Archive for the ‘newtown creek’ Category
dimly lit and illimitable corridors
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in the part of Long Island City that isn’t shiny, where it stinks of work and sweat and oil and shit and every surface is painted with an iridescent sheen – the colour- scuttled your unworthy narrator. Perambulation through the apocalyptic wastelands of a post industrial Long Island City is no picnic during the urban season defined by “wind chills”, I assure you. This location will be familiar to longtime readers, this is 51st ave. and what would be 21st street, across the street from the Blanchard Building.
This little pedestrian bridge- officially known as the 51st avenue Bridge, is meant to be replaced fairly soon, according to the City.
from queenscourier.com
“The existing bridge there will be demolished. The new one will be realigned over the tracks and will have brand new ramps,” said Craig Chin of DDC. Chin confirmed that after final design approval has been received by the New York City Design Commission bidding will start for the project in spring 2010, with a possible completion by winter 2010.
At first glance the 51st Avenue bridge appears not to be in such bad shape. However, a DOT spokesperson said that in an internal rating system, that includes many structural elements that might not be visible to a pedestrian or are only visible from the topside, determined that this bridge at 51st Street was a replacement priority.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the only pedestrian connection between the shiny new Long Island City, Tower Town, and the grimy industrial engine which it is being built on top of. Personal observation reveals that the people who use this bridge are laborers moving back and forth from mass transit centers along Jackson Avenue and the Great Machine at Queens Plaza. Underserved as the area is by mass transit, the city nevertheless anticipates an enormous surge in pedestrian and vehicle traffic once a catastrophically bad idea called Hunters Point South is completed.
from nyc.gov
More than 5,000 new apartments are anticipated to be constructed in the primary neighborhood character study area by 2017, including completion of the residential development at Queens West and many other mid-size residential buildings throughout the immediate area. Almost 11,000 new residents are expected in the primary study area as a result of this new construction activity.
As the primary study area (and the secondary study area, discussed below) becomes more densely developed, traffic and pedestrian volumes will increase noticeably from the current levels. Intersections throughout the area will be more congested in the morning, midday, and evening peak hours. The intersections that currently experience some congestion on Vernon Boulevard will be noticeably more congested, with some levels of service D and even LOS F, indicating high to unacceptable delays. In addition, other intersections along Vernon Boulevard in the primary study area will also have moderate to high congestion in the peak hours. On the east-west avenues in the area near the project sites (i.e., 48th, 49th, 50th, and 51st Avenues) traffic volumes are expected to increase slightly.
Pedestrian volumes will also increase in the future without the proposed actions, but sidewalks, corners, and crosswalks will generally continue to operate at acceptable levels. The crosswalk across Vernon Boulevard on the north side of 50th Avenue will, however, become noticeably congested during the morning peak hour, as people cross to enter the subway station there. This crosswalk will operate at LOS E, as will the subway stair closest to the corner (Stair S8). Buses serving the primary study area will also be noticeably more crowded.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Borden Avenue is the main attraction hereabouts, a loathsome stretch of fortress walled warehouses which passes by the Queens Midtown Tunnel, the LIRR tracks, the Pulaski Bridge– and all the while following the bulkheaded course of a certain body of water. The Newtown Creek is one block away, but you knew that by the smell already. Lately, my headphones have been playing music again, rather than the podcasts and audiobooks normally presented- but even the Dropkick Murphys can’t drown out the sound. There’s an app for that, as the ad slogan goes, and one I like is called “Decibel Meter“.
Here, under the LIE and again- a couple of thousand feet from the Queens Midtown Tunnel and over a rail yard and near the Pulaski- its rough metering reported a sound level 106 db (which is the limit of the iphone microphone). The iphone is hardly a scientific instrument, of course, but all the union guys I see working around here are wearing ear plugs. The non union guys aren’t.
from wikipedia
Louder sounds cause damage in a shorter period of time. Estimation of a “safe” duration of exposure is possible using an exchange rate of 3 dB. As 3 dB represents a doubling of intensity of sound, duration of exposure must be cut in half to maintain the same energy dose. For example, the “safe” daily exposure amount at 85 dB A, known as an exposure action value, is 8 hours, while the “safe” exposure at 91 dB(A) is only 2 hours (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1998). Note that for some people, sound may be damaging at even lower levels than 85 dB A. Exposures to other ototoxins (such as pesticides, some medications including chemotherapy, solvents, etc.) can lead to greater susceptibility to noise damage, as well as causing their own damage. This is called a synergistic interaction.
Some American health and safety agencies (such as OSHA-Occupational Safety and Health Administration and MSHA-Mine Safety and Health Administration), use an exchange rate of 5 dB. While this exchange rate is simpler to use, it drastically underestimates the damage caused by very loud noise. For example, at 115 dB, a 3 dB exchange rate would limit exposure to about half a minute; the 5 dB exchange rate allows 15 minutes.
While OSHA, MSHA, and FRA provide guidelines to limit noise exposure on the job, there is essentially no regulation or enforcement of sound output for recreational sources and environments, such as sports arenas, musical venues, bars, etc. This lack of regulation resulted from the defunding of ONAC, the EPA’s Office of Noise Abatement and Control, in the early 1980s. ONAC was established in 1972 by the Noise Control Act and charged with working to assess and reduce environmental noise. Although the Office still exists, it has not been assigned new funding.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The afternoon sun is always a pleasure around this little truss bridge, the 21st street truss as Forgotten-NY once called it. It lights the smoggy miasmas, produced by the fuming exhaust of the thousands of vehicles passing overhead as they mix with those unstudied emissions wafting from the Newtown Creek. The same vapors that tattoo the “colour” and dissolve the marbles and bronze of Calvary, a corrosive ether that smells of petrochemical filth and reminds one of rotting pork, hatch up through the loathsome mud found all along the Creek.
from epa.gov
Newtown Creek is a part of the New York – New Jersey Harbor Estuary that forms the northernmost border between the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. In the mid 1800s, the area adjacent to the 3.8 mile Newtown Creek was one of the busiest hubs of industrial activity in New York City. More than 50 refineries were located along its banks, including oil refineries, petrochemical plants, fertilizer and glue factories, sawmills, and lumber and coal yards. The creek was crowded with commercial vessels, including large boats bringing in raw materials and fuel and taking out oil, chemicals and metals. In addition to the industrial pollution that resulted from all of this activity, the city began dumping raw sewage directly into the water in 1856. During World War II, the creek was one of the busiest ports in the nation. Currently, factories and facilities still operate along the creek. Various contaminated sites along the creek have contributed to the contamination at Newtown Creek. Today, as a result of its industrial history, including countless spills, Newtown Creek is one of the nation’s most polluted waterways.
Various sediment and surface water samples have been taken along the creek. Pesticides, metals, PCBs, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are potentially harmful contaminants that can easily evaporate into the air, have been detected at the creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the other side of the street from this sign is the Queens Midtown Tunnel, with its signage prominently decrying photography or video operation. Loose lips sink ships and all that, and the front line people “in the know” seem to believe this area to be a prominent target for the Terror Warriors, so we’ll just agree that its there and not show it. Despite the fact that its going to be sitting at the very center of a residential neighborhood by 2020 and the fact that you can park a vehicle here.
from mta.info
1020.8 Compliance with posted signs. Every motorist and pedestrian using any facility under the jurisdiction and control of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority shall obey and comply with the provisions of any posted sign on any of its facilities.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The scion of this residential neighborhood is L Haus, a newly completed building whose non facing side is similarly on 50th avenue, roughly one and a half city blocks from where we started on 51st avenue.
from curbed.com
Long Island City’s “Mystery Building,” a condo sitting at the foot of the Pulaski Bridge and sort of functioning as the neighborhoods greeter for people driving over from Brooklyn has been outed. The neighborhood blog LIQCity identifies it today as “The L Haus,” named after its shape and, you know, “house” in German. (It’s the big, green boxy thing in the photo.) Other relevant details/rumors: the offering plan is “about to hit the street” and Elliman will be bringing it to market at prices in the $600-$700 per square foot range.
cry fowl, and let slip…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This threesome was observed recently, hanging around industrial Queens. Two males and a female, it seemed that they were up to no good, and didn’t have a reason for being in the neighborhood. There was nothing specific that drew my suspicions, let’s just call it instinct.
from wikipedia
The Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), the best-known and most recognizable of all ducks, is a dabbling duck which breeds throughout the temperate and sub-tropical areas of North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, New Zealand (where it is currently the most common duck species), and Australia. It is strongly migratory in the northern parts of its breeding range, and winters farther south. For example, in North America it winters south to Mexico, but also regularly strays into Central America and the Caribbean between September and May.
The Mallard is the ancestor of all domestic ducks, except the few breeds derived from the unrelated Muscovy Duck (Cairinia moschata).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When confronted and questioned, they claimed that coming here during the winter months is a family tradition. The place isn’t what it was in the time of their grandparents or great grandparents, they asserted, but nostalgia compels them to visit the area annually. Additionally, the subjects said that the place was once a paradise.
from birdguides.com
The Mallard is our commonest duck, the one you are most likely to be greeted by if you throw out food at your local park pond. Some Mallards have been domesticated and so you may also see Mallard-like hybrids showing bewildering colours from khaki brown to pure white. The displaying male Mallard shows his colours very clearly as well as the diagnostic curly black uppertail feathers. The female Mallard is the standard dabbling duck against which all the others should be compared. Mallard in flight can be told by their relatively large size, the contrastingly dark-chested appearance of the males and the fact that the white borders on either side of the dark blue speculum are both equally obvious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They alleged that just before the civil war, there were oysters, deer, and forests in the area- and their extended family would join them here for feasts and bacchanal.
from wikipedia
Ducks exploit a variety of food sources such as grasses, aquatic plants, fish, insects, small amphibians, worms, and small molluscs.
Diving ducks and sea ducks forage deep underwater. To be able to submerge more easily, the diving ducks are heavier than dabbling ducks, and therefore have more difficulty taking off to fly.
Dabbling ducks feed on the surface of water or on land, or as deep as they can reach by up-ending without completely submerging. Along the edge of the beak there is a comb-like structure called a pecten. This strains the water squirting from the side of the beak and traps any food. The pecten is also used to preen feathers.
A few specialized species such as the smew, goosander, and the mergansers are adapted to catch and swallow large fish.
The others have the characteristic wide flat beak designed for dredging-type jobs such as pulling up waterweed, pulling worms and small molluscs out of mud, searching for insect larvae, and bulk jobs such as holding and turning headfirst and swallowing a squirming frog. To avoid injury when digging into sediment it has no cere. but the nostrils come out through hard horn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
But, their story doesn’t feel right, they were up to something. Call it a hunch, but I don’t trust those ducks at Dutch Kills. Not the first time that a duck has been involved with trouble around these parts.
from the annals of Newtown
The barn of Thomas Woodward, a worthy inhabitant, who lived where Mr. Victor now does, in Newtown village, was used by the enemy as a hospital for the sick soldiery. On a winter’s night Mr. Woodward was aroused by a noise among his ducks, at the rear of the house. Opening the back door, he could see no one, for the night was foggy. He however discharged his gun at a venture, expecting only to frighten the intruder, but the next morning a soldier was found dead a short distance from the house, with a duck under his coat. The soldiers were so exasperated at Woodward, that he continued to be in great fear for his life. It has been said that he was not called to account for this deed, but from the nature of the act, and the wrath excited, such an omission would have been extraordinary. Besides, I find him arraigned “a prisoner” before a court-martial, April 26th, 1782, though unfortunately the offence is not stated. He was favored in this case by the intercession of Serj. Major B. Rathbone, of the grenadiers, who had quartered at his house.
Linkapalooza
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Conspiring against the timely posting of these missives, confluences of external forces have rendered me somewhat inert for the last couple of days. Time Warner Cable, whose reliability is best compared to some third world provider of rolling blackouts and occasional electrification, knocked out my service wednesday night during my usual “blog time”. Frustrated, as it was network not node that had malfunctioned, I scuttled off to bed. Assuring myself that I’d finish up the post thursday, I discovered that WordPress had gone dark. Wordpress is, of course, the blogging service and software suite that delivers Newtown Pentacle and 9.2 million other blogs to the interwebs on a daily basis.
The vehicle in the image above is an “Astoria Express” school bus, a Bluebird TC/2000, incidentally. It’s one of the many heavy vehicles whizzing around us, half noticed, all the time.
from wikipedia
In 1948, the Blue Bird All American was the first transit-style school bus to be popularized by an East Coast manufacturer. California-based manufacturers Crown, Gillig and Seattle-based Kenworth-Pacific had introduced transit-style school buses long before Blue Bird; while these were marketed outside the West Coast, they did not achieve a national following. With the All American’s design, Blue Bird had chosen a path of slow evolution.
By 1987, the version of the All American on the market was almost 40 years old and Blue Bird was looking for an updated design to sell for a lower price (to attract large fleet orders) without cutting too many corners on quality. The TC/2000 was introduced for 1988 using essentially the same exterior design as the All American with minor changes to lower production costs. Most of these design changes were visible on the front. The All American’s massive amount of chrome trim was pared down to a bare minimum, and four headlights were replaced with two. Inside, the All American’s side control panel was retained, but the wood-panel dashboard was replaced with a simpler black fiberboard design clustered closer to the driver (who was greeted with a smaller steering wheel). As the TC/2000 was focused on being a no-frills design, hydraulic brakes and a gasoline engine were standard specifications, but most were ordered with diesel engines and some were ordered with air brakes. Seating capacity ranged from 54 to 90 students in the FE and 66 to 84 in the RE (introduced in 1991).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been noticing a lot of traffic accidents lately, minor impacts and benders of fenders. This one in Dutch Kills is fairly typical, a gypsy cab hits a non union contractors van, no one is hurt and damage is cosmetic. Nothing will get reported, a couple of bucks will change hands, and its done. One lane and local in nature, one wonders how this scene will play out in 10 years when Dutch Kills has been reborn as a little Manhattan. Clicking through to the link below will open a FEIS pdf from nyc.gov discussing the anticipated environmental effects of adding 35,000 apartments, 9 hotels (6-12 stories), and adding another major transportation hub (at Queens Blvd. and Skillman Avenue) to the Great Machine.
from nyc.gov
SUBAREA C, ADJACENT TO 36th AVENUE
As shown in Figure 9-8, the streetscape in Subarea C is marked by trees and street furniture that enhance the pedestrian experience of the streets surrounding the subway stop at 31st Street and 36th Avenue. Further, mixed-use buildings that feature restaurants and neighborhood business establishments at ground floor, line 37th Avenue, and reinforce the pedestrian friendly character of this Subarea.
The traffic volume and pattern here can best be described as a busy but relatively uncongested two-lanes of traffic found on rectangular grid streets typical of the Dutch Kills neighborhood. Street parking is readily available to the businesses that line 36th Avenue, as well as 31st Street located under the elevated subway structure. Although the prevailing streetwalls in this area are not overbearing, few opportunities for views outside the Subarea are available, largely due to the elevated subway platform along 31st Street as shown in Figure 9-8.
In its entirety, Subarea C serves as a commercial and transportation hub of the larger neighborhood marked by significant pedestrian traffic. A diverse mixed-use sector, this Subarea serves as a highlight of the Dutch Kills neighborhood with an inviting and lively street presence that is aged but well maintained.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the cheery demeanor your humble narrator is distinguished by and reknowned for, the dirge of February darkness continues. This Mack Truck (a Brooklyn born company) pictured above is at the DOT yard found along the Newtown Creek on the Brooklyn side of the Pulaski Bridge. An unremarkable brute, it is nevertheless one of the motive engines that keep New York from collapsing into the seas or bursting into flame. DOT isn’t the “sexiest” service job in the city- that’s Sludge Boat Captain– but they do have some of the coolest gear.
Having no connections to the DOT, however, are recent revelations of extensive concentrations of perchloroethylene in the ground further down the creek near Bushwick- as reported by Andy Campbell in the Brooklyn Paper.
from wikipedia
- 1890: John M. Mack gets a job at Fallesen & Berry, a carriage and wagon company in Brooklyn, New York.
- 1893: Mack and his brother, Augustus F. Mack, buy the company John worked for.
- 1894: A third Mack brother, William C. Mack, joins his brothers in the company’s operations. The Macks try working with steam powered and electric motor cars.
- 1900s: Inspired by Orville and Wilbur Wright, Willis Carrier and Henry Ford’s inventions, John Mack has a vision, dreaming about producing heavy duty trucks and engines.
- 1900: The Macks open their first bus manufacturing plant. The Mack bus, ordered by a sightseeing company, is delivered.
- 1902: The Mack Brothers Company established in New York.
- 1904: The company introduces the name Manhattan on its products.
- 1905: Allentown selected as the home of main manufacturing operations, and headquarters. A fourth Mack brother, Joseph Mack, becomes a stockholder. Mack begins to make rail cars and locomotives.
- 1910: The Manhattan name changed; from now on, the trucks are known as Mack Trucks. Charles Mack, a fifth Mack brother, joins the company.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are so many different kinds of trucks in these parts, have you ever noticed the variety? These particular specimens are craft service trucks, mobile kitchens that serve surprisingly sophisticated food at television and film shoots all over the city. This well appointed set of comestible wagons can be found in their off time along the Dutch Kills extant of the Newtown Creek- which is right behind that concrete barrier that the snow is piled against. One wonders if the Clooneys or Jolies of the world know that these gourmet kitchens spend their off time along Newtown Creek. Welcome to Queens.
Speaking of Newtown and Queens- this Sunday, the Newtown Historical Society (which I am a member of) will be doing a presentation at the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown and providing a sort of craft service- slices of Pippin. Following text with contact info and schedule quoted from newtownhistorical.org
(February 12, 2010) The Newtown Historical Society will be presenting a free lecture and slideshow about the historic Newtown Pippin apple at the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown located at Queens Blvd & 54th Avenue in Elmhurst, on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 12:30pm.
The venue was the site of a planting in 2002 which brought the apple back to its area of origin for the first time since the early 19th century. The presentation will explain the history of the apple in Queens and the new replanting project that has been underway for the past year. Speakers will include Bob Singleton, Vice President of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Erik Baard, Co-founder of the Newtown Pippin Project, and Marjorie Melikian, Historian for the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown. Council Member James Gennaro’s 2009 resolution calling for recognition of the Newtown Pippin as the official apple of the City of New York will also be discussed and samples of the apples will be available for tasting. For more information, please call the Newtown Historical Society at 718-366-3715 or e-mail newtownhistory@gmail.com.
from wikipedia
In the mid-1960’s, Crafts Service Employees still operated as general laborers. They had also became in charge of answering the telephone and making coffee. At Universal Studios, they had huge roll-around carts where they would brew coffee. These carts could be shut during takes so that the bubbling machines wouldn’t spoil a sound take. There was a dish where you could throw a quarter for your coffee at Universal, not at other studios. Eventually, the laborers added doughnuts as a revenue stream, but often had to interrupt the display to dig a trench for dolly tracks or clean up after animals.
In European union film studios, buffets would be set out in lieu of a lunch break, so as not to disrupt the momentum of the day. At four-thirty in the afternoon, the crew would vote on whether they should continue working on overtime, or wrap for the day. As low-budget and non-union filmmaking took hold in the USA, production companies would provide day-long buffet spreads to make up for long hours and lower wages.
As crews migrated to union films and studios, they came to expect these “spreads,” so laborers got a budget and laid out tables overflowing with Ritz Crackers, spray-on cheese, tanks of Dinty Moore Chili, peanut butter, Slim Jims, Ding Dongs and bottles of YooHoo. Much of this was disastrous to expensive wardrobe, and as the day wore on and on, the pickin’s became slim, and the “cut it yourself” salami quite slimey.
Stars, checking out these layouts were appalled at the quality and demanded better stuff. It also became a tradition for Crafts Service to set out a special treat in the afternoon, rumaki, cheese and turkey wraps, sliced cold cuts with your choice of breads.
Occasionally there are two craft service stations, with one being for cast and crew and another for non-union background actors. The food provided can vary widely with pilots often offering very limited food, while big budget shows often offer generous food and drinks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another event to put on your calendars is the DOT presentation of potential replacements for the Kosciuszko Bridge. I missed the meeting last night in Middle Village, but will be attending the meeting at St. Cecilia’s in Greenpoint on February 24th. The timesnewsweekly.com site offers a description and CGI renderings of the massive process that’s about to begin, with reportage by Robert Pozarycki. This is going to affect the entire Newtown Pentacle, and its time to get involved, lords and ladies. Change is arriving at the Newtown Creek.
Pictured above are the refrigerated trucks of an online grocer, well known in the community, coming and going from their loading docks on the occluded and vestigial 53rd avenue along the Newtown Creek here in Queens.
from wikipedia
FreshDirect uses SAP AG software to process thousands of orders placed on its website every night. Orders are dispatched to the kitchen, bakery, deli as well as fresh storage rooms, produce ripening rooms and production areas within the company’s refrigerated facility. All order components are custom-cut, packaged, weighed and priced. In the case of dry goods or frozen foods, items are picked from storage before being placed inside bins that travel along conveyors to the sorting area. There, products in a customer’s order are scanned and gathered in corrugated fiberboard boxes. The boxes are labeled, recorded and loaded into refrigerated delivery trucks.
FreshDirect is based in a 300,000-square-foot (28,000 m2) building in Long Island City and is one of the largest employers in the area. Though the website and plant processes were in development for several years before its public launch, the company made its first deliveries to Roosevelt Island on July 11, 2002. FreshDirect has since expanded service to Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the The Bronx and parts of Nassau County, Westchester County and New Jersey. The company now has almost 2,000 employees, 250,000 customers, and has delivered more than 6,000,000 orders.
Tales of Calvary 11- Keegan and Locust Hill
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The monument to Charles Keegan is a familiar one to those who visit First Calvary Cemetery with any regularity. Close to the gates on Greenpoint Avenue, one does not need to penetrate too deeply into the viridian devastations of the place to find it. Keegan was a firefighter, a Foreman of Hook and Ladder No. 4 who was killed during the pursuit of his duties on the 15th of September in 1882 at the conjunction of Meeker Avenue and the loathsome Newtown Creek.
nytimes.com has an article on the Locust Hill Refinery Fire, which presents the grisly details of that night and describes the tragic death of both Keegan and Captain Stuart Duane (whose death counts as one of the most horrible exits from this mortal coil I’ve ever encountered)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before the night was over and the vast fire contained, oil barges set aflame by the terrific explosions and spreading flames had been carried all the way to the Penny Bridge, which ended up being consumed itself by fire. The far larger Standard Oil works up the Creek were protected from this spreading conflagration by an ad hoc boom deployed by Firefighters across the Creek, said boom was composed of empty barges and logs. The entire blaze began when lightning struck the petroleum reservoir tanks of Sone & Fleming at the Locust Hill Refinery sparking a fire which spread insidiously across the 18th ward, during a severe thunderstorm.
arrts-arrchives.com has many fascinating images for the antiquarian community to marvel over, but of interest for readers of this posting will be this shot from 1852 (that’s the Newtown Creek, kids, see Calvary in the upper right corner- click image for a larger view at the arrts-archives.com site) showing the Penny Bridge that was burned away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By 1929, the independent oil companies around the Newtown Creek were absorbed by the Standard Oil Trust, parent of the modern Exxon and Mobil corporations. Standard Oil, of course was the guilty party concerning the Greenpoint Oil Spill.
William DONALD, proprietor of the Locust Hill Oil Works, where the fire originated, testified that when he reached the fire he saw the only way to save anything was to draw off the oil. By five o’clock in the morning one-half had been drawn off. About twenty minutes later the tank boiled over and filled the yard with burning oil. KEEGAN was near the tank at the time, with several men employed in the works and some firemen. They ran and escaped except KEEGAN, whom the witness afterwards heard was missing. There was about six hundred barrels of crude oil in the tank.
Siderodromophobia
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is another of those posts where someone will say “so, a train went by, huh? wow”, so let’s just get that right out of the way- Jan 20, Pulaski Bridge. So, tongue firmly in cheek, today’s session of the Newtown Pentacle…
Thankfully- as the nytimes.com site re-presents the reportage found in an AP feed instead of reporting on it themselves – it seems the psychiatric industrial complex is nearing the completion of the latest iteration of their operators manual for “normal” minds, called the DSM-5. All ‘effed up, your humble narrator has in the past detailed the multitudes of phobias, syndromes, and disorders which he falls victim to on a daily basis, and looks forward to the new volume which will offer the promise of even more vaguely defined and loosely described psychological states to hypochondriacally self diagnose and cling to.
from wikipedia
The DSM-IV-TR states, because it is produced for the completion of Federal legislative mandates, its use by people without clinical training can lead to inappropriate application of its contents. Appropriate use of the diagnostic criteria is said to require extensive clinical training, and its contents “cannot simply be applied in a cookbook fashion”. The APA notes diagnostic labels are primarily for use as a “convenient shorthand” among professionals. The DSM advises laypersons should consult the DSM only to obtain information, not to make diagnoses, and people who may have a mental disorder should be referred to psychological counseling or treatment. Further, a shared diagnosis/label may have different etiologies (causes) or require different treatments; the DSM contains no information regarding treatment or cause for this reason. The range of the DSM represents an extensive scope of psychiatric and psychological issues or conditions, and it is not exclusive to what may be considered “illnesses”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The DSM-4 has provided me with endless hours of enjoyment, allowing me to embrace the fullness of just how crazy I actually am. Regarded as a feckless quisling (I am the #1 and 2 hits at google for this term!) and physical coward, such a collection of “very bad ideas” is a treasure trove of joy to which I can ascribe every quirk of personality or failing of character to, a series of nails to hammer into my flesh. Luckily, the psycho net is broadly cast with a fine mesh- so I’ll have a lot of company in the mad ward. Especially when the enormous number of Newtown Pentacle readers who also suffer from Siderodromophobia reel away from their computers in horror after witnessing this posting.
Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified
This category is for disorders of personality functioning that do not meet criteria for any specific Personality Disorder. An example is the presence of features of more than one specific Personality Disorder that do not meet the full criteria for any one Personality Disorder (“mixed personality”), but that together cause clinically significant distress or impairment in one or more important areas of functioning (e.g., social or occupational). This category can also be used when the clinician judges that a specific Personality Disorder that is not included in the Classification is appropriate. Examples include depressive personality disorder and passive-aggressive personality disorder (see Appendix B in DSM-IVTR for suggested research criteria).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For a while, I’ve been entertaining “Agoraphobia Without a History of Panic Disorder” but I really do enjoy being outside- scuttling in a fugue state along these Newtown streets beneath the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself in my filthy black raincoat while avoiding others and satisfying my suspicious notions which only I can see and reporting my findings here in vague, metaphorical, and overelaborate language. This doesn’t strictly adhere to AGWAHOPD.
I also really like “Avoidant personality disorder” for its self loathing, mistrust, and hypersensitivity to criticism. I do have a thin skin, after all, but lately- I’m leaning “schizotypal personality disorder”, baby. SPD, yo.
Schizotypal personality disorder, from wikipedia
A disorder characterized by eccentric behaviour and anomalies of thinking and affect which resemble those seen in schizophrenia, though no definite and characteristic schizophrenic anomalies have occurred at any stage. There is no dominant or typical disturbance, but any of the following may be present:
- inappropriate or constricted affect (the individual appears cold and aloof);
- behaviour or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar;
- poor rapport with others and a tendency to social withdrawal;
- odd beliefs or magical thinking, influencing behaviour and inconsistent with subcultural norms;
- suspiciousness or paranoid ideas;
- obsessive ruminations without inner resistance, often with dysmorphophobic, sexual or aggressive contents;
- unusual perceptual experiences including somatosensory (bodily) or other illusions, depersonalization or derealization;
- vague, circumstantial, metaphorical, overelaborate, or stereotyped thinking, manifested by odd speech or in other ways, without gross incoherence;
- occasional transient quasi-psychotic episodes with intense illusions, auditory or other hallucinations, and delusion-like ideas, usually occurring without external provocation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Man, that’s me! Point by point! Psych!
I don’t know why I’m so happy, though, it sounds like a nightmare.
Nightmare disorder, from wikipedia
Nightmare disorder, or dream anxiety disorder, is a sleep disorder characterized by frequent nightmares. The nightmares, which often portray the individual in a situation that jeopardizes their life or personal safety, usually occur during the second half of the sleeping process, called the REM stage. Though such nightmares occur within many people, those with nightmare disorder experience them with a greater frequency. The disorder’s DSM-IV number is 307.47.
