Currently browsing 'demons'
War of the Worlds
So here’s the apocalyptic side to “a festival of lights”. So it’s fine and dandy to witness the glories of the cosmos (like the recent Geminids meteor shower) and have near religious experiences in the process. Here’s what f*cks with your head either as a series of coincidences accompanying the shower, or the government trying to subtly tell you something:
- The Syfy (Scifi) channel or some channel was showing back to back movies about alien invasions. I couldn’t help but watch “War of the Worlds” which turned out to be a very, very bad idea. The remake of War of the Worlds plays on pretty much every fear you could have: alien ship attacks, alien robot attacks, air planes going down, drowning in cars, Titanic-like boat going down, aliens that incinerate you indiscriminately, aliens that capture you and put you in a metal farmers’ market basket until they are ready to thrust their tentacle through you and suck out all of your blood, human kind’s extermination, mob hysteria, loosing your child, apocalypse. For those who didn’t see the new War of the Worlds: the aliens arrive in a stream of lightening bolts from the sky. So I couldn’t help but have a lump in my throat while watching the Geminids meteor shower.
- Also, for some reason, the powers that be seem to be testing the “Emergency Alert System” out. A lot. You know, that horrible nuclear bomb alert sound followed by, “This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast system. If this had been an actual emergency…” Those who saw War of the Worlds will know that this same message was being broadcasted during the alien invasion, saying “this is a TEST of the emergency broadcast system”–a test– even though it was sure damn well past an emergency. This test was playing on my TV upon my return of watching the Geminids meteor shower. These series of events are a great way to become an insomniac, but I don’t know if I was scared or more annoyed by the fact that the announcement said “this is a test of New Jersey’s emergency broadcast system”. New Jersey? I’m not in New Jersey! Are you telling me that in the event of an emergency Inwoodites are screwed because Manhattan forgets we exist and New Jersey is calling us theirs even though there is a freakin river between us? Inwoodites better start building rafts and canoes because it looks like we will be screwed.
- The Hadron seems to be up and running again.
The broadcast alerts are still going on… Just when War of the Worlds was receding from my mind a day later, as I dozed off with a smile on my face listening to Craig Furgeson, suddenly, in the middle of one of his jokes, the horrible nuclear bomb alert sound blasted like a siren with a “test” message. Success in finding a sound that will jerk anyone out of a soundful sleep.
So take it as fiction and believe what you will. The arts are a great way to send mass messages to people: either to have us buy something, to act a certain way, to serve as a mirror for our fears and desires, or to subtly prepare us for an alien invasion.
Pilgrimage to the Silver Golf Ball
Thanks for the crickets, people. What happened to my petition to get me inside Disney World? Luckily Nova was strong willed enough to be able to drag C-mixto there. I was on a mission: 4.5 hours to hit the entire universe of Epcot, meet Mickey or Donald, eat cotton candy, and have a German beer and sausage. Here’s my Epcot adventure, minus some ride stories that deserve their own entry:
- Take public transportation to Disney World! For the cost of a NYC subway ride, we zoomed into Walt Disney Empire in 30 minutes with only 3 stops for only $2 freakin bucks. I don’t get Disney at the end of my subway ride back to Inwood.
- The estate of Walt Disney surrounding the actual Kingdom is set up like a military base. Endless highways with checkpoints, then a monorail system that takes you through a mysterious swamp ending God knows where. Sniper Mickey’s and Donalds, Disney character rejects and other strange things must lurk in those woods that escaped the demolition bullzoders and cement of Disney.
- Disney World uses geriatric labor and indentured immigrant labor to staff all those rides (and I mean global immigrant labor for each theme of its Epcot city). The bar maid in Germany’s Biergarten Restaurant had to be pushing at least 80.
- Speaking of the Biergarten, I was very happy with sausages and sauerkraut waving my frothy beer mug back and forth in the air to the sounds of cowbells, yodeling and the Ricola horn, until the crowd belted out in unison, “Hoi, hoi, hoi!”. Suddenly I felt a bit uneasy joining a blond haired, blue eyed crowd chanting in German in unison. I am very sorry I felt that way, but I suddenly felt the urge to leave.
- Disney scans your finger as you enter the park. When I asked why, they said “to avoid someone using your ticket”. I have some theories as to what other things they might be doing with your fingerprint…
- Be careful signing the liability form when you buy tickets. There is fine, fine print in there that pledges your first born child to Walt Disney. There is a reason why the robots on their rides look so real, why there is something demonic about “It’s a Small World”.
More on rides- but do any of you have Disney memories?
Rambo Street Cookie
Upper East Side, NYC September 2009
Don’t be fooled by the neighborhood. This sucker was waiting for me in a bush on posh Madison Avenue.
Ghost School
Walking in East Harlem, I passed what looked like an abandoned school. It looked a bit creepy with it’s boarded up windows. What was most haunting was the school yard with a wild jungle of weeds and vibrant, colorful murals with kid paintings. Among the waste and stillness, the still standing murals leave the impression of lingering children spirits playing in the yard. The murals and the tentacles of plants are the only things of color left to an otherwise bland building. It has a spooky gate, like a warning not to venture in. It is sad, but the murals also give you the impression that the school is ready for a new cycle of birth.
Strange friends you have, Mr. Heineken…
Washington Heights, NYC August 2009
Delivering more than beer here!
Catania’s alien problem
Apparently Sicily’s city of Catania has an alien problem (or a renegade sperm). Every other block or so I saw this guy… Looking fierce, looking lost, looking like a naughty Peeping Tom (image included above). How do residents feel about this white alien?
Alien Street Cookie Arrives in Inwood via Black Hole
This find was submitted by C-mixto in Inwood, NYC
Speaking of outer space, if this isn’t Street Cookie I don’t know what is. C-mixto submitted this photo reluctantly. He is not a fan of the Street Cookie thread, but was shaken by his find and might be a new believer. This is alien Street Cookie emerging from a black hole vortex. He came across it near Academy Street in Inwood.
Siciliano Street Cookie
Had my eye out for Street Cookie in Sicily. Surely in the land of Don Corleone Street Cookie would lurk. Spent a good deal of my excursions with a special eye on the sidewalk, looking for a face peering out from the concrete for some seemingly misplaced random object sitting lonely on the surface of the ground.
A true mafioso, Street Cookie was incognito. But I knew I found him in a market in the Sicilian city of Syracuse. Here he is: Siciliano Street Cookie – continue reading …
Street Cookie Legions: NYC Arrival
Watchers–check this shit out. Street Cookie has manifested itself on a NYC sidewalk pavement. Its NYC incarnation has a more local flavor, and it looks like Street Cookie had a rough night. Interdimensional travel must not be easy.
Cy and I passed this on Spring Street Sunday, tripping us both. He claimed to have witnessed the “drop off”, but really I know it’s Street Cookie’s work. Artist project (do I recall an artist who does this sort of thing?), voodoo or terrorist bomb? These are the three origins I considered as I nervously clicked away to provide you documentation.
Only a day later, when I recalled the doll’s haughty grin, did I realize it’s a legion of Street Cookie.
Watch out!
Street Cookie: Legions
This cookie isn’t going anywhere. It broke free from a sidewalk-concrete-other-dimension to speak to me with its demon eyes and herald in the arrival of this blog. It has the uncanny ability to haunt you once you set eyes on it. Street Cookie must come from the legion of demons that conjure strategized chaos. I unfortunately witnessed a fellow human being crack the other day, and the first thing that came to mind was this cookie. If any of you want to play a mean joke on me if I wind up in the looney bin one day- bring me a box of these cookies.
So here are some street cookie equivalents–characters or people that follow Street Cookie’s philosophy and spirit. Please add to this list!
V for Vendetta mask.
The Comedian’s pin from the Watchers (reflective of the Comedian himself)
Because LL says so: The Gingerbread Man from Shrek (who had a leg pulled off).
Imagine this image: little blonde haired girl on scooter rolling past Holy Name Church on Upper West Side, in a flowery spring dress to match the season and pink jelly sandals, with a skull mask over her face. Random, Twilight Zone shit that I’m not making up!
