Music from beyond the grave

What do you do if you get tired of those nasty old scientists insisting that your woo-woo claims pass the test of hard evidence?

You move your claims into the realm of the untestable.

That, at least, is the tactic employed by one Jennifer Whisper, an 83-year-old musician from San Diego, who says that she gets her music and lyrics from dead songwriters who have provided her with what they would have written, if they were still alive.

Whisper started out channeling music from the dead in the 1970s, and began at the top, with none other than George Gershwin, who introduced himself in a straightforward manner: "I heard a knock on the door and no one was there," Whisper said to a reporter from The Huffington Post.  "Then I heard a voice say, 'Hello Jenny! It's me, George Gershwin.'"

After recovering from her surprise, Gershwin dictated a song, "Love Is All There Is," to Whisper.  He's come back a bunch of times since then, she says, and she now has over a hundred posthumous compositions by Gershwin.

She also has channeled songs by Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer... and Jimi Hendrix.

Oh, and Whisper also says that she found out that Marilyn Monroe adopted JonBenet Ramsay after her death.  So that all ended happily enough.

The problem, of course, is that you can't exactly prove that she's not getting these songs from the dead.  This is a claim that is outside of what is even potentially testable.  If you're curious, though, Whisper has attracted the attention of musicians and musicologists -- and not in a good way.  One, Los Angeles-based studio musician Jim Briggs, has analyzed her alleged Gershwin composition "My Stars Above"and said that he's not buying her story.

It's amazing, Briggs said, that "My Stars Above" is way worse than you'd expect from a composer who's had 78 years to improve beyond where he was when he composed his masterpiece Porgy & Bess.   "If [Gershwin's] communicating musically from beyond the grave," Briggs said, "I can't believe that at no point did he suggest 'My Stars Above' be an instrumental."

It's also opened up some legal challenges for Whisper, but the ramifications of what she is doing are unprecedented -- and unclear.  She could potentially be violating the publicity rights of the people who hold the estates of the deceased composers, but even so, it's hard to know how a court would decide the case.  Joy Butler, an attorney specializing in copyright law, has said, "I've never run across a case like this.  But she'd have a hard time convincing a court."

So that's the latest from the world of the woo-woo, and yet another case of switching your tactics if the heat is on.  It's a shame, though, that Whisper hasn't gotten in touch with some older classical composers, because I'm passionately fond of J. S. Bach, and I'd love to know what he's doing these days.

Other than decomposing, that is.

Jack the cuddly Chupacabra

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I had been interviewed for a podcast by a fellow named Robert Chazz Chute, a journalist and writer who was curious about how a guy who was born into a devout Roman Catholic family in southern Louisiana had ended up becoming a skeptic and atheist.  The podcast is now live -- I hope you'll give it a listen!  Check out Gordon Bonnet on The Cool People Podcasts.

******************************************************

I try not to spend too much time focusing on individuals who either (1) are yearning for attention or (2) have a screw loose, or possibly (3) both, but this one was too good to pass up.

Much has been made in cryptozoological circles of El Chupacabra, the "goat sucker," a canid cryptid that apparently first was mentioned in Puerto Rico about twenty years ago.  Since that time, reports have come in from all over, largely concentrated in the southwestern United States, although there have been mentions of the beast from as far away as Siberia.  Where there has been evidence, apart from eyewitness accounts and blurry photographs, the creature in question has always turned out to be a coyote or wolf, usually with mange (a condition that makes the affected individual lose patches of hair).

So, imagine my surprise when there was a story on the bizarre site Who Forted? wherein someone said that not only is El Chupacabra real, but he has one as a pet.

The gentleman in question, one Craig R. of San Diego, thinks his pet dog is a domesticated Chupacabra.  Let's hear his argument:

Chupacabras are real..

I am sure there are generations of groups that have figured out how to live in the wild. The wild ones will of course have more exaggerated wild features.

Jack is a coated Xolo. 4 out of 5 in a litter are black skin and hairless. One out of 5 still have the black skin but they have coats (like Jack) and a full set of teeth (hairless ones are missing most of there [sic] teeth which explains the wild hairless Xolo feeding habits). Standard size of Xolo is 35 pounds. Jack is an intermediate 20 pounds. They have minis to that look like Chihuahuas.

So forget that Jack is not hairless and study the features of Jack. The paws….the teeth. Jack has elongated fangs. I play tough [sic] of war with them they are so long. Look at the nose, the head, the ears.

The Shorter front legs. The rabbit like hips.

He is pretty much a spitting image of the museum Chupacabras and pics.

I can even explain the padding on the hind end of the Texas one. They’re hip bone because he has rabbit like hips stick out on each side of the tale.

If its [sic] a wild one, they will need extra PADDING there to comfort from hard rocks and hard surface while sitting. Plus they wedge they’re hips with those bones against a vertical surface to help them curl up in a tight ball. So those pads are easily explainable...

Chupacabras are wild or feral Xolos that’s it.

The "Xolo" he's talking about is short for Xoloitzcuintle, the so-called "Mexican Hairless Dog."  Craig is right that despite the name, some members of the breed do have hair.  But as far as his pet being an exact match for the fearsome goat-sucker, as he implies, let's look at an image of an alleged Chupacabra corpse:

Then, we have El Chupacabra, as artists have pictured it, from eyewitness testimony:

Then we have... Jack.

I don't know about you, but I'm just not seeing it.

Given that genetic testing on the small number of dead Chupacabras that have been recovered (including the one pictured above) have, one and all, shown them to be sick coyotes, I just don't think I'm ready to cast myself into Craig R.'s camp just yet.  If there were any other evidence of wild packs of Xolos running around...  but right now, that's it.  Just his word, with an assurance that Jack is really a great deal fiercer than he looks.

Because, face it; doesn't Jack just look a little... cuddly to be labeled as a "goat-sucker?"  If he really was a Chupacabra, you'd think that the general reaction would be running away screaming, while all I want to do is to skritch his head.  But that's just me.  I haven't, after all, played "tough of war" with him.

So, that's today's news from the cryptozoological world.  Once again, a wild claim and nothing really much to back it up, but it's not like that's anything new.  Who knows what's next?  If this sets any kind of precedent, the next thing we know, we'll have the Yeti being characterized as "very much like a baby panda."