Posts Tagged ‘Manhattan’
atavistical menace
Welcome to the darker side of the year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Call it what you will. There’s Samhain, and Calan Gaeaf, and we’ve also got All Hallows’ Eve – but it’s just Halloween here at Newtown Pentacle HQ. 2013 has been a slow one for the occult and magick beat, I’m afraid. Haven’t been able to bring you much more than a few headless chickens found on the rail tracks in Maspeth, actually. It’s not that I haven’t been looking, mind you, but I just keep on finding singular shoes divorced from their mated pair. Try and convince me that there isn’t some serial killer at work behind this phenomena, I dare you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A lurking fear of mine is the sure knowledge that there are rats in the walls. Just beyond the reach of station lights, they squirm and breed and hunger. Remember last year- directly following the storm- when concerns about this rodent army leaving the flooded tunnel system to try their luck above ground, in the darkened streets of lower Manhattan, were openly debated? Who can guess all there is, that might be down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Manhattan terrifies. Its teeming masses yearn to breathe free, but are forced to congregate in the great human hive in the name of industry. The atmosphere hosts a thriving variety of bacterial and viral specie, which float along on gusts of contaminant laden air from host to host. Pandemic is inevitable, and it would not be the first time either. First Cholera, then Typhus, Tuberculosis, and Influenza have historically cut great swaths of the population down on this crowded island. Always there are those who cannot afford to be sick, and are forced to go about their business with the affect and manner of the walking dead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Halloween though, isn’t about some mad serial killer operating in Queens, or an army of starving rats emerging from the Subways to feast, nor some plague that renders its victims with a virulent visage reminiscent of the living dead. Instead, it’s about spectral menaces rising from graveyards to wander the land in search of living souls to take back to hell with them, silly. The Danse Macabre is underway, so watch out Newtownicans, for evil of the most vile sort is afoot.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
weary trip
Watch out, its Mischief Night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
October 30th, for some, is a day when normal inhibitions against creating chaos are suspended. Mischief Night is the common term for this orgy of self indulgence and prankery perpetrated upon the wholesome masses and jaded gentry alike, and it is also known as Cabbage Night or Devils Night. Chilling traditions followed by its adolescent adherents include the hurling of toilet paper rolls into trees and over homes, bombardment of passerby and vehicles with cabbage, the ringing of doorbells, and relocation of garden furniture or statuary to distaff locale. There is also quite a bit of pumpkin smashing. All of this in the name of mischief… and that means one thing to me- LOKI.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fearing that a Viking God might be behind all of this so called “tradition,” your humble narrator made his way to Manhattan’s west side to converse with the ascended masters. Consultations with an unreliably accurate storefront psychic in Hells Kitchen had proved fruitless in ascertaining if my assertions ascribing that the influences felt by many on this so called “Mischief Night” were, in fact, due to the influences of the Jotun born lord of mischief and father of Hel. My path took me to a certain relict saloon on 9th avenue, a dark corner of the Shining City and a place wherein a certain retired sea captain is known to inhabit. This too proved a waste of time, but I had a very nice whiskey while visiting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unhappy act, I soon realized that this whiskey was no mere liquor and my thoughts began to gallop towards the bridge of incontinent madness, and one began contemplating and growing increasingly concerned what Mischief Night might involve. Hallucinations spawned by the drink included an impossibly large sailing ship, made out of the toenail clippings of corpses, roaring into NY Harbor. Clouds of Valkyrie accompanied, smashing the Verrazano to bits as they descended upon an unsuspecting City, while the ships Captain- Loki itself- cackled in cacodaemonic hilarity on its bow.
My last clear memory was draining of that glass, and then snapping out of it on the R train on my way back to Astoria. I’ve really got to stay out of the City, man.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
crawled out
Today’s post is late, it’s late!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the next few days, it’s going to be a single image and a short but pithy comment from a humble narrator at this, your Newtown Pentacle. I need to take a little break, and gear up a major series of posts which will be coming your way very soon. The big Newtown Creek boat tour on Saturday appears to be completely sold out, by the way.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale soon.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
granite portal
One step forward, two steps back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once upon a time, this charming section of Manhattan was home to cattle yards, rendering plants, and an enormous industrial sector which ran on coal. It was described as smokey, stinky, and not very pleasant by the Knickerbockracy. By the time of the Civil War, that had all changed, and this area which came to be called Union Square had begun to gentrify. Shedding itself of dirty or noisome industry is something the folks over in the City have absolutely excelled at over the years. These days, the place drowns in sentiment, seems fairly underutilized, and would benefit from some of the thinking and urban planning which guides the burgeoning shorelines of the East River in Brooklyn and Queens. Have you noticed that there are few buildings around Union Square which are under 20 stories?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obligation carried one to the Shining City again just last week, for a lunch meeting this time, and I spied this crew of fellows tearing up a substantial chunk of 18th street. They seemed to be having a great time, using esoteric equipment and enjoying a ribald orgy of demolition. When I was a younger and less humble narrator, around the age of 5, my ambition was to drive a bull dozer. It is good to see that, for some, the dreams of childhood did not suffer the brutal euthanasia which mine have. The City people did not seem to notice the crew, presumptively this scene was just another obstacle for them which impeded rushing about and spending. It’s enough to drive one into the arms of a mixologist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Profoundly unpopular, physically repulsive and societally unacceptable, one such as myself desires nothing more than to be included in things. How one wishes that parties such as the one witnessed in today’s post were the sort of thing for which an invitation might be offered. This looks like so much fun, tearing into the concretized firmament with powerful engines of modern design. Long have I been curious about what might lie below, but such obsessions are denied me, and one can only photograph that which occurs in a brightly lit world illumined by the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, here in the Shining City.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale soon.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
paternal way
Everybody gets better reception than me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent obligation called for one to leave the blessed hillocks of Astoria and enter the concrete bunkers which underlie the ancient village in order to participate in the “mass transportation” craze onboard an electrical apparatus maintained by the municipality solely for the express purpose of shuttling the human infestation to and from the Shining City of Manhattan. Ghastly chance demanded that one would be forced into transferring between lines, an abhorrent but clearly foreseen happenstance. One such as myself loathes these intervals of transit, and wonders. What else may there be, lurking about in darkened tunnel and subterranean vault, down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My business in the Shining City was plain and predictable, taking place onboard a boat full of the scientifically minded who desired a close look at the battered shorelines of New York City. Your humble narrator spent some time humbly narrating, and the rest photographing. The event concluded, and the blaring cacophony of Times Square presented itself. Choked with phantoms and other tourists who have come here hoping to see something happen, this has always been the section of New York City which one such as myself likes to avoid.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back on an aluminum and plastic box, which carries an unknown annual tonnage of primate meat to and from the Shining City, everybody around me was busily interacting with their personal tracking devices. In the name of the black goat of the woods, I never though the day would come that cellular radio frequencies would emanate through the powderized rat feces and clouds of fungal spores down here. This is not a good thing.
- Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale soon.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 