Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
Archives #005
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The broken ankle kept me up half the night yesterday, which I guess is good as that’s related to healing. Yeah? Hope so. Things get a little better every day around HQ, as I’m getting my strength back and Our Lady of the Pentacle continues the heroic level of care she’s providing for both me and Moe the Dog.
This 2016 post discussed NYC’S DEP in a positive manner, which is a rare event in the Newtown Pentacle archives. They solved an Astoria problem lickety split.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A couple of times a day I need to lie down just to stretch a bit. The ankle situation has me in a wheelchair, and I’m spending all day sitting. Hunched over in a chair gets super uncomfortable, with the abdominal organs compressed down under the ribs. Ugh. I really need to take a walk, but that’s not possible.
This 2020 post discusses a walk through industrial Maspeth, which I always called my happy place. I like post apocalyptic landscapes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned the other day, the only blessing in this situation is that I’m not living in NYC anymore. All of this would have been so much more difficult to deal with back home.
This 2023 post is from Pittsburgh, and describes a short walk back to the light rail which I took, after having a beer and photographing trains.
Back next week, I hope.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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 #002
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Day two of archive posts greets you, lords and ladies, as your broken but still humble narrator recovers from a fairly severe fracture of multiple bones in the ankle. My life at the moment isn’t much fun, and I’m sitting down all the time – which is anathema to one such as myself. It’s a bit like that Hitchcock movie ‘Rear Window’ here around HQ.
On this date in 2019, this post was published here, describing a minor adventure wherein I was riding on an all electric boat, and spotted the USCGC Katherine Walker anchored on the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thankfully, I don’t require the pain dulling medications anymore, which introduced a fog of narcotic haze into my thoughts. Attention spans of less than 10-15 minutes on that stuff. It’s good to be able to mentally focus again, although I’m still a little drug drunk after two weeks of opioids. Hangovers, amirite?
2018’s October 8 post was focused on me getting back to Astoria and negotiating one of MTA’s meltdowns, while needing to poop. I’ll point out that NYC isn’t a ‘City of Yes,’ it’s the city of ‘No, there aren’t any public toilets.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Trouble I’m having right now is how to occupy my mind. Boring, boring. I’ve found myself watching hour after hour of Police body cam videos, and can advise the citizenry on roughly 20 things not to do when the Cops show up. You don’t want to set the Cops off with #7 – spitting – for instance.
One of my tricks to avoid the madness of isolation during the pandemic months was to go ride the NYC Ferry, as described in this post from 2020.
“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.
Here’s the scoop
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Written from a wheel chair – So… last week, your humble narrator was locking down the house in preparation of going to bed. Our Lady, and Moe the Dog, had already retreated from consciousness but I’m a night owl and had been watching some meaningless television show before surrendering to biology. Little did I know that my particular biological function would soon become quite the topic of conversation moving forward.
While watching said televisual presentation, I realized that I had left my phone on the office desk found downstairs. Cursing, as I had already locked the door leading down to ‘the engine room,’ your humble narrator stepped onto one of two short flights of steps leading downstairs, separated by a landing.
My left foot lowered onto the second to last of the lower steps, which ended up being a pretty important moment, lifestyle wise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My ankle rolled, and then I went tumbling forward in space. For a split second, I saw the top of my knee and the sole of my foot at the same time, as I pitched forward. I fell into a roll, at which point I saw my left foot turned opposite the direction it was pointing at just a second or two previously, and a loud cracking/popping sound was heard.
I landed on my side, rolling with the momentum. A loud ‘gahhh’ sound erupted from your humble narrator, and pain blossomed. Now, I’ve been hurt a lot over the years, and even had a heart attack once.
Nothing in my experience, however, has been as painful as – or compares – to this moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Instantly, shock set in. Perspiration coated the skin, my breathing assumed a quick and staccato rythym, and I reached down to grasp at my left ankle and foot. Upon doing so, the foot made a grinding/clicking sound. Agony ensued, and I sat there for a moment holding my ankle – which was also making a similar but separate grinding and clicking sound. That’s when I noticed that the ankle bone, which has historically occupied the interior side of my calf, was bulging out from the front of the shin.
It took about two or three minutes to gather myself and soon I was shouting upstairs at Our Lady for help. She arrived quickly, and upon assessing my appearance asked if we needed to call 911. My answer was yes, and after placing the call so she gathered up some personal items I’d need for a trip to an emergency department at some nearby hospital. Wallet, etc.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An ambulance arrived, and then two EMS medics entered the house. They instantly assessed my situation as serious and stoutly carried me onto a stretcher, and into their Ambulance. On the way, a hypodermic of Morphine was injected into my arm, and a field dressing splint installed onto my ankle. My foot hung loosely during this, in the manner of a sock filled with a ham sandwich, and the splint ameliorated the painful side to side shaking of the thing as the Ambulance sped to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital, and I was transferred via back board to a hospital bed within. I was soon in a ‘room’ in the Emergency ward, and an X-Ray technician appeared with a portable examination unit. Things get hazy around here, due to all the medical grade drugs in me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A diagnosis was soon pronounced, and the injury was described as being a Trimalleolar fracture with dislocation. The ankle bones which protrude into the skin on both sides of the joint were now free floating, and a third bone in the foot was also fractured. The foot itself was dislocated from the joining with the leg bones of the calf. Surgery would provide the only fix, but that wouldn’t happen until the next day.
This is when they switched me off of Morphine and over to medical Fentanyl to control the pain. Before this journey through the operating room and back to HQ would be completed – Dilaudid, Ketamine, and eventually OxyContin were added to my list of drugs I’ve taken but never wanted to experience.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Surgery took around three hours, I’m told, but it’s all a haze. Recovery will take – at a minimum – six months, but it could stretch out as long as two years depending on circumstances. Obviously, I won’t be taking any walks – short or long – for a long time. What about this here Newtown Pentacle, then?
My plan for the interim is to link back into the extensive archives of past posts published here. The conceit I’m planning in terms of choosing these posts will be calendrical in nature. Three past posts chosen from a given day/month which match up with whatever the new post’s publication date is.
Thereby you’ll be seeing a lot of Newtown Creek, Queens, and NY Harbor stuff here again. I’m going to try and maintain my regular publishing schedule this way while I get back onto my foot, and I hope y’all will stay with me through this trial – something which I have no choice but to endure. I’ll try for five days a week, but cannot make any promises at the moment.
Back tomorrow – hopefully.
“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.
Three Potato
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mentioned several times this week, a humble narrator found himself taking a birthday walk here in Pittsburgh, and there was a regular cavalcade of CSX trains witnessed for the whole way. I was listening to a short playlist of songs, which I refer to as ‘my theme music,’ which includes a song about Superman by the 1990’s group ‘Crash Test Dummies.’
The eventual destination for the walk was the now familiar Sly Fox Brewery in the South Side Flats area, along the Monongahela River, where libation and good company was found.
This was my 20,820th day on the planet. That’s 499,680 hours, by the way. I still get pretty good mileage despite being so close to a half million hours in, although the frame has become a bit warped, and I could definitely use a new set of brakes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been contemplating the whole Superman is ‘more powerful than a locomotive’ thing of late. CSX #7269, up there above is – for instance – a rebuilt GE AC4400CWM model locomotive. It weighs 426,000 pounds and produces 4,400 HP of traction. That means Superman has to be capable of exerting at least 5,000 HP worth of counter force through his hands if he’s going to overpower it. Figure in momentum, and Supes would need to muster maybe two to three times that amount of force to bring it to a stop.
Now as to what ‘horse power’ means, it’s complicated. Also complicated is how Superman might stop a train without causing a derailment to ripple through all the coupled carriages behind the engine.
Suffice to say that Superman is surprisingly capable, and that the laws of physics don’t entirely apply to him. Strange visitor from another planet, indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a week or so before my half millionth hour on the planet, this is what I was getting up to. To be fair, I’ve had worse Birthdays.
Me? I barely manifest any horse power at all. A strong breeze is enough to push me backwards, and I was recently knocked onto my butt after colliding with a housefly back at HQ.
To be fair, that was some fly I ran into. Wonder if it might have been Kryptonian? Does a fly perceive us as meat locomotives, or just as strange visitors from the same planet? What do you say, lords and ladies?6
“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.
Two Potato
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After CSX #148 hurtled past my lens, which is pictured above and was described yesterday, the CSX Subdivision’s signal lights indicated that the transportation company wasn’t quite done with showing off on this particular afternoon. Well… it was a humble narrator’s birthday, after all.
It was also the anniversary of the Pittsburgh incident of 1968, a fictional account of which was packaged up by local film makers for national distribution. Coincidentally, I share a Birthday with the original Kosciuszko Bridge, over Newtown Creek back in NYC. Like me, that bridge has left the city and the creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You don’t normally see two trains facing in the same direction hereabouts, so that drew my attention when they appeared. The tracks to the right are generally hosting traffic heading west or ‘away.’ The train on that side was static, whereas the second train was soon hurtling forward on the left side track. Fun!
If you click through to the larger incarnations of the photo, hosted at Flickr, you’ll notice a great deal of heat distortion captured in the image. It was in the high 80’s, but luckily it was only a bit humid at this particular moment. If you don’t like the weather in Pittsburgh, just wait an hour and it’ll change into something different.
Ya got yaself whatch youse might call’s one a dem ‘volatile atmospheres’ here, sparky. What you gonna do?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX #7006 broke out of formation on the left hand track and started pulsing its way towards your humble narrator. I’m told it’s a Rebuilt GE CM44AC model locomotive that’s been hurtling around North America since 1996, and is one of 593 such locomotives operated by the company.
As a note: I’m still fairly bewildered by all of this train stuff. The specificity, the overlapping ownerships, the nitty gritty of model types and years of – it’s all so very confusing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While the train was advancing, your humble narrator kept on moving from one patch of shadow to another hoping for an angle of view advantage. The trail is graded to rail standard and is thereby easy walking, but it has a very slight rise in altitude when you’re standing ‘here’ vs. ‘there.’ Splitting hairs, really.
There was also a tree line to contend with, one which occluded the Fort Pitt Bridge above and the Pittsburgh skyline behind it. I finally settled on this spot as the train neared.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The second train on the right hand track was still static after #7006 passed by, pulling what looked like a collection of automotive carrier cars and random cargo or tanker cars. Scuttling soon resumed, but every few minutes a point was made of checking over my shoulder to see if anything was happening with that other train.
That second train was being held in place by signal lights, luckily they’re ones which you can plainly read from the neighboring trail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While walking along, I noticed a towboat on the Monongahela River heading towards the Ohio River. See – the photo above proves it.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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 