Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
intoning endless
A dream to some, a nightmare to others.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post were gathered at an Atlas Obscura event in Green Wood Cemetery last weekend, which was a soirée of sorts. Cocktails in the Catacombs is how it was described, and an eager band of explorers responded. Your humble narrator wormed his way into the event, but did not partake or partay, I was too busy working. “How often do you get to photograph a cemetery in total darkness?”, after all. You’ll notice a crude bit of lighting in the shots above and below, which was barely visible during the image capture. A battery operated LED flashlight, if you must know.
It was late evening when I was shooting, the event started at ten and I left the cemetery for Astoria about one in the morning. These photos are long exposure, and tripod shots. To the human eye, there was naught but darkness framed against a brooding sky. Leaving the shutter open for 20-30 seconds at a pop, one can gather a range of color and tone which would otherwise be imperceptible. The small LED flashlight becomes a flood light in such circumstance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Funny thing was that although you know that you’re “safe as houses,” the fact remains that you are standing in near total darkness in a cemetery and the slightest sound – a tree branch falling, for instance- is enough to trigger an irrational flight or fight response. Fear is so much fun, isn’t it?
The imagined stuff, I mean, not the sort that accompanies bad news from doctors or accountants, or lawyers, or the kind of existential angst that arises when you encounter drunk cops or pistol wielding teenagers.
Personally, my days are usually filled with horror of one stripe or another – although more often than not it’s of the “kafkaesque” type – and the wild hallucinations experienced during those daily intervals of fevered unconsciousness – that some may call “sleep” – consume a third of my life and they both terrify and inform.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recently recurring hallucination of the nocturne has been a scenario in which your humble narrator is sitting at his desk and working, with Zuzu the dog lying at my feet. There’s a white flash, and suddenly everything is darkness and pain. Limbs are pinned by some unknowable weight, and there is a smell of copper as something begins dripping onto my face, and a certainty that one is completely helpless is realized. There is also pain, unknowable pain. Unable to wipe this unknown drip away from my eyes, immobilized in total darkness, a bit of light becomes visible and seems to be some distance away but it illuminates my situation. Surrounded by bloody concrete and rebar, the light grows brighter and begins to assume a hue as it intensifies. Orange yellow and growing brighter, the light illuminates clouds of dust which are picking up on an air current beginning to sweep through mounds of broken masonry and shattered bricks, as the ambient temperature begins to rise. The smell of cooking meat greets. My eyes begin to blister, and all vision perishes in fire just as the…
That’s when I wake up. At least this has replaced an older nightmare – one where I fall into an industrial carpet loom and am torn apart by clock works and bobbins of spinning yarn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s also a series of “consigned to suffer” and “torn apart by sharks” ones, and a fantastic internal narrative that involves a rapid onset of Leprosy that completely disincorporates a humble narrator in the interval which it takes the R train to reach Manhattan’s 59th and Lex from the Steinway Street stop in Queens has emerged recently. When the Subway doors open in the city, my mortal remains gush out onto the tracks unnoticed. The last thing witnessed before waking, in this fantastic example of Freudian angst about Ebola, is a herd of rats licking up the crimson juice which once called itself a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Walking Tours-
Saturday, November 8th, Poison Cauldron
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
Note: This is the last Newtown Creek walking tour of 2014, and probably the last time this tour will be presented in its current form due to the Kosciuszko Bridge construction project.
wondered whether
My Bubbe would have described the first shot as “Yoyzel on de cross.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For those of you who didn’t grow up in a Jewish family, “Bubbe” is Grandma, and let me tell you this – Sarah would not have liked me even taking pictures of a crucifix, let alone hearing about me wandering through First Calvary cemetery on a regular basis. She was not a big fan of Halloween either, preferring to see the masks and costumes come out for Purim instead. Hailing from the Pale, and having lived through late 19th and early 20th century Pogroms (and other indignities) inflicted upon her rural community by the Cossacks, my Grandmother was particularly suspicious of the Goyem. She instructed that one should dwell with their own kind, because at least then “you’d see it coming when somebody had it in for you.” You have to cut the old lady some slack though, she saw her younger brother’s head chopped off by the Cossacks, who played a drunken match of polo with it afterwards. For Bubbe Sarah, the word “Russian” was a synonym for “rapist.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While reminiscing about transmitted generational prejudices and familial lore, one happened to notice this odd scene at the monument to Sarah Bell and the Kelly family. A doll lay upon the loam, in a position which would be familiar to crime scene investigators. No investigation of the Bells or Kelly’s has been undertaken, but one suspects that their sentiments about the English were probably quite similar to my Bubbe’s feelings about the Russians. It amazes me to this day how much effort, finance, and political capital these two empires expended in the name of oppressing and exploiting rural peoples – the Irish and the Jews of the Pale – over the centuries. The same goes for the United States, incidentally. How much has our government spent over the centuries suppressing – not just the aspirations of negroes and native Americans – but a vast rainbow of minority opinions?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I’m in the “if it doesn’t affect me, why should I care what you do” camp, and that’s the end of my progressive neo prudentialist liberal politics for the day. Bubbe would have been beside herself at the idea that some child had lost her dolly, however. She would have used the astoundingly forceful personality for which she was famed, during her “shtetl” and Lower East Side garment worker days, to compel me to stand out in the middle of Greenpoint Avenue and ask every passing motorist if their child had lost their toy until it got dark. The old lady was tougher than leather, but had a big heart, which bled for everybody that told her a sad story. She also made one hell of a pot of chicken soup, which is dearly missed by one such as myself in the autumn.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Walking Tours-
Saturday, November 8th, Poison Cauldron
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
Note: This is the last Newtown Creek walking tour of 2014, and probably the last time this tour will be presented in its current form due to the Kosciuszko Bridge construction project.
devil cursed
Magickal Astoria, where “small parts and small balls” may be found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had no particular place to go, one recent afternoon, but the desire to stretch my roadway interfaces, get away from my desk, and exercise my aches and pains away overwhelmed. Accordingly, a short saunter from HQ down to the East River and back was enacted. Along the way, one encountered these vending machines adorning a supermarket near Crescent Street. The very idea of occult talismans being offered in such a manner tickled me, as it is so very American, and the camera was deployed to record the scene.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Upon returning to HQ, the shots were copied off of the memory card and inspection of the images revealed this lovely bit of legal ass covering incorporated into the signage adorning the trinket dispensing device. The “small parts and small balls” line mightily amused me, but I’ve never really grown up and am emotionally locked into a junior high school level psychology. I’m from Canarsie, in Brooklyn, and you cannot say “small parts and small balls” to me without causing a smirk to cross my face.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inquiries with merchants and shop keeps about similar retail level vending machines, including the sort of “ride” pictured above, have intrigued me. Several bodega owners have told me that the ride just showed up in front of their place one day. The owners and maintainers of these devices offer a 50/50 split with the shop, I’m told. One or two friendly shop keeps have told me that these machines can earn several hundred dollars a month, money which the shops are not obliged to report to tax officials as their cut is paid in cash. My interest in them is strictly artistic, and I’ve noticed a distinctive set of “hands” at work in many of their paint jobs.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Walking Tours-
Saturday, October 25th, Glittering Realms
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
known terrors
The last time I’ll buy an “organic” pumpkin, I tell you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just look at what has happened to my beautiful Jack O’ Lantern after a mere two weeks. When this pumpkin came home with me, it was robust and singularly stout. Now its a moldy pile of squishy orange rot, and having bought a so called “organic” pumpkin has bit one in the posterior as Halloween nears. If this thing was full of pesticides, a proper American pumpkin that would have been familiar to my father and or Harry Truman, this dissolution would not have occurred until at least Christmas.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
October fourth was officially the “carve date” for the family pumpkins, and the newly carven Jack o’Lanterns were displayed in this Newtown Pentacle post from October 6th. I cannot display the remains of our Lady of the Pentacle’s seasonal display as it has collapsed in a pile of fecundity, and I think there might be a family of rats living in it. The rats all wear hats and scarves, but the momma rat is clearly identifiable by her apron. Several spools of thread have gone missing around HQ, so I presume that the rats are using them as furniture. I would set out traps for them, but vibrant diversity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is indeed the same comestible pictured in the second photo, although it is fairly unrecognizable as such. I got a good price on the produce, and Our Lady cooked up the seeds that we scooped out of them with some sort of worcestershire sauce recipe, so one does not feel entirely cheated. A suspicion that I should have sprayed some sort of lacquer within the pumpkins seems to have been confirmed, however. Problem with organic fruits and vegetables is their severe lack of chemicals, I always say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ultimately, this has ruined Halloween for me. Blame is assigned to the organic food craze, and I plan on contacting Monsanto to inquire whether or not they can do anything about engineering a better Jack O’Lantern. Perhaps a pumpkin that glows in the dark without the need for a candle? What about a pumpkin which is itself partially composed of paraffin? Progress, lords and ladies, progress – better living through chemistry – that’s the American way.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Walking Tours-
Saturday, October 25th, Glittering Realms
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
acquired enough
A short one today
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a single shot today, depicting 31st street’s borderland between the Astoria and Dutch Kills sections of the neighborhood. That’s the N and Q tracks above, which can emit a calamitous cacophony second to none during rush hours.
Back tomorrow…
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Walking Tours-
Saturday, October 25th, Glittering Realms
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
The Newtown Pentacle 