Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
persistent presence
Monday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Anxious, that’s the way a humble narrator recently described his state of mind to a medical professional who was catechizing him. Anxious is how one has felt for quite a while now. The pressure valve one regularly turns to relieve a few atmospheres of this background anxiety involves exercise and solitude, but that isn’t some new survival strategy one has evolved during this interminable pandemic period, it’s rather my “go-to.” Were this a normal summer, things I’d be complaining right now about; A) I want a weekend off from doing tours, B) how hot it is, C) my desires to just “get out there” by myself with the camera.
This isn’t a normal summer, but I’ll still complain about “B” and “C.” One fo my “go-to’s” throughout the pandemic has been to follow a pathway out of Astoria and into the industrial zones of Long Island City. Unfortunately, a lot of other people have discovered the areas surrounding Newtown Creek in recent months. This too makes me anxious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve done a lot of cool stuff over the years, all of which caused me endless amounts of anxiety while in pursuit thereof. I’ve ghost hunted in Crete, for instance, which involved my father in law and I avoiding the attentions of shot gun toting bandits on a country road in Greece at 4 in the morning. I’ve worked on neat projects in the advertising world – a Times Square bill board, marquee ads placed in The NY Times magazine section, and for about 5 years everytime you walked into a Footlocker store to buy sneakers all that stuff on the walls and in the windows you saw promoting new shoes was probably something I had a hand in. There are comic books out there which I wrote and drew, and I was responsible for an entire comic company’s studio production schedule for a while. I’ve worked for major ad agencies, huge Wall Street companies, you name it. I’ve been happily married for decades, have friends whom I’ve been hanging out with since I was a teenager, and have multiple rings of friends and acquaintances that sound like a who’s who list of NYC. When I say it all out loud, it sounds like I’m bragging, but these are all things I’ve done. Saying that, every day when I wake up, it’s a “reset” and I have to find some way to justify my existence.
Right now, caught up in this wave of never ending tumult, it’s difficult to say that any of that stuff matters. Hence, anxiety.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One practices a thought modality which I call “branch logic.” It’s game theory, ultimately. Every action I take has two possible outcomes, which in turn offer further binary choices that branch off of whatever decision was undertaken. “If I cross Van Dam Street, when I get to the jail, I can either head north (Queens Plaza) or south (Greenpoint Avenue Bridge) – which is decision 1 – or just continue West towards decision 2. If I head west, I can go to Dutch Kills or follow it to Skillman Avenue. At Dutch Kills I can, or at Skillman I can… you get the idea. Interpersonally – I can punch this guy at the bar in the mouth, or I can just humor him. If I punch him, these two possibilities happen or if I humor him, another set of binaries occurs. This make the world somewhat predictable, which allows one to plan. If I save $20 a week, I’ll have a thousand bucks at the end of the year. If I have a thousand bucks in January, I can…
Thing is, and this is where all that anxiety is coming from, the world has become utterly and incomprehensibly unpredictable. I can’t predict anything more than two moves out right now, which is something that makes me anxious.
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, August 10th. 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 here, 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.
essential salts
Monday, from the old German word “mōnandæg,” means day of the moon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A little bit of continuity with last Friday’s post is seen above, depicting the same tug and barge combination passing the Meeker Avenue/Penny Bridge street end along Newtown Creek. The difference in today’s shot are the three jet skis which got into the tug captain’s path, which sped past the combo. Yes. People are jet skiing in Newtown Creek nowadays. I know, I know.
If these recreationalists only knew about the rumors which have plagued me about “it” all summer. “It,” if “it” exists, would likely regard these jet skiers as little more than a snack.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the shot above, I lengthened the exposure time in pursuit of getting the water all mirror like. Sometime in the next week or two, my plan is to acquire some polarized filter glass for the camera, which should aid in peering below the surface by reducing the reflected and scattering ambience of the sky.
Perhaps it will help me reveal its presence, if it does exist. Thing is… who can guess, all there is, that might be swimming around down in the gelatinous fathoms of the Newtown Creek?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A parting shot from the Kosciuszko Bridge walkway, captured as dusk was giving way to full night time.
More tomorrow, at your Newtown Pentacle.
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, August 3rd. 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 here, 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.
bygone penmanship
Terrific, it’s Thursday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One managed to shvitz his way out last night and there’s a fresh batch of photos I’m cooking up on my hard drive, but couldn’t quite get them finished by this afternoon so a few recent archive shots greet you today. “Recent” as in late spring and early summer of 2020, as a note.
Pictured above is an Amtrak maintenance barn at the Sunnyside Yards, captured via a newly discovered hole in the fences surrounding the place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Skillman Avenue in the Long Island City section of Queens is where you’ll notice the remains of the Montauk Cutoff trackage crossing the byway on an overhead viaduct.
For some reason, and despite the fact that the overpass truncates and is abandoned, the Long Island Railroad keeps their signal boards electrified.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is from the Penny Bridge site found along my beloved Newtown Creek. Penny Bridge is at the extreme north end of Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint. My pal Will from Newtown Creek Alliance just installed a historical sign board at Penny Bridge describing the site, so if you pay it a visit, you’ll understand why it’s called Penny Bridge.
Back tomorrow with some fresh steaming photography.
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 27th. 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 here, 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.
omphalos gazing
Friday, Friday, which seat should I take?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While the above shot was being captured, one was standing just a few feet away from one of the City’s Bioswales – or as they’ve been renamed “rain gardens.” Absolute legions of cockroaches were seething in and out of the planting. I don’t mean roaches of the sort that you might encounter under your kitchen sink, I mean the giant two inch long flying variety. The kind that doesn’t give a shit about you, or how many times you stamp your feet.
In NYC, the conqueror worm is a cockroach. If they ever get organized…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was taking this shot, behind me and across the street, some fellow was sitting behind the wheel of his car staring at me while he was smoking a marijuana cigarette. Whoever was in the passenger seat must’ve dropped something, since I saw their head repeatedly bobbing up and down in the shadows within the car. They seemed nice.
One decided to head back home to Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here at the HQ fortress, with its moat and towers, one felt safe from any possible incursion by Antifa, Trumpist Militias, Woman hating Neckbeards, Rosicrucians – or just about any other random threat which click hungry websites have told me are coming this way to take away my things. Without things, what are we?
Back next week with something totally different.
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 13th. 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 here, 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.
obsolete phraseology
Thursday, in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Frustrated by yet another unsuccessful expedition and attempt to photograph “it,” one decided that since midnight had been arrived at it was time to begin plying a course back to HQ in Astoria. The night was hot and humid, and despite the absence of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself bobbing about in the sky, sweat was running freely from my skinvelope. It had rained heavily earlier in the day, and olfactory observation indicated that NYC’s Combined Sewer system had contributed some meaningful amount of untreated sewage into the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, here in the Long Island City section of Queens.
Also, I’d been on my feet for hours at this point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The latter statement proved my undoing. Knowing this area as well as I do, places where one can take the proverbial load off for a few minutes are a part of my list of features and attractions. In the shot directly below, you’ll notice a picnic table and umbrella in front of the surprisingly excellent delicatessen “Sparks.”
I did mention the heavy rain? Did I mention that before I sat down at the picnic table I didn’t check to see if the seat was concave in shape and hosting an absolutely terrific amount of rain water? Well, I hadn’t, and so didst one sit down. As I felt the liquid penetrating up through my pants, and underpants, it occurred to me that I should have – in fact – checked to see if it was wet. I didn’t, and now I was.
At least it is was quite cooling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This incident prompted one to summon a cab, which is something I’ve only done twice in the pandemic period. Not having wet skivvies, as far as “twice” goes. I mean taking a cab. Nothing is more miserable than walking multiple miles in wet clothing during a heat wave. Chafing, it affects us all, and some more than others. Masked up, a car was summoned for my trip home via the miracle of cellular telephony.
Everything mundane is scary now, in the age of the killer cooties, even calling a Lyft.
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 13th. 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 here, 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 