Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
Archives #044
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, medical clearance for a return to whatever it is that I call ‘normal’ is at hand. I’ve still got a long orthopedic road ahead of me, as the busted ankle’s surgical recovery period will still be playing out for several months. It’s sore, and I can feel the various tendons and ligaments growing annoyed while reversing the atrophy which they’ve suffered, during the period when I was adorned with a cast.
In many ways, this is how this particular moment feels to me. I’m back, maybe? Care to step outside?
2009’s ‘Mt Zion 4- A Lurid Shimmering of Pale Light’ was published on this date, part of a series exploring the centuried polyandrion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve still got another month of ‘PT’ ahead of me. So far, it’s all about stretching and strength training for the affected limb. I’ve had to explain to my trainer that I’m probably the least athletic person he’s ever worked with and that a ‘spasmodic, lurching, flying, and scuttling’ form and posture of locomotion is normal for one such as myself. Christmas week is theoretically when I’m meant to have a sit down with the surgeon who slotted me back together, and that’s when I’m expecting this experience to start to really wind down and recede into a bad memory.
2011’s ‘hewn rudely’ discusses the ‘ancient home of graft’ which is what they used to call LIC before consolidation with the larger city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m writing this on Thanksgiving Day, so there’s actually a chance that next week (2nd week of December) you might actually see something newly gathered here. No promises, as there’s still weather to contend with, and it’s meant to be snowing in Pittsburgh for the next few days…
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
Another cemetery post was published, this time in 2012, in ‘Tales of Calvary 13- The Callahan monument.’ You never know what, or who, you’re going to find at First Calvary.
“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.
Archives #043
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post is being written on Thanksgiving Day, and after my most recent physical therapy or ‘PT’ appointment, I’ve got a lot of thanks to give.
My ‘PT guy’ has issued an expiry on me wearing the walking boot, and wants me to phase into just using a pair of regular shoes full time again. Additionally, it looks like I’m cleared – as far as the second week of December goes – to start my walks again. It’s going to be a slow start – 1,000 feet and back for the first day and then increased increments after that – but this ankle nightmare is finally moving into the category of ‘something that happened’ as opposed to ‘something that’s happening.’
2012’s ‘glassy eyes’ was part of a survey of Newtown Creek’s uplands with a Columbia professor who was gathering samples of whatever biologies the flood waters had deposited upon LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve entirely missed autumn this year, which blows. Additionally, it’s been so long since I’ve shot a photo that I’m going to have to inventory what’s inside my camera bag. Charge the batteries, clean the glass…
It’s like having a prison warden tell you that the parole board has approved your application, this.
2013’s ‘strange instruments’ saw me pondering both the corrosive dissolution of aging, and whether or not there are subterranean grottoes beneath Queens Plaza.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I should mention that the evolving situation with the ankle has never been pain free, and the joint seems a little angry about losing the bracing of the walking boot, but since that cast came off a little over a month ago – everyday has been a little better than the one before. I’m sleeping through the night without getting woken up by sudden pain, for instance.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
2017’s ‘after action’ detailed an encounter with a thoroughly destroyed automobile on the corner of Vernon and Jackson in LIC.
“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.
Archives #042
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, as seen from the former Uneeda Biscuit factory in Long Island City, which is currently called LaGuardia Community College’s building C. I shot this one right before the first ever press conference that I was supposed to speak at on behalf of Newtown Creek Alliance, and this was also the first time I met Rep. Carolyn Maloney. She taught me how to smile for the cameras, and offered the trick of mushing your tongue up against the back of your teeth while grinning to cover up any gaps in the dentition.
In 2010, ‘Hunters Point Avenue Bridge Centennial, Dec. 11’ was published, hawking a free event which – as it turns out – was the first Newtown Creek event that had my name on it. This event is where all the tours and boat trips and Creekathons started. It’s also the last time that my pal Bernie Ente attended one of these goofy events before he got sick and passed away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things which I consider as being pure serendipity is that during the years I was focused on Newtown Creek, a mad king in Albany decided he wanted to replace the Kosciuszcko Bridge. I’d swing through the work zone about every two weeks and do a photo survey of the project. Eventually, I was invited to join the stakeholders group, which gave me onsite access. In the end I managed to record the scene before, during, and after the construction project played out.
In 2014, ‘worse because’ brought readers to DUKBO – Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp – on the ragged border of Maspeth and LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Want to know why everything costs more these days? Corporate consolidation, that’s why. The concrete sector of the building industry in NYC, for instance, has been purchased away from ‘family’ companies by a national conglomerate – bit by bit. Monopolies charge whatever they want for their product, as there’s no competition.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
2015’s ‘flat platform’ explores what the modern version of NYC would be like if we were still using pack animals to move things around instead of using trucks and other vehicles.
“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.
Archives #041
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy Monday, lords and ladies. Progress, recovery from the injury wise, continues here at HQ. Hoping that sometime towards the end of this week or the start of the next… I might just be able to wield the camera again. Cross your fingers, mine are.
I think I’ve mentioned it previously, but since I started receiving physical therapy treatments for the ankle recovery my healing factor has gone into overdrive. This week’s posts are being written on Thanksgiving, I’d mention, so you’re a few days into my future while reading this.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
2013’s ‘monstrous guilt’ appeared today, addressing a few of the many accusations leveled at your humble narrator in the early days of this publication by various malcontents and madmen back in Queens, in a post illustrated with photos of walking around in Manhattan. Paranoid, much? Sheesh. Don’t miss a certain subsection of y’all at all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m still under Doctor’s orders to wear the walking boot when I’m out and about, but around HQ I’ve just been instructed to wear just a pair of my normal shoes again. I’ve also been growing capable enough to handle the bare minimums of adulthood again, cooking light meals and such.
Just watch, though… the day I say ‘I’m going out to go get some shots’ is the same day a blizzard appears and buries Pittsburgh in thirty stories of snow.
2014’s ‘faint draft’ saw me attending the christening and launch of the NYC DEP’s newest (at the time) sludge boat on Ward’s Island in the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It grinds that I’ve lost three months out of my life to this experience, but hey – I’m still kicking. I’m constantly reminded, however, that time grows short and the shadows are stretching out long. I’ve got a lot of dead friends, Y’see.
Time is precious, don’t piss any of it away if there’s a choice about it.
2015’s ‘marine things’ is a lament about another friend of mine dropping dead, this time it was Staten Island’s own John Skelson.
“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.
Archives #040
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been a wild 1,729 hours, I’ll offer, between the day I shattered my ankle and this post. People look at me cross eyed when I discuss events in terms of hours or days rather than weeks/months/years, but getting granular with such things speaks better to the experience of medical drama – in my opinion. Roughly 1,600 of those hours involved constant and inescapable pain, the kind that wakes you out of a dead sleep.
2010’s ‘Tales of Calvary 6’ tells the story of one of First Calvary Cemetery’s permanent residents – the Newsboy Governor Al Smith.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been walking around the house just wearing shoes for a couple of hours a day, on medical advice I’d mention, but when I’m out in the world the giant Frankenstein like walking boot is affixed to the injured limb. By ‘out in the world,’ I mainly mean driving back and forth to my weekly triad of physical therapy appointments. I’ve also been assigned ‘homework’ for the ankle, a three times a day series of stretching moves. It seems that all of the discrete little rubber bands which compose the ligament and tendon department are the focus of this action. The process is working, as I’ve had a comparatively pain free couple of weeks, but it still hurts – not gonna lie.
2016 saw ‘engulfed in’ published, with a progress report on the real estate industrial complex’s build out in Queens Plaza. Stealing the sky, indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s looking like the end of this journey is going to be just another starting line, this one will start at the end of the year as I try to resume my normal activities. Not going to lie, it’s scary thinking about resuming even my short walks. Might have to get a bike.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
Back next week.
“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 