Posts Tagged ‘photowalk’
Experiments 1
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inspirado strikes in funny ways. To wit, Our Lady of the pentacle returned from one of her periodic expeditions to area thrift and secondhand stores with a used Viewmaster and several of the little travelogue reels which typified the gadget (The Petrified Forest, or Alcatraz, or Grand Canyon- there were thousands of these things, and it was a very popular diversion in the pre digital days).
For those of you born into the digital age, a viewmaster was a “toy” featuring a binocular sighting gizmo that focuses in on a tiny transparency contained on a ratcheted disc which is rotated into position via a lever. The whole device is held in front of an illuminated light source, and whatever the presented image is appears in the sights.
The Viewmaster people perfected the trick of a certain dimensionality, not true 3d of course, but the sort of analog stereoscopic illusion which you might be familiar with because of Disney animation with it’s multi plane camera work. This effect is something I had forgotten about, wherein comes the “inspirado”. There’s got to be a way to suggest that dimensionality, the “jump” as it were, in photoshop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not quite as simple as “tilt-shifting“, the effect I’m trying to get (which I haven’t yet achieved, although these 2 images are fairly close) involves stacking the various layers of background with certain alterations to density and saturation. That “pop” isn’t quite there yet, which might represent a shortcoming in the actual photograph of course, but it’s fairly close.
Of course, there are those who do actual stereographs- YTF from the Newtown Pentacle group at Flickr has mastered the technique for instance- but I’m trying to achieve it in a single image.
Experiment, fail, theorize, experiment, fail- it’s all empirical- I’ll keep y’all posted…
dark apertures
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“The daily reminder”:
Please consider purchasing a copy of the first Newtown Pentacle book:
“Newtown Creek for the Vulgarly Curious” – a fully annotated 68 page, full-color journey from the mouth of Newtown Creek at the East River all the way back to the heart of darkness at English Kills, with photos and text by Mitch Waxman.
Lamentable, this dark part of of the solar cycle both frustrates and delights.
Unwelcome, the return of frigid conditions renders my wrecked health tremulous. Unbalanced, my delicate constitution reaches out desperately for amusement and titillation. Tenebrous- the light of December is thin, ephemeral, a cloying charlatan.
I’m all ‘effed up.
from wikipedia
Anxiety is a generalized mood condition that can often occur without an identifiable triggering stimulus. As such, it is distinguished from fear, which is an emotional response to a perceived threat. Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is related to situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable. An alternative view defines anxiety as “a future-oriented mood state in which one is ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events”, suggesting that it is a distinction between future vs. present dangers which divides anxiety and fear.
Physical effects of anxiety may include heart palpitations, muscle weakness and tension, fatigue, nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, stomach aches, or headaches. The body prepares to deal with a threat: blood pressure and heart rate are increased, sweating is increased, blood flow to the major muscle groups is increased, and immune and digestive system functions are inhibited (the fight or flight response). External signs of anxiety may include pale skin, sweating, trembling, and pupillary dilation. Someone who has anxiety might also experience it as a sense of dread or panic. Although panic attacks are not experienced by every person who has anxiety, they are a common symptom. Panic attacks usually come without warning, and although the fear is generally irrational, the perception of danger is very real. A person experiencing a panic attack will often feel as if he or she is about to die or pass out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Loathsome, the reflection which gazes from every shop window and puddle of urine during my long walks is that of something which can only be superficially referred to as a man.
Filthy and blackened by time, my garb has become tattered and beggarly of late. Financial hardship experienced over a long and sordid lifetime instructs that only the coarse and lasting textiles worn by beasts of burden should be considered for replacements, as they will outlast the fancy caprices of fashion and comfort by virtue of their sheer and stolid composition. These are hard times my friends, and the hard rain has already fallen.
A season of the witch is apparent, Lords and Ladies, and Woody Guthrie would recognize our time immediately as his own.
from wikipedia
Self-Awareness Theory states that when we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves. Various emotional states are intensified by self-awareness, and people sometimes try to reduce or escape it through things like television, video games, drugs, etc. However, some people may seek to increase their self-awareness through these outlets. People are more likely to align their behavior with their standards when made self-aware. People will be negatively affected if they don’t live up to their personal standards. Various environmental cues and situations induce awareness of the self, such as mirrors, an audience, or being videotaped or recorded. These cues also increase accuracy of personal memory.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lutescent, my skin color produces impressions of some jaundiced ginger candy lightly drizzled over with a thin syrup of sweat, a noted change from the sun baked complexion which was earned during the many maritime adventures of the vernal months that were described at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
A recent observation of myself at 4:30 AM in the bathroom mirror, after having spent a considerable number of hours researching a certain bridge which crosses that malign influence known as the Newtown Creek, was the moment when I realized that I had let my beard grow unchecked for better than 60 days and allowed my external appearance to betray my state of mind. The wild eyed thing staring back at me… reaching out to me as I did the same to him… surely it remains trapped in that pane of mirrored glass.
I went to the barber the next morning, and as Joe of “Joe and Tony’s” dragged a straight razor across my throat and scratched off months of neglect- for the first time in ages- I was able to relax.
from wikipedia
Clinicians assess the physical aspects such as the appearance of a patient, including apparent age, height, weight, and manner of dress and grooming. Colorful or bizarre clothing might suggest mania, while unkempt, dirty clothes might suggest schizophrenia or depression. If the patient appears much older than his or her chronological age this can suggest chronic poor self-care or ill-health. Clothing and accessories of a particular subculture, body modifications, or clothing not typical of the patient’s gender, might give clues to personality. Observations of physical appearance might include the physical features of alcoholism or drug abuse, such as signs of malnutrition, nicotine stains, dental erosion, a rash around the mouth from inhalant abuse, or needle track marks from intravenous drug abuse. Observations can also include any odor which might suggest poor personal hygiene due to extreme self-neglect, or alcohol intoxication. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes (2005) tells us to look out for weight loss. This could signify a depressive disorder, physical illness, anorexia nervosa or chronic anxiety.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Labefaction of my very self continues unabated, and flavor is absent from all the elixirs of joy.
Sleep, and concurrent dreaming, has plagued me with its insistence and Antaeus like grip. When the oppression of these periods of unconscious hallucinations lift, I force myself from home and wander the streets in the manner and aforementioned garb of a mendicant. Drifting like some cast off ember caught on the wind, I follow the sun but as always- I am relegated to stand in the shadows of this world and its bright places are reserved for others to enjoy. Outside, in the cold and filth is where I belong- not amongst bright and happy faces chortling over shared intimacies and embarrassing overtures.
Inevitability is enjoyed by the sleepy, for in the end, they shall drop off.
from wikipedia
Depersonalization (or depersonalisation) is a malfunction or anomaly of the mechanism by which an individual has self-awareness. It is a feeling of watching oneself act, while having no control over a situation. It can be considered desirable, such as in the use of recreational drugs, but it usually refers to the severe form found in anxiety and, in the most intense cases, panic attacks. Sufferers feel they have changed, and the world has become less real, vague, dreamlike, or lacking in significance. It can be a disturbing experience, since many feel that, indeed, they are living in a “dream”. Depersonalization is a subjective experience of unreality in one’s sense of self, while derealization is unreality of the outside world. Although most authors currently regard depersonalization (self) and derealization (surroundings) as independent constructs, many do not want to separate derealization from depersonalization.Chronic depersonalization refers to depersonalization disorder, which is classified by the DSM-IV as a dissociative disorder. Though depersonalization-derealization feelings can happen to anyone subject to temporary severe anxiety/stress, chronic depersonalization is more related to individuals who have experienced a severe trauma or prolonged stress/anxiety. Depersonalization-derealization is the single most important symptom in the spectrum of dissociative disorders, including Dissociative Identity Disorder and Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DD-NOS). It is also a prominent symptom in some other non-dissociative disorders, such as anxiety disorders, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, migraine, sleep deprivation, and some types of epilepsy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lexiphanic lickspittle, the lickerish lientery offered today is limaceous, foully libanophorous, and is admittedly… logorrhoea.
The question you may be asking, of course, might be “What exactly does this all have to do with anything, and what’s up with dem boids?”. Simply put, today is the beginning of the Roman festival of Saturnalia, a day of tricks and treats- and described as the “best of days” by the poet Catullus.
Traditionally, it was the day when masters and slaves would trade places. What fun that would be.
from wikipedia
Mad hatter disease describes the symptoms of mercury poisoning, specifically its effect on the nervous system. These include paraesthesias, vision and hearing impairment, slurred speech, anxiety, hallucinations, irritability, depression, lack of coordination, and tremors. The condition was observed among workers in the hat-making industry in the 1800s. Chronic mercury exposure was common in hatters who used a mercury solution during the process of curing animal pelts. Poor ventilation in the workshops of the time resulted in the hatters breathing in the fumes of this highly toxic metal, leading to an accumulation of mercury in the workers’ bodies. Metal toxicity was poorly understood and the broad range of symptoms were also associated with insanity.The phrase mad as a hatter is derived from the condition, and commonly associated with Lewis Carroll’s character the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. While the character’s eccentricities differ from those suffering from mercury poisoning (the Hatter was likely inspired by Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer), Lewis Carroll grew up near the town of Stockport, where hatting was the dominant trade.
viscous obstacles
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A little Xmas business today… but first- I wish it was possible, scientifically and mechanically (and perhaps legally), to move about the city invisibly- to employ what the Star Trek franchise would refer to as “a cloaking device”. Hunters employ what is known as “a blind”, which is a hidden perch or camouflaged spot which offers one an enhanced angle of fire while remaining hidden from the viewpoint of their quarry. I like to pretend that I have several of these spots around the city- blind alleys and hidden culverts mostly. If there’s a manhole cover slightly ajar on Jackson Avenue, might it be that your humble narrator is the man in that hole?
I’m all ‘effed up.
Incidentally, as the Newtown Creek Alliance site has previously announced, there will be a meeting tonight in Greenpoint to discuss the recent developments about boating access from City owned property along the Creek. I’ll most likely attend, and I’m sure that the discussion and panel of municipal representatives will be engaging, lively, and ribald. Here’s the details, from the NCA site:
Boating Access to Newtown Creek in Jeopardy
The NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection will be holding a meeting to address its recent closure of the boat launch at the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. As the Nature Walk is one of the few public access points to the Creek, we encourage everyone to attend the DEP meeting and advocate for the City re-open the boat launch immediately.
When: Thursday, December 16, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Where: Newtown Creek Visitor Center, 329 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222 [directions]
In their own words “Please join the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Department of City Planning, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation for a hearing on the feasibility of future access to New York City owned kayak launches on Newtown Creek. The hearing will provide the public an opportunity to testify on the feasibility of future access to New York City-owned kayak launches on Newtown Creek. For more information and to submit written statements in advance for those who cannot attend, please email Matt Mahoney at MMahoney@dep.nyc.gov or call 718-595-6605.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Hunters Point Bridge Centennial Event on Saturday the 11th was well attended, despite the blistering cold typical of the period immediately preceding the winter solstice, and the stalwart engineers of the DOT opened the draw bridge for the surprised delight and education of the crowd. The supervisor of the Borden Avenue Bridge reconstruction project (who we kind of bumped into) also gave us a moment of his time, and described the long term project which he described as nearing completion.
Postings and photos will be coming forthwith, expect them soon, here at your Newtown Pentacle.
Speaking of your Newtown Pentacle, and the existential realities and meager finances currently extant for your humble narrator- please consider purchasing a copy of the first Newtown Pentacle book: “Newtown Creek for the Vulgarly Curious” – a fully annotated 68 page, full-color journey from the mouth of Newtown Creek at the East River all the way back to the heart of darkness at English Kills, with photos and text by Mitch Waxman.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In other news, a rather in depth profile of me was run yesterday at blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu, which is the sort of thing I’m afraid I’ll never get used to but which swells my ego nevertheless.
Bowery Savings Bank 2010 and 1903
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Bowery Savings Bank in Manhattan during the summer of 2010.
– photo from “King’s views of New York City, A.D.1903” a public domain ebook courtesy Google Books
The Bowery Savings Bank in Manhattan in 1903.
Here’s a stitched panorama of the corner in 2010, just for the “longer” view. Click through to Flickr to see the gargantuan original.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
History of the Necronomicon by H. P. Lovecraft
Notes:
- Don’t miss the Hunter’s Point Avenue Bridge Centennial tomorrow, on December 11th, a free event. For more on the HPA Bridge Centennial, click here.
- Also, please consider purchasing a copy of the first Newtown Pentacle book: “Newtown Creek for the Vulgarly Curious” – a fully annotated 68 page, full-color journey from the mouth of Newtown Creek at the East River all the way back to the heart of darkness at English Kills, with photos and text by Mitch Waxman.
Woodside Botanica – photo by Mitch Waxman
History of the Necronomicon
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 1927. Published 1938.
Original title Al Azif — azif being the word used by Arabs to designate that nocturnal sound (made by insects) suppos’d to be the howling of daemons.
Composed by Abdul Alhazred, a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia — the Roba el Khaliyeh or “Empty Space” of the ancients — and “Dahna” or “Crimson” desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was written, and of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told.
He is said by Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen fabulous Irem, or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind. He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping unknown entities whom he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.
Vanderbilt Study – photo by Mitch Waxman
In A.D. 950 the Azif, which had gained a considerable tho’ surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age, was secretly translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople under the title Necronomicon. For a century it impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts, when it was suppressed and burnt by the patriarch Michael. After this it is only heard of furtively, but (1228) Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the Latin text was printed twice — once in the fifteenth century in black-letter (evidently in Germany) and once in the seventeenth (prob. Spanish) — both editions being without identifying marks, and located as to time and place by internal typographical evidence only.
Altar at Mt. Zion cemetery fenceline – photo by Mitch Waxman
The work both Latin and Greek was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, shortly after its Latin translation, which called attention to it. The Arabic original was lost as early as Wormius’ time, as indicated by his prefatory note; and no sight of the Greek copy — which was printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550 — has been reported since the burning of a certain Salem man’s library in 1692.
An English translation made by Dr. Dee was never printed, and exists only in fragments recovered from the original manuscript. Of the Latin texts now existing one (15th cent.) is known to be in the British Museum under lock and key, while another (17th cent.) is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. A seventeenth-century edition is in the Widener Library at Harvard, and in the library of Miskatonic University at Arkham. Also in the library of the University of Buenos Aires.
Numerous other copies probably exist in secret, and a fifteenth-century one is persistently rumoured to form part of the collection of a celebrated American millionaire. A still vaguer rumour credits the preservation of a sixteenth-century Greek text in the Salem family of Pickman; but if it was so preserved, it vanished with the artist R. U. Pickman, who disappeared early in 1926. The book is rigidly suppressed by the authorities of most countries, and by all branches of organised ecclesiasticism. Reading leads to terrible consequences. It was from rumours of this book (of which relatively few of the general public know) that Robert W. Chambers is said to have derived the idea of his early novel The King in Yellow.
