Flutist visited by Bach

We posted recently about Rosemary Brown who claimed she was visited by the ghosts of famous composers such as Liszt and Beethoven who shared new musical works with her.

The flutist Paula Robison reported a similar experience. She was feeling nervous about her upcoming project to record all of Bach's sonatas for flute and harpsichord, when the ghost of Bach appeared beside her as she was frying liver in her kitchen. He appeared to be "very hot and uncomfortable and impatient." He then said, "Just play it. Play it and enjoy it."

The ghosts of composers really seem to be an active bunch.

Atlanta Journal - Nov 25, 1976

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 08, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Death | Music

RIP Pigcasso

The artist's Wikipedia page.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 08, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals | Art | Obituaries | Africa | Natural Wonders

A case of hypervaccination

The Lancet reports on the case of a 62-year-old German man who received 217 Covid vaccinations over a period of 29 months. That works out to getting vaccinated approximately every four days.

When I got the Covid vaccine I felt for a day like I'd been run over by a truck. The German hypervaccinator, on the other hand, felt no vaccine-related side effects.

Presumably the guy thought that all the vaccinations would give him super-immunity. When medical professionals realized what he had done, however, they were more worried that the opposite would happen — that he would build up "immune tolerance" and be more susceptible to Covid, not less. But when they checked him out, he seemed just fine.

More info: arstechnica.com

Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 07, 2024 - Comments (2)
Category: Medicine

Mystery Gadget 109

What's it for?

The answer is here.

Or after the jump.



More in extended >>

Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 07, 2024 - Comments (3)
Category: Technology | Nineteenth Century

Are we swallowing other universes?

An unusual cosmological hypothesis was recently published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. At least, it's an idea I haven't heard before.

It suggests that our universe has been swallowing "baby universes," and that this eating habit is the cause of the observed accelerating rate of expansion of our universe.



The article, authored by researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, quickly veers off into mathematics that's incomprehensible to me. But I can extract a few interesting ideas. For instance, what if the initial "Big Bang" of our universe was caused by us (when we were still a baby universe) being swallowed by a larger universe?


And what would happen if, now that we're an adult universe, we collided with another adult universe? The researchers don't answer this question, but I'm guessing the outcome wouldn't be good.


More info: "Is the present acceleration of the Universe caused by merging with other universes?"

Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 06, 2024 - Comments (3)
Category: Science | Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy | Weird Theory

Follies of the Madmen #589

Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 06, 2024 - Comments (4)
Category: Advertising | Junk Food | Wild West and US Frontier | Twentieth Century

Husbands too like Premarin

Make your wife pleasant again with Premarin!


By the 1990s, Premarin had become the most frequently prescribed medication in the United States. Now, according to Wikipedia, it's down to number 283.

The word 'Premarin' is a portmanteau of PREgnant MAre uRINe.

JAMA - Aug 16, 1958

Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 05, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Medicine | Advertising | Husbands | Wives | 1950s

Anne Carroll Moore and her Doll Nicholas

The famous children's librarian Anne Carroll Moore was wont to tote around a doll named Nicholas and make people interact with it.



She eventually wrote a whole book (300+ pages) about Nicholas: Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story.

You can read the book here.

I have tried in vain to find a real photo of Nicholas. However, here is his depiction from the book.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Mar 05, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Books | Libraries | 1920s | Dolls and Stuffed Animals | Mental Health and Insanity

Death in Nutty Putty Cave

Until I saw it posted on the TYWKIWDBI blog a few days ago, I had never heard of John Jones's Nov 2009 death in Nutty Putty Cave. Since then I've learned that it's well known in many corners of the Internet. Still, if it was new to me, it'll probably be new to a lot of WUvies as well. And it certainly qualifies as a weird and disturbing death.

The illustration below (which comes from the video below that) shows the position in which Jones was trapped for 27 hours before his death.

Jones's body remains there to this day because rescuers were unable to get him out. The cave has been sealed shut.

More info: caves.org (pdf - scroll to page 15), cavehaven.com

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 04, 2024 - Comments (3)
Category: Death | 2010s

Environments 3

Join the Be-In with the embedded player below. Then experience bucolic raptures.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 04, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Hillbillies, Country Bumpkins, Ruralism and Flyover Country | Parades and Festivals | Vinyl Albums and Other Media Recordings | 1960s | 1970s