Posts Tagged ‘queens’
evil expectancy
Manic paranoia, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, whilst bringing a check to the bank for deposit, one overheard two gentlemen of the street comparing notes. The younger of the two informed his colleague that the Bush family were in fact reptiles, but he wasn’t sure if they descended from us or if we descended from them. His colleague asked if their reptilian heritage related back to their habit of drinking human blood. The former indicated he did not know.
You can’t make this stuff up, I tell you. What if they’re right? What if it’s all true?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my Croatian neighbors told me that you can catch cancer in the manner of a cold. My own mother was convinced that electricity could arc out from the wall outlets, and required the usage of little plastic plugs for otherwise unused power orifices. The world is a scary place, presumably.
I’m scared, and of pretty much everything and everyone. There’s a threat rich environment to be had on every street corner, and the only thing missing from NYC are jets of flame erupting from random spots in the sidewalk. What if an air conditioner fell on you from some eighth floor window? What if it was pushed by some acolyte of those blood drinking reptilians? That little blur of movement in the corner of the room around the baseboards? That could be a mouse, but it could also be something far worse, although it’s likely a mouse – which is disturbing enough, actually.
What lives, or exists, between the walls of all the apartments is not something you want to think about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The world is a scary place, full of existential horror and banal traps. The little plastic or metal tips on shoe laces are called aglets, and their purpose is sinister. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton patrol the landscape at night seizing people’s precious guns. HAARP is listening, but who is listening to HAARP? FEMA is building vast concentration camps nearby the airports – prison camps for political dissidents.
Heh… why do you think the City wants to replace Riker’s Island, really? Humanitarian concerns? Heh, how naive are you anyway? Heh.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
pathologically sensitive
Dead things, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post are grotesque, so apologies are offered to the sensitive, but I seem to encounter a lot of dead things when marching about. It’s mentioned that this is the conclusion of my depressive week here at the Pentacle and that next week I plan on being absolutely manic. I also plan on the first week of November being an obsessive, compulsive, and quite disordered one.
What can I tell you, I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing about running around places (as a note, the first shot in today’s post was from Sheepshead Bay) like the Newtown Creek watershed is this – if you think it’s some kind of playground and you can do or say whatever you want, you could easily end up like the quasi recognizable squirrel smear pictured above. The squirrel didn’t think it was a playground, mind you, rather it likely reckoned that the neighborhood rules governing the surrounding urban environment applied in the creeklands. It didn’t count on getting squished by a multi ton truck which was hurtling along well at over the “Vision Zero” speed limit. The squirrel, like certain government employees, probably didn’t think that a truck might be barreling along at that speed, because that would be illegal. Government employees actually believe that the law applies and will be followed by the citizenry, in the absence of enforcement. Naive, the squirrels.
If you live in the trees, stay in the trees, and stay off of the street because you don’t understand the rules of the road.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek is as serious as a heart attack, lords and ladies, and the cops only patrol here when they have to. More often than not, they won’t even get out of the car. It’s just us down here in the street, me and the dead things and those dark forces, so when you sit around in your Manhattan apartment – think about that.
Me and the dead things don’t have somewhere else to call home, and Newtown Creek isn’t our hobby.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
scarcely envisage
The future is smaller than you’d think it is, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since I’m in a bit of a Kafkaesque mood today, I figured I’d run a few pictures of some bugs I’ve met over the years. Bugs are like little war machines, and I’ve never been able to understand why the MIT types go to such pains reinventing the wheel when building robots and drones instead of just following nature’s solution. Why build one big hard to replace war robot when what you really want are a swarm of little cheap guys to do your nefarious bidding?
Also, bugs like that wasp pictured above might be a lot easier to enslave than you’d think. Imagine, what could you get done with an army of millions of ants doing your bidding? You’d certainly be able to “move that rubber tree plant,” despite the pop cultural aphorisms. If we could get control over the Termites, they could potentially build homes and cities for us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Big Agra” is what my environmentalist buddies would call a company like Monsanto, who are the ExxonMobil of planting things and feeding animals. I’m sure they’ve got a staffer working on changing the preferences of this butterfly specie, or that one, so that instead of liking to visit and fertilize Milkweed or other pest crops, they would instead prefer to visit rye or wheat stalks. They’re also likely working on military applications for their butterfly technology. Butterflies who spy, or Butterlfies who disseminate toxins to an enemy’s fields?
Imagine a United States Marines Tactical Butterfly unit. I’d like to think the insect’s wings would be a camouflage pattern.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weaponizing the bees and hornets would likely be the easiest thing to do. Everything I’ve ever read about bees suggest that just like termite mounds and ant nests, you have to consider the hive as being the living organism rather than consideing members of the community as individuals. A bee, or ant, isn’t very formidable on its own. When their Queen excretes the right sequence of pheromone triggers, however, the hive operates as a single organism. What you’re looking at above is actually a single cell of a far larger entity, programmed by an intelligence not its own to perform a task.
I would hope that the Marines get the tactical Butterflies, and that the Army gets the weaponized Bees.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
extirpate everything
Death, annihilation, hatred… in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few of you lords and ladies have commented on the dark mood which a humble narrator seems to be in, which is a correct assessment. Last weekend, I did my last “official” tours of 2016, and one does not allow himself the luxury of maudlin thoughts during tour season – as I have to remain upbeat while describing the sobering industrial history of Newtown Creek and its surrounding landmass, for fear of snapping the stoutest chord whilst describing the pneumonic cattle stables of LIC’s Blissville, or the Brooklyn side glue factory of Peter Cooper (where Jello brand gelatin was invented, as an aside).
Once the season is done, however, it’s as if some sort of great rubber band has snapped back into its primal shape and I can allow the black dog to roam and wallow in hopeless misery and spiritual darkness for a short interval. Home sweet home.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now! Now is the time to unleash the very worm that gnaws! Now is the time to creep through the shadows of the megalopolis in a filthy black raincoat, scuttling from corner to corner, and skittering along the masonry walls of cylcopean factory buildings and across disease cursed bulkheads in the manner of some sort of wandering mendicant. Now is the time to shine a light into the sewers and other dark recesses while asking that age old question – “who can guess, all there is, that might be hidden down there?” Now!
For some reason, I think inserting a “bwah-hah-hah” into this post would be appropriate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has a long held belief that if you’re suffering from the flu, the appropriate thing to do is to stay in bed and let the illness run its course. It’s the same thing with “feeling bad” between the ears – indulge yourself for a few days, lay down in the muddy puddles of the psyche, and allow the psychic fever to rage. The trick is not allowing that to become your “thing” and spending months or years staring into the mirror at three in the morning wondering why your mommy didn’t love you enough, or getting lost in morbid self obsession.
I believe you should, at least, pretend to be like and enjoy the company of the humans. Otherwise a dark mood can lead to outré expressions of loneliness.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
non compliance
Oil and water don’t mix, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spending a day at home recently, one set up a little “stage” and improvised a lighting setup on my kitchen counter. The subject I wanted to shoot was “oil and water” so a couple of glass vessels were deployed. The shots in today’s post are actually oil, water, and a couple with some dish detergent mixed into the water.
One or two, like the one above, had some india ink added in as well. Obviously, I was using a macro lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Above, it’s just oil and water, with a two light setup (cool and warm) bouncing their beams in and around a little tent of colored paper I erected around the camera, which then diffracted through the glass vessel containing the liquid.
If I was a “proper” photographer, I’d assign the image some self important sounding name like “amygdaloid dissonance number six” or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is a witch’s brew of ink, detergent, water, and vegetable cooking oil which received a pretty energetic mixing up. I had to let it settle for a bit so that the soapy foam could decay down to the surface.
It’s probably my favorite of the series.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Desirous to not totally “abstract” the shots, a point was made to pop the minimum power flash and bounce it off a piece of white paper to illuminate the foam. All the other light, obviously the “warm” lamp, was coming from below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Curious as to what a pure detergent foam in water would look like under the macro lens, the shot above was produced. To me it looks a bit like some sort of monstrous spider web, but a lot of things remind me of monstrous spider webs.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
