Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
ascending node
It’s National Creampuff day, here in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Christmastoria exemplified is how I describe the shot above.
An early entrant into my Astoria Tumbleweeds category, this tiny holiday tree was properly disposed of, and kind of summed up my mood for the holiday season which has now thankfully passed into memory. Just wasn’t feeling it this year, I wasn’t. Weather, social obligation… a lot of things were happening all through December that just got in the way of solitarily marching around Queens and critiquing things I saw which absolutely nobody asked for – nor cared about – my opinion on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I did manage to get out here and there, stealing an hour or two for myself. These were short walks, mainly, without any specific destination or goal. All in the name of just kicking my feet about and getting a little exercise. It’s an odd thing for me to leave the house and come back with only a couple of images on the camera. That’s mighty Triborough, of course, as seen from the corner of Astoria Blvd. and 31st street one sunny afternoon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, after Christmas came and went, the weather wasn’t too bad – for short intervals – and I decided to get busy.
Getting busy is what I’m all about at the moment, incidentally. Buckle up, the Newtown Pentacle is back in session.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
guttural accent
Old acquaintance be forgot, all that jazz, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last post of 2016 right here, lords and ladies, coming to you from the Empty Corridor of LIC. As y’all know, my favorite part of the concrete devastations for many years has been the splendid isolation it offered, which is getting all screwed up by real estate development. There’s so many more people around these parts than there were ten years ago… where’s a humble narrator got to go to find some solitude and listen to his HP Lovecraft audiobooks? I suppose there’s always Calvary Cemetery, but…
The Empty Corridor, I would mention, is a term of my own invention. It’s the zone of LIC found down under the Long Island Expresway – or DULIE. You’ve got to stay ahead of the real estate people, I always say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s an MTA owned railroad access road which isn’t exactly a NYC DOT street, despite it having a “29th street” sign hanging on it. It adjoins the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, connecting Hunters Point Avenue and 47th avenue. If you send mail to one of the businesses found on this street, you can write the address as “One Dutch Kills” rather than “29th street” and it will be delivered. That’s something I learned in 2016.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the subject of looking forward to 2017, the battle of Queens looms large. The Mayor of NYC announced, a while ago now, that he intends to deck over the titan Sunnyside Yards and build what promises to be a disastrous number of housing units there without a concurrent buildout of infrastructure. Bill de Blasio; the big little mayor, the dope from park slope, the vainglorious ideologue – he’s got another thing coming if he thinks he’s going to wreck Western Queens.
A sleeping activist giant has awoken in this borough, thanks to his homeless hotels, disingenuous neoliberalism masquerading as progressive policy, and his crass Tammany style corruption.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
terrible keenness
The southern side of Woodside, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 27th of December in 1657, the Flushing Remonstrance was presented to Peter Stuyvesant, over in the City. That’s your Queens history factoid of the day. I’m going to a holiday party in the City tonight, and I can virtually guarantee that nothing quite so earth shattering as the emergence of the legal precursor of Constitutionally protected religious freedom will emerge from the endeavor. There will likely be soft cheeses, crackers, and wine however.
Life is shit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, whilst wandering along the fence lines of and through the “House of Moses” in Elmhurst, Winfield, and Woodside the other day I got to thinking about something that bugs me. During political type conversations with various folks in the last couple of years, a common statement has been offered to me which states that the U.S.’s Constitutional Bill of Rights “grants” me this and that (including the notion of the freedom of conscience which was first clarified to Peter Stuyvesant way back in 1657 Queens). If you check the actual language of the thing – it “acknowledges” “certain inalienable human rights.”
“Grant” means that it gives you these rights, and that it can take them back if warranted. That’s “stinking thinking” if you ask me, but what do I know? I’m no law scholar, just some idiot with a camera and an afternoon off, which I spent walking along a highway in Queens. I do know what “inalienable” means, however, and that “acknowledge” is better than “grant.”
Think about it in terms of acknowledging the right you have to live another day without being murdered, versus being granted another murder free day. This is the sort of stuff which keeps me up nights, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Anywho, the little path I picked for myself was quite hilly. I followed Laurel Hill Blvd. in Woodside while trailing the BQE on my way back to Astoria from Elmhurst. My pal Kevin Walsh from Forgotten-NY could probably have built around a hundred posts out of the area I wandered through, but as I’ve mentioned in the past – residential neighborhoods ain’t my thing.
I like the wastelands, which is why I was walking along a highway. I picked the hilly path just for the cardio.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are numerous scenarios which I can envision that would explain the shot above. I prefer the one involving modesty, wherein a naked hydrant was somehow offensive and one of the neighbors decided that it needed some dress up.
You don’t ask, in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been looking and looking for the last few months, and finally I’ve spotted another type of manhole or access cover which I haven’t previously recorded. On the whole subject of trade, international deficits, and so on – why aren’t we forging these things in the United States? I’m positive that “made in Pittsburgh” would fit if a smaller font was used.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
apparent coherence
One last set of archive shots, for Boxing Day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle hails from the UK, so Boxing Day is kind of a thing in our house, and that’s today. The British tradition originates, at least in its modern form, from the habit of allowing the servile to go visit their own families after facilitating the Christmas celebrations of their masters. The Lords and Ladies would present their servants with boxes of gifts to take back to the hovels that they were created in. As times changed, modern Boxing Day became sort of what Christmas Day is in the United States, the calendrical marker wherein gifts are distributed and families gather to feast, drink, and argue.
It’s also Saint Stephen’s Day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saint Stephen was the protomartyr of the Christian tradition, as in he’s the first martyr to die horribly after the boss got hung up on the rood. Stephen (or as he likely spelled it – Στέφανος) was a Hellenistic Jew and later Christian Deacon, supposedly appointed by the Apostles themselves, whose church was found in first century AD Jerusalem. Stephen pissed off the Jerusalem establishment, specifically the conservative Pharisees, and he was stoned to death after they accused him of blasphemy. The denunciation, trial, and carrying out of the sentence was supposedly witnessed by a fellow named Saul of Tarsus – later Saint Paul – who provided the only primary source material for the story of Stephen.
BTW – politics, history, religion, politics. If you read up on Baruch and the Persians, the hot and cold wars between Rome and Persia/Parthia, and the role of the City States of the Levant caught between the Italians, Greeks, and Persians during this period – the bible suddenly makes a lot more sense. The Three Wise Men? They were Mede and Persian priests who illegally crossed the border into a Roman conquest, formerly a Persian Suzerainty, to anoint a new king of the Jews… Frankincense, Myrrh, Gold? All things which a warrior King would require to claim his kingdom. That’s the way that the Romans saw it, at least.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the former holdings of the British Empire, with the notable exception of the United States, Boxing Day has turned into a capitalist bellwether holiday – analogous to “Black Friday.” The only holdover of Boxing Day in the good old USA is found in the former states of the confederacy, which gives public employees a paid day off on the 26th of December. Saint Stephen’s Day is celebrated in several countries with traditions that predate the Roman Empire, with pagan Celtic and Viking rituals that have been Christianized. In Ireland, for instance, you’ve got “Lá Fhéile Stiofáin” or “Day of the Wren.” In Welsh culture it’s “Gŵyl San Steffan,” and Catholic Germans celebrate “Zweiter Weihnachtsfeiertag.”
Happy Boxing Day.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
febrile energy
Getting high in LIC, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
None of these shots are recent, I’ll first offer. To magnify that statement, due to the recent and quite abysmal climatological conditions, one has been forced to dig into the archives this entire week. Secondly, one is so thoroughly bored at the moment that if a television reporter suddenly presents a story about a black hole opening up in Astoria – interpret that as the fact that my event horizon has finally collapsed and I’ve given in to the ennui.
Pictured above is a set piece from an Angeline Jolie movie that was being filmed in LIC around seven years ago.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is full of desire and ambition, wanting to get higher and higher in the name of gathering uncommon views of everyday things. The most photogenic of NYC’s subway lines is in the shot above, as is a NJ Transit train heading back to the City after sitting out the day in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Northern Blvd., looking towards 31st street, in the shot above. I call the section of Northern between 52nd and 31st streets the “Carridor” for several reasons.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Sunyside Yards, with the Degnon Terminal behind it. For some reason, LaGuardia Community College, which is partially housed in the big white structure once known as “The Thousand Windows Bakery of the Loose Wiles Company” has decided to paint their building gray and brick over the thousand windows.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 