Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
scarcely envisage
The future is smaller than you’d think it is, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since I’m in a bit of a Kafkaesque mood today, I figured I’d run a few pictures of some bugs I’ve met over the years. Bugs are like little war machines, and I’ve never been able to understand why the MIT types go to such pains reinventing the wheel when building robots and drones instead of just following nature’s solution. Why build one big hard to replace war robot when what you really want are a swarm of little cheap guys to do your nefarious bidding?
Also, bugs like that wasp pictured above might be a lot easier to enslave than you’d think. Imagine, what could you get done with an army of millions of ants doing your bidding? You’d certainly be able to “move that rubber tree plant,” despite the pop cultural aphorisms. If we could get control over the Termites, they could potentially build homes and cities for us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Big Agra” is what my environmentalist buddies would call a company like Monsanto, who are the ExxonMobil of planting things and feeding animals. I’m sure they’ve got a staffer working on changing the preferences of this butterfly specie, or that one, so that instead of liking to visit and fertilize Milkweed or other pest crops, they would instead prefer to visit rye or wheat stalks. They’re also likely working on military applications for their butterfly technology. Butterflies who spy, or Butterlfies who disseminate toxins to an enemy’s fields?
Imagine a United States Marines Tactical Butterfly unit. I’d like to think the insect’s wings would be a camouflage pattern.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weaponizing the bees and hornets would likely be the easiest thing to do. Everything I’ve ever read about bees suggest that just like termite mounds and ant nests, you have to consider the hive as being the living organism rather than consideing members of the community as individuals. A bee, or ant, isn’t very formidable on its own. When their Queen excretes the right sequence of pheromone triggers, however, the hive operates as a single organism. What you’re looking at above is actually a single cell of a far larger entity, programmed by an intelligence not its own to perform a task.
I would hope that the Marines get the tactical Butterflies, and that the Army gets the weaponized Bees.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
extirpate everything
Death, annihilation, hatred… in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few of you lords and ladies have commented on the dark mood which a humble narrator seems to be in, which is a correct assessment. Last weekend, I did my last “official” tours of 2016, and one does not allow himself the luxury of maudlin thoughts during tour season – as I have to remain upbeat while describing the sobering industrial history of Newtown Creek and its surrounding landmass, for fear of snapping the stoutest chord whilst describing the pneumonic cattle stables of LIC’s Blissville, or the Brooklyn side glue factory of Peter Cooper (where Jello brand gelatin was invented, as an aside).
Once the season is done, however, it’s as if some sort of great rubber band has snapped back into its primal shape and I can allow the black dog to roam and wallow in hopeless misery and spiritual darkness for a short interval. Home sweet home.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now! Now is the time to unleash the very worm that gnaws! Now is the time to creep through the shadows of the megalopolis in a filthy black raincoat, scuttling from corner to corner, and skittering along the masonry walls of cylcopean factory buildings and across disease cursed bulkheads in the manner of some sort of wandering mendicant. Now is the time to shine a light into the sewers and other dark recesses while asking that age old question – “who can guess, all there is, that might be hidden down there?” Now!
For some reason, I think inserting a “bwah-hah-hah” into this post would be appropriate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has a long held belief that if you’re suffering from the flu, the appropriate thing to do is to stay in bed and let the illness run its course. It’s the same thing with “feeling bad” between the ears – indulge yourself for a few days, lay down in the muddy puddles of the psyche, and allow the psychic fever to rage. The trick is not allowing that to become your “thing” and spending months or years staring into the mirror at three in the morning wondering why your mommy didn’t love you enough, or getting lost in morbid self obsession.
I believe you should, at least, pretend to be like and enjoy the company of the humans. Otherwise a dark mood can lead to outré expressions of loneliness.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
gray cottage
The night time is the right time, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The pedantic banality of my daily existence is occasionally punctuated by a series of rather dull events, and last weekend this included a trip to Greenwood Cemetery for Atlas Obscura’s “Into the Veil” party. It actually wasn’t that dull, as everybody else actually seemed to be having a good time, but the blackened callouses coating my psyche preclude one such as myself from feeling anything other numb.
I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite my best efforts at erecting emotional and behavioral barricades around myself, I do have a few friends and they were along for the excursion, and unfortunately my attempts at maintaining a social life got in the way of actuating the camera mechanisms with the anticipated and normal frequency.
Despite this, I did manage to crack out a few shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Into the Veil” is an Atlas Obscura signature event, and brings hundreds of people to Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery (est. 1838) for what can best described as a decadent party. There are bands, and bars, and performances. Above, a group of fire dancers performing at the Crescent Lake found on the northwest side of the polyandrion. It’s a 30 second exposure, and the streaks of fire seem to forming an occult sigil.
It’s all so depressing, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the far north western side of the cemetery is a rather large MTA facility which is both a train yard and a bus depot. The MTA uses harsh sodium based “stadium lights” to illuminate their property which throws an orange glow about for hundreds of yards in every direction, and it penetrates deeply into the fuligin shadows of Greenwood Cemetery where the night gaunts dance about in remembrance of the olden times.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
down slanting
Here today and gone tomorrow, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator, as previously stated, needs a vacation.
Actually, it’s a change of scene I require. My daily rounds often take me to locations which are awe inspiring, or terrifying, but ultimately I’d like to see and record something different – just for a change of pace. Kittens? I just don’t know anymore. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the pundits opine, and I’d like to photograph something entirely absent of tugboats, industrial squalor, and sewer plants – just for a minute, mind you. Maybe a walk in the woods or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that after this weekend’s Open House New York tour is concluded one will be free on the weekends again. I’m thinking about following the lead offered by Ratso and Joe Buck in the Midnight Cowboy movie and buying a random bus ticket at Port Authority and seeing where Greyhound might want to take me for a day trip.
Of course – knowing my luck, I’ll randomly end up in industrial Newark or Philadelphia, or some rust belt city in western New York. You can take the boy out of the superfund site, but…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps it’s just ennui. Bah.
Winter is coming, and ultimately, Carthage must be destroyed.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
lurking place
It’s all so exciting, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The funny thing, for me and perhaps for you, is that today and tomorrow’s posts aren’t the ones I originally intended to present. There are two perfectly fine posts in the unpublished folder which are completely written and formatted and ready to go, but for some reason I just didn’t want to release them into the wild this week. Really can’t tell you why, other than they continue a recent theme rattling on about “the looming infrastructure crisis due to real estate development” which has been explored in recent weeks – so instead – a few pix from a recent walk around LIC. I need a vacation, I really do.
That’s an “at grade” crossing of Borden Avenue which the Long Island Railroad has been using since the 1870’s pictured above. There are just a few of these “at grade” interactions between automotive traffic and rail in NYC, and the Queens side of Newtown Creek is where you can find several of them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cupola of LIC’s sapphire megalith was just peeking out over a couple of squamous warehouse buildings on Borden Avenue, a bit further to the east. Despite the unlikely presence of some inhuman “thing” up there, which greedily stares down upon the world of men with a three lobed burning eye, I often utilize the megalith as a navigation tool while moving through some of the distaff areas surrounding the Newtown Creek.
You can easily see this building from as far away as Staten Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Throwing my feet around in the area I have christened as “the empty corridor” beneath the Long Island Expressway, which is observationally and historically a fine choice for illegal dumping, this somewhat adolescent cat greeted me recently. One of the interesting things I’ve been noticing of late is that site managers all over the Creek are setting up shelters for the ferals and encouraging them to hang around.
I’ve inquired with a few people on this subject and the reasoning behind the effort boils down to that hiring an exterminator to control rodents is quite expensive, and encouraging a “staff” of onsite 24 hour exterminators to take up residence isn’t. Same logic that farmers use, actually.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 