Currently browsing 'demons'
Urban Arbor-Based B-52 Acorn Operations
Since fall decided to make an August debut, us urban sidewalk pedestrians are getting an early treat that is usually reserved for September. We are referring to when trees, and the little furry demons that live in them, launch acorns from sky high, giving you a nice bonk on the head. Sometimes you get some warning beforehand: they explode on the concrete pavement just 2 steps ahead of you. Often though, like subway rainwater scum-b0mbs, they land directly on your head. This is not a hazard you’d normally assign to urban living. But we walk around a lot in New York City, and Urban Arbor-Based B-52 Acorn Operations are indeed a reality here. And if they don’t bonk you on the head, you’re not out of the woods yet: the rounder ones have a good spin to them if you step on them the wrong way.
Lord of the Frappes
If the link doesn’t work, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaHb8grTIUk
Inwood Crop Circles
In a fenced-off field of grass and other green things, there are patches of shiny grass that has been flattened.
Is this a growing technique of Parks and Rec?
Is this is a particular species of green?
Are people laying in these areas?
Have the aliens landed in Inwood? Is the grass shiny from the metal rub of a spaceship bottom?
Theories, please….
Coming to a future near you… Terminator
Well thanks to the NY Times reading SkateDiva, I have one more theory to add to apocalypse worries. Singularity! At first I thought she was directing me to an article on on in-coming black hole. Or that one was created with the The Large Hadron Collider. this one seems to be about building a brand new robot species. Google is apparently one huge brain that keeps growing and growing the more we use it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/business/13sing.html
Yes, yes, we’ve heard it before… perhaps its inevitable. Perhaps this timeline will never get a chance to happen because the earth will suddenly stop “living” with this oil spill because it turns out all that oil serves some sort of purpose for its rotation, winds, cloud formation, etc. The future is just so interesting to think about.
Someone explain this…
Washington, DC March 2010
Someone tell me why this is on the building of the US Department of Agriculture (I am pretty sure it was that one, I know it was a federal building…. Was it the treasury?)
Star that helps guide the farmers in their crop (Bio-dynamic farming?)
Ode to Venus?
Ode to the Masons?
Oh a Mason mark?
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!
