Posts Tagged ‘Carridor’
headlong down
Nowhere to go, no one to talk to, like a falling autumn leaf – me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One actually did have someplace to go last week – as a rare social occasion wherein a group of us who work for the Brownstoner Queens site commiserated over dinner and drinks in the Dutch Kills neighborhood last week. This drew me out just as the rain clouds were blowing out last Thursday night, and the sunset lighting one encountered was absolutely stellar.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This rainbow appeared over what is today the Center Building on Northern Blvd., but what was once a Ford Service Center and later offices for a large pharmaceutical company. The song “Somewhere over the rainbow” apparently refers to Sunnyside, it would seem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This week I also have someplace to go to – I’ll be attending a meeting of the Newtown Creek CAG (Community Advisory Group), on October 1st. It’s going to be held over in Brooklyn, at the McCarren Play Center Community Room, 776 Lorimer Street, Brooklyn. I’m told that the EPA will be present. Come with?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
cities and valleys
An awesome auto spotted in the Carridor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a particularly busy week during which we only saw fleeting glimpses of each other, it was decided by Our Lady of the Pentacle that we were going to meet for an al fresco dinner at a pub in Dutch Kills. Your humble narrator was walking down Northern Blvd. – the Carridor, as I refer to it – and this cool car was observed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It wasn’t in the best condition, notably the thing was missing wheel covers and some chrome here and there, but I’m possessed of a certain fetish for mid 1960’s Buicks. The epitome of the land yacht, these mid 60’s Buicks were impossibly huge vehicles that bore powerful engines, the epitome of mid 20th century American automobile manufacturing. They use a tremendous amount of fuel, require constant attention, and fail catastrophically. Saying that, they look great.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a 1965 Buick Wildcat. It sports either a 325 or 340 horsepower engine. Due to the missing chrome on the rear quarter panel, I can’t tell you if it’s the GS or “Gran Sports” model, which featured a ludicrously powerful 360 HP engine block, although the vast majority of “GS” models were produced in ’66. The Wildcat line ended manufacture in 1970, and was replaced in production by the Buick Centurion.
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There are two Newtown Creek walking tours coming up.
Saturday, June 28th, The Poison Cauldron
With Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
Sunday, June 29th, The Insalubrious Valley
With Brooklyn Brainery, lunch included, click here for tickets and more info.
largely baseless
Zombie Response Vehicle in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This Jeep was spotted at a service station found at the intersection of Northern Blvd. and Newtown Road just the other day, and it was adorned with multiple decals indicating that it was the property of a Zombie Response Team. I’m glad that someone is finally taking this sort of eventuality seriously. Somebody has to.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are plenty of zombie apocalypse “preppers” here in Western Queens, have no doubt about it. Caches of hand weapons abound in Astoria, and there are thousands of firearms hidden away in closets, basements, and garages – just in case of a manifest plague of Zombies (or a breakout at nearby Rikers, or a sudden influx of hipsters from Brooklyn). I didn’t know there was an organized vehicle fleet, but I must point out that this sort of vehicle would be somewhat inadequate for the sort of infestation that New York City would need to deal with. You’d really need an armored car or truck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big question that elected officials in Queens would ponder in a Zombie uprising would be whether or not Zombies could vote. If the walking dead could cast a ballot, would they reliably vote for Democrats? It wouldn’t be the first time that the population of a graveyard helped buoy an election victory around these parts, after all, and the Zombies would be courted by them. A brain in every pot, they would promise, and resolutions to outlaw blows to the cranium would be introduced by the City Council shortly afterward.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
continuous scheme
A thing, encountered, in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Innocently, one decided to take advantage of the recently favorable atmospherics and engage in a relaxed perambulation of the greater neighborhood here in Western Queens. Measured gait carried a humble narrator in a generally eastern direction, from almond eyed Astoria toward the spicy elevations of Jackson Heights, and soon one found himself on Northern Blvd. and the “carridor.”
That’s where I witnessed the unexpected, the unwelcome, the inconceivable.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Monstrous, this flapping giant was lurking observed on Northern Blvd. in front of one of the many used automobile dealers, for whom the name “Carridor” has been assigned to the section, found along the great road. It was at least two stories tall and animated by an unknown motive force. Malevolent in appearance, the entity filled me with some nameless dread.
Vast physical cowardice, coupled with an uneven constitution, caused ones blood to run icy cold at the mere sight of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Its movements were a staccato of jerking movements, a sort of rising and falling dance which betrayed a jellyfish like quality. Clearly – this creature bore no endoskeleton, nor external carapace, and it flopped about in the steady breeze – and would occasionally lunge toward pedestrians and passerby.
All reserve cracked, and I soon found myself descending into “one of my spells.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Worried that knowledge of this entity, this untrammeled and unknown thing, might consume my already fragile sanity – a hasty retreat back to Astoria was enacted. Why, oh why, must I leave the safety of my home so often? There are things… squamous, flopping, unnatural things… inhabiting the streets and alleys out there.
Who can guess, all there is, which there might be lurking out there?
There are two public Newtown Creek walking tours coming up, one in LIC, Queens and one in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Glittering Realms, with Atlas Obscura, on Saturday May 17th.
Click here for more info and ticketing.
Modern Corridor, with Brooklyn Brainery, on Sunday May 18th.
Click here for more info and ticketing.
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unsanctioned frenzy
Pondering while wandering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m all ‘effed up. As is my habit during the summer, vast explorations of existential angst and delusion rule those intracranial electrical impulses which one might generously describe as thoughts. Fear, repulsion, and raw terror are the contents of that glob of salty fat which sits between the oddly shaped ears, above the loathsome mouth, and an inch or two behind the spectacles. The particular organ in question has been giving me trouble of late, and in the future I intend to use it gently as a repetitive stress injury seems to be taking hold.
from wikipedia
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. A large proportion of its weight is supported by a road tractor, a detachable front axle assembly known as a dolly, or the tail of another trailer. A semi-trailer is normally equipped with landing gear (legs which can be lowered) to support it when it is uncoupled.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Disappointment and loneliness are the root causes of all the worlds trouble, the Castor and Pollux of evil. One such as myself, however, is drawn to their stormy coastlines with its craggy delights. Your humble narrator has too full a schedule for the “Bon Vivant” and joys of summer, it seems, and is instead a mass of mouldering psychological injuries held together with string and sealing wax. Frivolities are not meant for such a creature- who is nothing less than an assassin of joy, mental weakling, physical coward, and a most feckless quisling.
from wikipedia
Emotional baggage is an everyday expression that correlates with many varied but similar concepts within social sciences, self-help movements, and other fields: its general concern is with unresolved issues of an emotional nature, often with an implication that the emotional baggage is detrimental.
As a metaphorical image, it is that of carrying all the disappointments, wrongs, and trauma of the past around with one in a heavy load.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Arcane ideations torment, coupled as they are with a startling emotional numbness, and one suspects that all this might not actually be happening. A sneaking suspicion, lurking maliciously at the scarred threshold of that glob of electrically charged, and quite salty, fat a couple of inches behind my glasses is not interpreting the world accurately, torments. A long standing delusion one suffers from, separate from the one which causes me to always look over my left shoulder when walking through Woodside at night, is that this all might be some sort of cruel simulation being run by an extra dimensional and all powerful entity which seeks to stress test and then judge one harshly according to an arbitrary set of rules. The existence of such a being would be outlandish, of course, as there is no evidence of such an entity other than in desert legends, folk stories, and peasant traditions.
from wikipedia
The simplest use of brain-in-a-vat scenarios is as an argument for philosophical skepticism and solipsism. A simple version of this runs as follows: Since the brain in a vat gives and receives exactly the same impulses as it would if it were in a skull, and since these are its only way of interacting with its environment, then it is not possible to tell, from the perspective of that brain, whether it is in a skull or a vat. Yet in the first case most of the person’s beliefs may be true (if they believe, say, that they are walking down the street, or eating ice-cream); in the latter case their beliefs are false. Since the argument says one cannot know whether one is a brain in a vat, then one cannot know whether most of one’s beliefs might be completely false. Since, in principle, it is impossible to rule out oneself being a brain in a vat, there cannot be good grounds for believing any of the things one believes; a skeptical argument would contend that one certainly cannot know them, raising issues with the definition of knowledge.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 