weakened Russians, proclaimed that the neoliberal agenda had prevailed, and generally behaved like a rich bully in a bar room. Then, those two planes came screaming down the Hudson.
I lost friends that day, but others lost everything they loved. Vengeance, we all cried. Bomb them into the Stone Age, we said. Kill, kill, kill. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. French Fries were renamed Freedom Fries. “They” hurt us, so we hurt “them” back. Let’s Roll…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seventeen years later and we are seemingly coming apart at the seams. Reactionary populism, division of the electorate into ever smaller slices and interest groups, Americans at each other’s throats over relatively minor political issues… All of this was present back then, but not to the degree it is today. The Terror Wars are just a fact of life now, and it’s normal for American Soldiers to be deployed overseas in combat zones. The Freedom Tower, rebranded as just “One World Trade” is open, and is where you’ll find a memorial museum which is a very popular destination for foreign tourists. Personally, I’ve never managed to well up the courage to visit it.
I also don’t like to visit my father’s grave, as I’d rather remember him as he was before cancer ate him alive.
Seventeen years.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
peculiar kind
Back in session, your Newtown Pentacle is.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oh, the humanity and the carnage! Happy Rosh Hashanah to all of you heathens out there, and a short holiday post arrives in your inboxes today. I’ve had quite a last week, and think I may have managed to piss off everybody encountered. It’s what I do, I guess.
Currently, there’s a large group of bicycle enthusiasts angry at me for describing their tactic of waiting for somebody to get killed and then rallying for more bike lanes while acting like buzzards circling a highway and looking for more roadkill. They’re nice.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Taxi people also don’t like me. I personally don’t care that their dying industry has been disrupted by better versions of “for hire” cars. I’ve never had an Uber or Lyft driver refuse to go to Queens, or say they won’t take me to industrial Maspeth from Astoria, and even though I’m sure that the venture capitalists running both of these services are eaters of roasted baby flesh in their off time – when I need a ride on a rainy night, I don’t find myself standing in the middle of nowhere as cab after cab rejects a street hail so that they can get back to Manhattan or the airports.
Google up who owns the majority of the medallions issued by TLC, and you’ll discover a less than salubrious bunch of millionaires whose exploitation of their work force would curl the mustache hair of any 19th century robber baron.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The government people are annoyed by me as well, for the constant pointing out of their shortcomings.
Hey, you don’t run a blog about NYC without the intention of complaining, right?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
popularly linked
Texting while driving?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is taking a break this week, and single images will be greeting you sans the verbose drivel they’re normally accompanied by. It’s a rather busy week that I have ahead of me, but look for a strange old man wandering about the concrete devastations of the Newtown Creek with a camera. That’ll likely be me.
Tours and Events
Dutch Kills Dérive. Free!
Saturday, September 8, 2018, 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM with Flux Factory
Drowning in our own muck and mire, modern society must transmute its existence into that of an allegorical baptism in order to emerge a society of water protectors. The historic facts of exactly how our civilization has transformed the historic Dutch Kill waterway into a sewershed will act as both a numbing analgesic and a point of illumination. Tickets here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
academic alienists
Something fishy going on?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is taking a break this week, and single images will be greeting you sans the verbose drivel they’re normally accompanied by. It’s a rather busy week that I have ahead of me, but look for a strange old man wandering about the concrete devastations of the Newtown Creek with a camera. That’ll likely be me.
Tours and Events
Dutch Kills Dérive. Free!
Saturday, September 8, 2018, 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM with Flux Factory
Drowning in our own muck and mire, modern society must transmute its existence into that of an allegorical baptism in order to emerge a society of water protectors. The historic facts of exactly how our civilization has transformed the historic Dutch Kill waterway into a sewershed will act as both a numbing analgesic and a point of illumination. Tickets here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
leaping monster
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is taking a break this week, and single images will be greeting you sans the verbose drivel they’re normally accompanied by. It’s a rather busy week that I have ahead of me, but look for a strange old man wandering about the concrete devastations of the Newtown Creek with a camera. That’ll likely be me.
Tours and Events
Dutch Kills Dérive. Free!
Saturday, September 8, 2018, 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM with Flux Factory
Drowning in our own muck and mire, modern society must transmute its existence into that of an allegorical baptism in order to emerge a society of water protectors. The historic facts of exactly how our civilization has transformed the historic Dutch Kill waterway into a sewershed will act as both a numbing analgesic and a point of illumination. Tickets here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
