PATERSON, N.J. -- A self-proclaimed witch donned a white gown and shiny gold cape Thursday and cast a 'tax-cut spell' on the city of Paterson.

Joyce Luciano, known as the 'official witch of Paterson,' was joined in her noon incantation by about 100 city residents and employees.

The audience gathered around a table that Ms. Luciano set up in the city's public safety complex and lustily chanted 'Peace, Prosperity and Love,' at the urging of the blond witch.

'The louder you say it, the higher the vibes,' she told the crowd as white candles burned on the table. 'It's a tax-cut spell.

Taking into account Paterson's size, she asked for the help of residents in her effort to lower the city tax rate, currently $8.66 per $100 assessment.

For seven days, beginning Thursday residents on the west side of Main Street were asked to burn a gold candle from 8 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. Residents who live east of Main Street were told to burn a green candle.

Ms. Luciano planned to simultaneously recite tax cut incantations.

André Smout, a gastroenterologist at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said he read those reports when they came out.

"But we never saw the condition, so we didn't believe that it existed in real life," he said.

Smout's doubts persisted until he and colleagues studied a small group of patients a few years ago. The researchers gave eight patients with a reported inability to burp a "belch provocation" in the form of carbonated water, and used pressure sensors to observe how their throats moved. Indeed, the air stayed trapped. A Botox injection resolved their problems by giving them the ability to burp, or, to use an academic term, eructate.

"We had to admit that it really existed," Smout said.

Dahir Insaat (Turkish for "Dahir Construction")... is a company founded in Istanbul by Russian engineer and inventor Dahir Kurmanbievich Semenov. It is known for its futuristic design concepts, including concepts for large quadcopters, automation, and prefabrication. The designs are generally dismissed as wildly impractical, and the animated videos featuring them have frequently gone viral on the internet due to their absurd nature. Semenov has been compared to prolific inventor Buckminster Fuller.

One of Dahir Insaat's designs is for a bed that becomes a "fortress" in an earthquake. Critics have described it as a claustrophobic coffin.

Another design is for an aerial train. Insaat says it could travel at 400 mph with electricity supplied by a tether that is linked to an electrified rail. This rail runs on the ground between stations.

The firm's other designs include a drive-thru supermarket which would literally be driven through and a gyroscopic transport vehicle that would move above traffic.

In 1962, Timm Ulrichs signed his own body. His name was engraved as a tattoo on his upper arm.
In 1963, he tracked his heartbeat with a stethoscope. He broadcast it on a loudspeaker and exhibited the medical record as a musical score.
In 1966, Timm Ulrichs showed the tanning of his skin as a filmic process for the first time. The covered, untanned areas of his back, in contrast to the tanned areas, slowly reveal the word “Hautfilm” [skin film].
In 1969, Timm Ulrichs became a sperm donor at the Bremen sperm bank – ironically referring to Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility”.
In 1973, Timm Ulrichs ate for one year according to the average consumption of Germans, precisely observing the consumption of milk, bread, and cigarettes. Four cigarettes a day.
In 1978, using professional police equipment, Timm Ulrichs had a facial composite of his own face made.