The Newtown Pentacle

– photo by Mitch Waxman

The warmth was welcome, but the mists and fog were not. Multiple journeys into and out of the concrete devastations of the Newtown Creek watershed in recent weeks have garnered nothing but terror for your humble narrator. What unknown things, too small to notice, might have been carried aloft by those vapors? After all, if you can smell something… you are breathing it in.

That thing which cannot possibly exist in the cupola of the Sapphire Megalith was surely unaffected by those whose flapping and flopping might be observed only with the aid of microscopy, in its perch high above the mists.

I’m all ‘effed up.

from wikipedia

Delusional parasitosis, also known as Ekbom’s syndrome, is a form of psychosis whose victims acquire a strong delusional belief that they are infested with parasites, whereas in reality no such parasites are present. Very often the imaginary parasites are reported as being “bugs” or insects crawling on or under the skin; in these cases the experience of the sensation known as formication may provide the basis for this belief.

The alternative name of Ekbom’s syndrome derives from Swedish neurologist Karl Axel Ekbom, who published seminal accounts of the disease in 1937 and 1938. This term is also used interchangeably with Wittmaack-Ekbom syndrome, another name for restless legs syndrome (RLS). Although delusional parasitosis and RLS were both researched by Ekbom, and RLS sufferers sometimes describe some of their symptoms as if they have, for example, “ants in my veins”, they are distinctly different disorders. RLS is a physical condition with physical causes, whereas delusional parasitosis is a false belief.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Intimate associates and clandestine confidants have been acting oddly since those foggy days during the third week of March, leading me to experience entirely uncontrollable and unpermissive pulsations of paranoid wondering. It was so odd, experiencing the weather of early summer at this stage of the year, imparting a sensation to me that we had all somehow skipped ahead a month or two in time according to the whim of some extra dimensional overlord- but only for a short interval.

Perhaps time itself has come undone.

from wikipedia

The Capgras delusion theory (or Capgras syndrome) is a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. The Capgras delusion is classified as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places, or objects. It can occur in acute, transient, or chronic forms. Cases in which patients hold the belief that time has been “warped” or “substituted” have also been reported.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Mayhaps it was was the influence of whatever it was that arose on the billowing fog that caused my reason to falter and imaginings to take on a sinister cast. The miasmic clouds which blanketed and caressed could not have been anything more than mere humidity, not some noxious atmosphere of industrial exhaust and foul microscopic life clinging to those tiny water droplets hanging suspended in the air. Such wonderings are merely paranoia, but one wonders… and more than wonders…

from wikipedia

Between people of different faiths, or indeed between people of the same faith, the term omnipotent has been used to connote a number of different positions. These positions include, but are not limited to, the following:

• A deity is able to do absolutely anything, even the logically impossible, i.e., ( 2 ) pure agency.
• A deity is able to do anything that it chooses to do.
• A deity is able to do anything that is in accord with its own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of a deity’s nature that what it speaks is truth, then it is not able to lie).
• Hold that it is part of a deity’s nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for said deity to go against its own laws unless there was a reason to do so.
• A deity is able to do anything that corresponds with its omniscience and therefore with its worldplan.

Under many philosophical definitions of the term “deity”, senses 2, 3 and 4 can be shown to be equivalent. However, on all understandings of omnipotence, it is generally held that a deity is able to intervene in the world by superseding the laws of physics, since they are not part of its nature, but the principles on which it has created the physical world. However many modern scholars (such as John Polkinghorne) hold that it is part of a deity’s nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for a deity to go against its own laws unless there were an overwhelming reason to do so.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Your humble narrator must simply be drinking too much coffee.

from wikipedia

Caffeine overdose can result in a state of central nervous system over-stimulation called caffeine intoxication (DSM-IV 305.90), or colloquially the “caffeine jitters”. The symptoms of caffeine intoxication are comparable to the symptoms of overdoses of other stimulants: they may include restlessness, fidgeting, anxiety, excitement, insomnia, flushing of the face, increased urination, gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, a rambling flow of thought and speech, irritability, irregular or rapid heart beat, and psychomotor agitation. In cases of much larger overdoses, mania, depression, lapses in judgment, disorientation, disinhibition, delusions, hallucinations, or psychosis may occur, and rhabdomyolysis (breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue) can be provoked.

ALSO:

Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly at this year’s Obscura Day event on April 28th, leading a walking tour of Dutch Kills. The tour is already a third booked up, and as I’m just announcing it, grab your tickets while you can.

“Found less than one mile from the East River, Dutch Kills is home to four movable (and one fixed span) bridges, including one of only two retractible bridges remaining in New York City. Dutch Kills is considered to be the central artery of industrial Long Island City and is ringed with enormous factory buildings, titan rail yards — it’s where the industrial revolution actually happened. Bring your camera, as the tour will be revealing an incredible landscape along this section of the troubled Newtown Creek Watershed.”

For tickets and full details, click here :

obscuraday.com/events/thirteen-steps-dutch-kills-newtown-creek-exploration