Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
quivering through
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a short one today, a few unconnected images, and hints of what is to come. For the last couple of days, I’ve been out on the harbor, photographing Op Sail. I’ll have some shots for you to see in a day or two, lords and ladies, as a colossal amount of editing and digital darkroom work is underway here at HQ. Initial passes at the images are quite promising, as I shot the whole shebang from the water and the atmospherics were dramatic, to say the least.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s also a couple of announcements coming shortly regarding walking tours in June, at the Creek and elsewhere, and the Working Harbor Committee “Hidden Harbor” tours are about to kick into gear again so there will lots of fun things to do next month (and beyond). July is shaping up as well, and I hope to be able to offer a Newtown Creek boat tour mid month, but this is still forming up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The last week or so is kind of a blur, you see- as I’ve been in four of the five boroughs, five if you count the harbor as the sixth- in the last few days. Must have shot something like three thousand photos since last Thursday, in fact. Sorry for the short post today, will be back tomorrow with something a bit more substantial for you at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
uncorporeal life
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Torment and dread dog my steps, while an inescapable clarion of shame and self doubt provides texture to an otherwise fetid expanse of despair. The person which one pretends to be in the company of others is mere facade, a vainglorious edifice erected solely for the selfish aggrandizement of a fool. In the cold realities and jurisprudence of inquisition, your humble narrator is little more than some assassin of joy, an avatar of meaningless experience, and chronicler of topics best forgotten or swept away.
from wikipedia
Anthropophobia is an extreme, pathological form of shyness and timidity. Being a form of social phobia, it may manifest as fears of blushing or meeting others’ gaze, awkwardness and uneasiness when appearing in society, etc. A specific Japanese cultural form is known as taijin kyofusho.
Anthropophobia can be best defined as the fear of people in crowded situations, but can also go beyond and leave the person uncomfortable when being around just one person. Conditions vary depending on the person. Some cases are mild and can be handled while more serious cases can lead to complete social withdrawal and the exclusive use of written and electronic communication.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vastly inadequate both personally and physically, the quaking surety of an intangible manifestation of malice lurking at my perceptual threshold is omnipresent, and solipsism rules. Extant paranoia and newfound phobias paint the landscape in thick impasto, with remote possibility and hazardous outcome providing chiaroscuro and contrast. Behind every unopened door or unexamined alley will surely lurk some horrible and quivering menace, perched lewdly on the threshold of sanity.
Truly- who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
from wikipedia
Panphobia (from Greek πᾶν – pan, neuter of “πᾶς” – pas, “all” and φόβος – phobos, “fear”) also called omniphobia, pantophobia, or panophobia, is a phobia known as a “non-specific fear” or “the fear of everything” and is described as “a vague and persistent dread of some unknown evil”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Abandoned, bereft, confused, disillusioned, entangled, fragile, grandiose, histrionic, ipovlopsychophobic, jealous, kainophobic, limp, manic, narcissistic, onerous, passive, quadrumanous, repellant, sophistic, trite, unctuous, venal, xanthophobic, yonderly, and zoocytious- this is how your humble narrator spells his “abc’s”.
I’m all ‘effed up.
from wikipedia
In cognitive models of social anxiety disorder, social phobics experience dread over how they will be presented to others. They may be overly self-conscious, pay high self-attention after the activity, or have high performance standards for themselves. According to the social psychology theory of self-presentation, a sufferer attempts to create a well-mannered impression on others but believes he or she is unable to do so. Many times, prior to the potentially anxiety-provoking social situation, sufferers may deliberately go over what could go wrong and how to deal with each unexpected case. After the event, they may have the perception they performed unsatisfactorily. Consequently, they will review anything that may have possibly been abnormal or embarrassing. These thoughts do not just terminate soon after the encounter, but may extend for weeks or longer.
rustic words
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recoiling from recent company and time spent amongst the Manhattan elites, your humble narrator retreats into one of his little hobbies, locating and attempting identification of the various hatches observed to be adorning the pavement while aimlessly wandering through the megalopolis.
Contact with the landed gentry and officialdom of that tarted up island on the Hudson often reminds one of the jiggling jowls, legendary flatuence, and debased self obsession of those outrageous and decadent baronial lords found in eighteenth century Germany- resulting in and causing class rage to bubble up within this kid from working class Brooklyn.
from wirednewyork.com
The Manhole Cover Lady maintains an air of mystery. She lives alone in a studio apartment, where her files and photographs — “highly organized,” she says — leave no room for pets. She declines to reveal her age, which is about 50, because she sees herself as “ageless.” She also does not want her borough of origin made public. “Just say I’m a native New Yorker,” she says.
But she makes no secret of her crusade to save the ancient manhole covers, coal-chute covers and vault covers that dapple the city surface by the hundreds of thousands, some of them still-active portals to the netherworld. She estimates that a good 10 percent of the 400 covers featured in her book — “Designs Underfoot: The Art of Manhole Covers in New York City” — have already been paved over or tossed away since its publication in April.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thin skinned, opinionated, and -by all accounts- at least half mad, I often react to stimuli in uncommon ways.
For example: having dinner at an otherwise elegant and top notch U.S. Parks lodge restaurant on the rim of the Grand Canyon with the long suffering “Our Lady of the Pentacle” a few years ago, the evenings entertainment drove me into similar turf. A quartet of Native American dancers were presented, including two children. Now, this was obviously a “show biz” family which was likely earning good coin for the gig, but I found the scenario of having these Indian kids dancing for a roomful of pale faced conquerors uncomfortable at best.
Frankly, the analogy that came to mind was that this was a minstrel show, or a bunch of Jewish kids dancing merrily to entertain the Nazis. As mentioned, my world is strangely colored, and filtered through a strange and often disturbingly dark glass.
from wikipedia
Hasty generalization is a logical fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence — essentially making a hasty conclusion without considering all of the variables. In statistics, it may involve basing broad conclusions regarding the statistics of a survey from a small sample group that fails to sufficiently represent an entire population. Its opposite fallacy is called slothful induction, or denying the logical conclusion of an inductive argument (e.g. “it was just a coincidence”).
Context is also relevant; in mathematics, the Pólya conjecture is true for numbers less than 906,150,257, but fails for this number. Assuming something to be true for all numbers when it has been shown for over 906 million cases would not generally be considered hasty, but in mathematics a statement remains a conjecture until it is shown to be universally true.
Hasty generalization can also be a basis for racist beliefs and prejudices, in which inferences regarding a large group is based upon knowledge of only a small sample size of that group.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly enough, or logically, every inhabitant of the corridors of power wants to tell me what Newtown Creek is like- followed by their grandiose plans for it. They throw around buzzwords like sustainable, or “green”, peppering their conversation with dire prognostications about climate change and rising sea levels. Cocktail party environmentalists all, few of them have ever visited the watershed and would rather die than visit Queens, let alone Brooklyn.
To the elites of Manhattan, the population and geographic centers of New York City matter little, as long as whatever they flush or throw away disappears reliably down the drain.
from wikipedia
A cognitive bias describes a replicable pattern in perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. They are the result of distortions in the human mind that always lead to the same pattern of poor judgment, often triggered by a particular situation. Identifying “poor judgment,” or more precisely, a “deviation in judgment,” requires a standard for comparison, i.e. “good judgment”. In scientific investigations of cognitive bias, the source of “good judgment” is that of people outside the situation hypothesized to cause the poor judgment, or, if possible, a set of independently verifiable facts. The existence of most of the particular cognitive biases listed below has been verified empirically in psychology experiments.
Cognitive biases are influenced by evolution and natural selection pressure. Some are presumably adaptive and beneficial, for example, because they lead to more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions, when faster decisions are of greater value for reproductive success and survival. Others presumably result from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms, i.e. a general fault in human brain structure, from the misapplication of a mechanism that is adaptive (beneficial) under different circumstances, or simply from noisy mental processes.
occasionally titanic
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obsequious sarcasm will no doubt greet this posting, given the notion propagated by area wags that the Newtown Creek watershed is irrevocably poisoned, but early last week an expedition was mounted along the bulkheads whose express goal was to count and identify those avian lifeforms which inhabit its legend haunted shores.
Organized by the Newtown Creek Alliance Executive Director herself, our small party met in the wee hours of the morning at a coffee shop familiar to all residents of Long Island City and sallied forth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Two field experts consented to this mission, both familiar with the mores of ornithological clade and classification. Our group visited several sites which have often displayed a surprising diversity of birds, and over the course of our little expedition they described eleven distinct specie.
Every time that your humble narrator attempts to name a bird, corrections flood in, and accordingly this link is offered to the birdsbugsbuds.com blog by Shari Romar (who was one of the folks who undertook this trip) for genus, family, or common name. Additionally, Ross Diamond wrote a description of the day at this Newtown Creek Alliance page (wonder who that weirdo in the red baseball cap is, standing on the fence like he owns the place).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the spots decided on for this mission was obvious, as the multiple decade long abandonment of the Maspeth Creek tributary by industrial interests has resulted in the formation of significant “habitat” along its wooded shorelines. Cursed by a large CSO (Combined Sewer Outfall) at its terminus, Maspeth Creek often exhibits large slicks of garbage, fats, and other sediments which find their way into the wastewater flow. Nevertheless, the decaying shorelines provide ample purchase for coastal grasses and other marsh plants to grow.
This vegetation, in turn, offers hiding places for small fish and crustacea which attract birds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maspeth Creek has been, and often still is, used as an illegal dump- of course. These sunken automobiles are de facto “iconic” Newtown Creek shots, and often photographed by thrill seeking urban explorers- including your humble narrator.
What made my morning, however, was the cormorant hunting in the waters amongst them. As described in earlier posts, and by all accounts, there is a startling diversity of benthic and littoral life to be found here- in waters recently described by at least one NY State environmental official as “anoxic, and a dead sea”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Firmly held, your humble narrator clings to the belief that if the human infestation could only forget about finding new ways to exploit Newtown Creek and it’s tributaries- whether it be burning garbage to generate electricity, or the installation of vast new populations along its shores, or just finding a way to not have raw sewage belch filth directly into the water every time it rains– that nature itself would and could perform the necessary remediation of its poisons.
Adaptation and the evolutionary process, rather than some cold and industrial methodology, might be all that is required.
On the other hand, some mutant race of atavist cormorants might arise from the Newtown Creek, leading to the extinction of mankind itself so maybe we should just pave over the place- as suggested by certain members of the aforementioned community referred to as “area wags” at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
strenuous program
Note: This maritime sunday installment is a “reblog” of the Newtown Pentacle posting “cleanly picked” from August of 2010
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On one of the periodic Working Harbor Committee trips across the estuarine expanses of New York Harbor, your humble narrator became paralyzed with terror when a benthic shadow slid alongside the vessel which carried my withered husk. The shape, as that’s all I saw of it, made no sense to me and matched no phyla or phenotype familiar to my admittedly limited experience. Imagination working, it was decided that the best course of action to steady my faltering sanity would be to focus in on those things material, tangible, and engineered according to the familiar laws of physics.
In this case, it was the Tugboat “Miss Gill” cruising in photogenic splendor against the mist wrapped backdrop of the shining city of Manhattan.
from norfolktug.com
The Miss Gill spent a year at Main Iron Works in 2005 having various tanks, exterior plate and bulwarks renewed. During this yard period her winch was completely rebuilt and two new 2′ cables were installed. We bought her during this shipyard renovation, operated the her for 24 months and in mid 2008 took her back to the yard for further investment. We replaced her main engines with Caterpillar tier II technology that make her an honest 3000BHP, her reduction gears were replaced with ZF technology, and new John Deere/Kohler generators were installed. These tier II engines are the most advanced electronic platform available.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shadow, or shape, that I had spied was long obscured when a Coast Guard vessel suddenly burst into view. Fully armed, one of the redoubtable guardians of the archipelago’s frontier was manning a high caliber weapon and the boat was moving at a fantastic rate of speed, punching its way through the heavy wakes of ferry, tug, and ship alike. Recognizing that it shared some design characteristics with an NYPD harbor craft described in a recent post here- at your Newtown Pentacle- “exhalted beyond thought“, I noticed it was being followed by an even larger Federal boat.
I believe this to be a Defender class “Response Boat Small”.
from uscg.mil
Developed in a direct response to the need for additional Homeland Security assets in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Defender Class boats were procured under an emergency acquisition authority. With a contract for up to 700 standard response boats, the Defender Class acquisition is one of the largest boat buys of its type in the world. The 100 boat Defender A Class (RB-HS) fleet began arriving at units in MAY 2002 and continued through AUG 2003. After several configuration changes, most notably a longer cabin and shock mitigating rear seats, the Defender B Class (RB-S) boats were born. This fleet was first delivered to the field in OCT 2003, and there are currently 357 RB-S boats in operation.
The 457 Defender Class boats currently in operation are assigned to the Coast Guards Maritime Safety and Security Teams (MSST), Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT), Marine Safety Units (MSU), and Small Boat Stations throughout the Coast Guard. With an overall length of 25 feet, two 225 horsepower outboard engines, unique turning radius, and gun mounts boat forward and aft, the Defender Class boats are the ultimate waterborne assets for conducting fast and high speed maneuvering tactics in a small deployable package. This is evidenced in the fact that several Defender Class boats are already in operation by other Homeland Security Department agencies as well as foreign military services for their homeland security missions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was followed by a second and larger vessel, also with a manned weapons platform. If I’m correct, this is the Coast Guard “Response Boat Medium” or “RB-M”. Vessels of this design will automatically right themselves after being capsized, incidentally.
Whether or not these federal watercraft had arrived on the scene in connection with the subsurface apparition I had witnessed is anyone’s guess.
from uscg.mil
State-of-the-art marine technology makes the RB-M a high performer with waterjet propulsion, an advanced electrical system, and integrated electronics that allow greater control from the pilot house.
Technological and design features will improve search object tracking, water recovery efforts, crew comfort, and maneuvering/ intercept capabilities for defense operations. With the latest developments in integrated navigation and radiotelephony, command and control will be greatly enhanced, as will crew safety.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For such a busy waterway, modernity upon the Harbor of New York has not been kind to folklore. In the 19th century, lurid accounts of odd benthic organisms served to titillate and excite the attention of small boy and adult alike filtered in from the trans-atlantic routes. Stories of the Ottoman territories, and far away China, and the exotic British Raj.
There aren’t many tales I can point to which might describe anything like the shape I saw, suffice to say it was something like an egg all caught up in wriggling ropes. Most of the 19th century reports describe literal sea-serpents, but such saurian behemoths would be easy prey for the Coast Guard.
from wikipedia
The response boat-medium (RBM) is a 45-foot (13.7m) utility boat used by the United States Coast Guard. It is intended as a replacement for the Coast Guard’s fleet of 41′ utility boats (UTB), which have been in use by the Coast Guard since the 1970s. The Coast Guard plans to acquire 180 of these RB-Ms over a 6–10 year period. The boats will be built by Kvichak Marine Industries of Kent, Washington and Marinette Marine of Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It has always puzzled me, the way that New York City is nearly devoid of supernatural lore, while its counterparts- Boston to the north, and Philadelphia to the south are so rich in it. Connecticut and the corridor of towns and cities that line the Hudson all the way to its font in Lake Tear of the Clouds compose one of the great occult highways. Utopias and experiments in urban planning line the river, as do tales of hessian horsemen and ghostly ferries and trains. It all stops at the Bronx, though.
Perhaps its the financial realities of New York City, the no nonsense and to the minute mentality, or maybe its the street lighting- but London is very much in the same vein of city as we are, and they’re the original inventors of gothic spooky.
Maybe it’s that in New York, you’re biggest fear isn’t what goes bump in the night but rather losing your job, or getting into trouble with some all too human monsters.
for an overwhelming example of the defense industry’s love of CGI and fancy web design, click here to check out the USCG sitelet for the RB-M, which includes an interactive 3D model and fancy graphics.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shadow I observed seemed to be heading toward Red Hook, but the likely explanation was that the nearby Staten Island Ferry had simply cast a refracted image of itself or that the wake of a passing tuboat had disturbed some riverine sediments. The coincidence of the arrival of two armed Coast Guard vessels was just part of some regular patrol schedule, not a response to some unknown thing which could not possibly exist down there.
Right?
from wikipedia
“Burned-over district” refers to the religious scene in upstate New York in the early 19th century, which was repeatedly “burned over” by religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening.
The term was coined by Charles Grandison Finney who in his 1876 book Autobiography of Charles G. Finney referred to a “burnt district” (p78) to denote an area in central and western New York State during the Second Great Awakening. The name was inspired by the notion that the area had been so heavily evangelized as to have no “fuel” (unconverted population) left over to “burn” (convert).
When religion is related to reform movements of the period, such as abolition, women’s rights, and utopian social experiments, the region expands to include areas of central New York that were important to these movements.
The Newtown Pentacle 