The Newtown Pentacle

Monday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Before you ask, the Latin title above means ‘I’m walking here.’ See, I just saved you a Google. I’ve included latin titles this week to make it seem like I’m better educated than I actually am, but it’s all just a ‘Fugazi.’ Often, I’ll intentionally create the impression that I’m dumber than I actually am by mispronouncing words. I’ll say ‘spahtoolah’ instead of ‘spatula,’ as an example. In reality, my intellect is best analogized as being an institutional beige/gray wall with a badly framed picture of a kitten on it which bears the motto ‘What, me worry?’

As you may recall, last Friday’s post ended with a humble narrator mid walk and heading down the roughly 12 stories of ‘City Steps’ that the kids call ‘German Square.’ Well, the kids of the 1920’s at least, but they likely referred to themselves as ‘Kinde’ back then.

My return to this installation was initiated by wanting to impact all of those muscle groups which I had strained and sprained on my first outing – the front of the thigh, sides of the knee, the ligaments between, and those calf muscles which reach down into the top of the foot from the shin, the entire lower back. This is a really good workout for those particularly hard to reach areas, and the views are sick.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My inexorable march would lead to one of Pittsburgh’s Light Rail or ‘T’ stations, where I’d board a train and ride out to its terminal stop in South Hills Village – which is a shopping mall complex of some size. It’s not exactly pedestrian friendly where I was heading, and my journey was cloaked in fear and loathing. A Doctor’s appointment awaited me, which was set to address an ‘out of nowhere’ medical condition which has recently asserted itself.

The fear and loathing part involved the nature of the practice itself, which is Ophthalmology. Last time that I visited the Optician to update my glasses prescription, the Doc spotted something worrying and advised me to climb up the eye doctor food chain to a ‘retina guy.’ The retina guy confirmed the condition and after a thorough examination, ordered me to return on the very day these shots were captured, for further examination and possible treatment.

What’s the treatment, asked I?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Hypodermic injection into the eye, said the doc. ‘Don’t worry,’ he continued, ‘we’ll anesthetize you.’ I needed to be anesthetized right there, after hearing about that nugget of nightmare fuel.

My friend Steve Bissette (the legendary cartoonist and illustrator) offers a lecture, periodically, which traces the roots of horror in graphic narrative, and presents an overview that begins with the invention of the printing press and passes though the lurid ‘EC comics’ era of the 1950’s, and into the modern era. He categorizes several motifs that have always gotten a rise out of people during this talk.

One is the ‘hand mutilation motif,’ and there’s also the ‘eye mutilation motif.’ Both thema offer a visceral and instinctual reaction from the viewer – it’s deep down monkey stuff.

Thoughts of the ‘Zombie 2’ Lucio Fulchi film (content/trigger warning on that link) thereby assumed a front and center position in a humble narrator’s mind, during the month long interim between my first visit and the one scheduled for later in the day.

Paroxysms of anxiety erupted within, but all I could do was to keep on walking. My fate was binary – it would be ‘either’ or it would ‘or.’ Given that I had zero agency to affect things one way or the other… I couldn’t worry about things outside my control.

More apprehension, and raw existential terror, tomorrow.

“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.