Archive for July 2012
marble and porphyry
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crazed by heat and a lack of slumber, one nevertheless must continue the never ending walking of the earth and incessant inspection of relict districts, as such activity is nepenthe to one such as myself.
This day, perambulation carried me to the so called “Boulevard of Death”, the Appian Way of Queens- Queens Boulevard itself. Radiant heat rising from the thermally charged pavement, coupled with the blasting emanations streaming down from the thermonuclear eye of god itself, combined to disorient and dehydrate.
Shivering with excitement, one dared to stand still for a moment and record the omnipresent flow of machines, streaming toward the center of the human infestation in Manhattan.
from wikipedia
Ganser syndrome is a rare dissociative disorder previously classified as a factitious disorder. It is characterized by nonsensical or wrong answers to questions or doing things incorrectly, other dissociative symptoms such as fugue, amnesia or conversion disorder, often with visual pseudohallucinations and a decreased state of consciousness. It is also sometimes called nonsense syndrome, balderdash syndrome, syndrome of approximate answers, pseudodementia, hysterical pseudodementia or prison psychosis. This last name, prison psychosis, is sometimes used because the syndrome occurs most frequently in prison inmates, where it may represent an attempt to gain leniency from prison or court officials.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long imprisoned by such motivations, your humble narrator’s fever crashed mind began to wander, with every thought resolving into some kind of incomprehensible gibberish.
Were your humble narrator truly alive, instead of some partially animated mass of shambling flesh, standing in this traffic cursed spot would have surely caused his blood to run cold. Unfortunately, the black ichors which carry certain vital gases about within me have long since ceased their proper fluctuation, and some unknown motive force keeps my feet moving. Stubborn purpose is all that causes me to pretend to be one of the living, and it is hard to shake the delusion that current experience is not some hallucination being suffered in a temporally displaced hospital bed.
I’m all ‘effed up.
from wikipedia
The Cotard delusion, Cotard’s syndrome, or Walking Corpse Syndrome is a rare mental disorder in which people hold a delusional belief that they are dead (either figuratively or literally), do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs. In rare instances, it can include delusions of immortality.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Often have I wondered why I’m drawn to locales of morbidity such as this “Boulevard of Death”, whether they be cemeteries or other places of tragedy. Scuttling across the concrete devastations provides all manner of time for introspection, and time to craft cogent fantasies, some of which are shared with others.
Also, on a completely unrelated note, if one walks directly beneath this barrel vaults of the viaduct (which carries the 7 train) pictured above- beginning at 33rd street- a curious effect might be observed. A parking lot exists beneath the structure, and the high arches above are shaped in such a manor that sound waves travel through the spot in a bizarre manner, forming an echo chamber. Stand in the center of the parking lot at 34th street, and shout or sing, and it will reflect back to you.
One has tried this with the chorus from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, and the effects are startling.
from wikipedia
Folie à deux (English pronunciation: /fɒˈli ə ˈduː/, from the French for “a madness shared by two”) (or shared psychosis) is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are transmitted from one individual to another. The same syndrome shared by more than two people may be called folie à trois, folie à quatre, folie en famille or even folie à plusieurs (“madness of many”). Recent psychiatric classifications refer to the syndrome as shared psychotic disorder (DSM-IV) (297.3) and induced delusional disorder (F.24) in the ICD-10, although the research literature largely uses the original name.
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Click for details on Mitch Waxman’s
Upcoming boat tours of Newtown Creek
July 22nd, 2012- Working Harbor Committee Newtown Creek Boat Tour
vaguely articulate
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Passing through the tangle of racing traffic, sky flung steel, and electrical equipment in Queens Plaza the other day, a humble narrator felt incredibly vulnerable. Part of my anxiety was generated by the absolutely stellar idea of siting bike paths on the sidewalk, formerly the only safe place and haven for the pedestrian in this place. The remainder was generated by the sheer sensory overload offered by this intermodal transportation center with its never ending traffic flow.
That is, until I was nearly struck by a bicyclist who was rolling down the sidewalk at a minimum of fifteen miles per hour.
from wikipedia
According to the DSM-IV classification of mental disorders, the injury phobia is a specific phobia of blood/injection/injury type. It is an abnormal, pathological fear of having an injury.
Another name for injury phobia is traumatophobia, from Greek τραῦμα (trauma), “wound, hurt” and φόβος (phobos), “fear”. It is associated with BII (Blood-Injury-Injection) Phobia. Sufferers exhibit irrational or excessive anxiety and a desire to avoid specific feared objects and situations, to the point of avoiding potentially life-saving medical procedures.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It has been mentioned before at this, your Newtown Pentacle, that in the opinion of this citizen- mixing vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic is a fairly ill considered idea. Sounds logical, right? Bicycles are, in fact, vehicles. Bicycles are, in fact, being directed into pedestrian lanes- commonly called “sidewalks”.
Let us break that down- “side”, as in side of road, “walk”, as in walking.
Not cycling, nor riding, nor whatever the hell it is that those people call Biking these days.
from wikipedia
Agoraphobia is a condition where the sufferer becomes anxious in environments that are unfamiliar or where he or she perceives that they have little control. Triggers for this anxiety may include wide open spaces, crowds (social anxiety), or traveling (even short distances). Agoraphobia is often, but not always, compounded by a fear of social embarrassment, as the agoraphobic fears the onset of a panic attack and appearing distraught in public.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Incidentally, before “those people” (who I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with several times on various issues involving alternative transportation options) leap at my throat, no condemnation of the biking community at large is at work here. It’s not that fellows fault that he was on the sidewalk, although he was operating his vehicle in a reckless manner given the number of pedestrians on the street, as he was following the layout of the bike lane. Which has been set into the sidewalk with no lane demarcation other than a painted lane, and which terminates in a street cut shared with pedestrians.
No solution is offered, the crowded interweaving of traffic in Queens Plaza is surely well studied, but we’ve got a problem here.
from wikipedia
The fear of being touched (also known as aphephobia, haphephobia, haphophobia, hapnophobia, haptophobia, thixophobia) is a rare specific phobia that involves the fear of touching or of being touched. It is an acute exaggeration of the normal tendencies to protect one’s personal space, expressed as a fear of contamination or of the invasion, and extending even to people whom its sufferers know well.
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Click for details on Mitch Waxman’s
Upcoming boat tours of Newtown Creek
July 22nd, 2012- Working Harbor Committee Newtown Creek Boat Tour
trembling anxiety
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent adventure carried your humble narrator from the noble hills of raven tressed Astoria unto the engineered environment surrounding that squamous exemplar of municipal neglect known as the Newtown Creek. Hardly an extraordinary destination, for one such as myself, and noteworthy only because of the early hour at which the visit occurred. Sleep is an enemy to me, surrendered to only when absolutely necessary, and accordingly both my waking and work habits are those of the late rising nocturne.
I’m all ‘effed up.
from wikipedia
Hypnophobia or somniphobia is an abnormal fear of sleep. It may result from a feeling of control loss, or from repeating nightmares. The prefix Hypno- originates from the Greek word hypnos, which means sleep.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seldom have I gazed upon the Newtown Creek in such ante meridiem illumination. Tidal influence on the Creek, this far back, is a vertical affair. The horizontal movement of water is slight, but rises and falls a few feet following the patterns set by the East River, which the Newtown Creek is technically a tributary of. The mucoid slick observed in the shots above, I would offer, are fats which were carried out of the sewer outfalls which form a garland about the waterway.
Likely, these are cooking oils and congealed grease.
from wikipedia
Mysophobia (from Greek μύσος – musos, “uncleanness” and φόβος – phobos, “fear”) is a term used to describe a pathological fear of contamination and germs. Someone who has such a fear is referred to as a mysophobe. The term was introduced by Dr. William Alexander Hammond in 1879 when describing a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) exhibited in repeatedly washing one’s hands. This phobia is sometimes referred to as germophobia or germaphobia, a combination of germ and phobia to mean fear of germs, as well as bacillophobia, bacteriophobia, and spermophobia.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There had been rain the night before, one of the powerful bursts which have- so far- made the summer of 2012 remarkable not just for their intensity but for providing punctuation around periods of intense heat. One quarter of an inch of rain resolves, city wide, into a billion gallons of storm water pulsing into a byzantine and often century old network of weirs, tunnels, and pipes. No engineered working of men can endure such sudden volume, and during sustained events especially, should be expected to.
Friends and associates, versed in the esoteric facets of storm water infrastructure management, instruct one not to flush a toilet during a rainstorm unless absolutely necessary- in order to alleviate some of the burden on the system.
from wikipedia
Phobophobia (from Greek: φόβος, phobos, “fear”) is a phobia defined as the fear of phobias, or the fear of fear, including intense anxiety and unrealistic and persistent fear of the somatic sensations and the feared phobia ensuing. Phobophobia can also be defined as the fear of phobias or fear of developing a phobia. Phobophobia is related to anxiety disorders and panic attacks directly linked to other types of phobias, such as agoraphobia. When a patient has developed phobophobia, their condition must be diagnosed and treated as part of anxiety disorders.
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Click for details on Mitch Waxman’s
Upcoming boat tours of Newtown Creek
July 22nd, 2012- Working Harbor Committee Newtown Creek Boat Tour
circumstance manifest
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a short one today, on this Maritime Sunday.
A recent shot gathered onboard the Working Harbor Committee’s Port Newark Tour. Depicted is the Gramma Lee T Moran tugboat hurtling down the Kill Van Kull past the Atlantic Salt facility on Staten Island. Gramma has been described in some detail at this, your Newtown Pentacle, in the posting “Crooked Boughs” from back in December of 2011.
The Working Harbor 2012 Schedule is well underway-
- Next Tuesday is the
North River tour, with the legendary Bill MillerBrooklyn Tour, with Dan Wiley joining Capt. Doswell on the mike. - My own Newtown Creek tour is on the 22nd of this month.
- Captain Margaret Flanagan will be leading a walking tour of South Street Seaport, the next one is on July 21.
- Another Staten Island Walking Tour will be forthcoming from your humble narrator on July the 28th.
Check out workingharbor.com for details and excursion schedules. Also, check out the Working Harbor blog here.
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Click for details on Mitch Waxman’s
Upcoming boat tours of Newtown Creek
July 22nd, 2012- Working Harbor Committee Newtown Creek Boat Tour
Project Firebox 48
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the farthest corner of noble Astoria lies the hulking remains of the Poletti Power Plant, as well as the somewhat archaic Bowery Bay Sewage Treatment facility. Slung in a manner unceremonious, this Firebox adorns its mount in good standing. Whether serving residences or industrial zones, the Fireboxes of New York City stand constant vigil, no matter how hot or cold it gets.
The Newtown Pentacle 