A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
An evening pause: My readers recommend so many organ performances I decided to start the weekend with short but entertaining primer on how pipe organs work. As always, there are surprises. Our narrator was the organist on Monday’s evening pause.
An evening pause: Hat tip Gary, who correctly notes that “Johnny Cash’s grandson sounds very much like him.”
An evening pause: A nice cover of the Rogers & Hammerstein song from The Sound of Music (1965).
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: Performed live 2024. Seem celebratory enough for Inauguration Day.
Hat tip Alton Blevins, who also needs to clean out his full inbox so that he can receive emails. It has been full now for several weeks, and all emails to him thus bounce.
An evening pause: You can tell they are not only utterly focused on what they are doing, they are having a great deal of fun as they do it.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: The song apparently is from the Doctor Who television series, but as I have never been a fan, I do not know the context.
Hat tip James Street.
An evening pause: A cover of a song from the end credits of the 2003 The Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King..
Hat tip Alton Blevins, whose gmail inbox is filled and thus cannot receive any emails from me, or anyone. Alton: Clean out your inbox!
An evening pause: A fun look at the physics and scale of the many spinning space stations proposed by science fiction writers over the decades. None of this is real, since sadly we have done only a few very inconclusive efforts in space to test this engineering.
Hat tip John Hunt.
An evening pause: Performed live 2012, but this was not before an audience but was simply their sound check performance beforehand to make sure the microphones were all at the right level to mix properly.
Hat tip to Ferris Akel, who adds “by a band that always took soundchecks very seriously.”
An evening pause: A bit of contrast from yesterday’s pause. Performed live 2022 by the Symphony Orchestra & Grand Choir of the Collegium Musicum Berlin, Donka Miteva conducting.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: If you haven’t yet got up from your weekend partying, this will do it. Performed live sometime in the early 1970s.
Hat tip Alec Gimarc.
An evening pause: If your weekend hobby is art restoration, this is a video you have got to see. And if not, you should watch anyway because the repair he does is truly breathtaking.
Hat tip Cotour.
An evening pause: A song for the coming new year by J.S. Bach. The words speak strongly to the leadership we choose, but they also speak strongly to us, for the choices we make. Our leaders can be bad or good, but either way the fault in the end in our Constitutional government lies with us, not them.
An evening pause: As we are in the middle of Hanukkah, and it is also Friday, here’s a hilarious send-off for the weekend, celebrating the holiday and the Jewish impact on American culture. Performed live 2002 on Saturday Night Live.
An evening pause: In this holiday season, a Hindu song grounded in Sanskrit. Performed live 2024.
Why did I appear in the womb
Now to sit here remembering?
I am you and you are me,
I am I and all there is.
The patterns of the fractal
To infinity.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
A Christmas Eve pause: As I have done now for several years on Christmas day, I bring you the classic 1951 version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring Alastair Sim. In my opinion still by far the best adaption of the book and a truly wonderful movie.
And as I noted in a previous year:
Dickens did not demand the modern version of charity, where it is imposed by governmental force on everyone. Instead, he was advocating the older wiser concept of western civilization, that charity begins at home, that we as individuals are obliged as humans to exercise good will and generosity to others, by choice.
It is always a matter of choice. And when we take that choice away from people, we destroy the good will that makes true charity possible.
It is also most important that we all heed the words of Christmas Present: ‘This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both, but most of all beware this boy.’”
An evening pause: Most of this season I honor the Christmas holiday for my Christian readers with pauses of beautiful Christian music. Tonight however I thought it would be nice to take a break and present this short video describing the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. This year Hanukkah begins on Christmas, December 25, and runs through January 2, 2025, so I am a little early, but that’s all right.
Like almost all Jewish holidays, part of Hanukkah’s purpose is to celebrate a victory over oppression. In this case it celebrates the revolt of the Maccabees against the Greek effort to obliterate the Jews. Or as Jews like to joke about all Jewish holidays, “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat!”
An evening pause: If this doesn’t wake you up for the weekend, nothing will.
Hat tip to both Judd Clark and James Street.
An evening pause: Played on the great Sauer Organ of the Berliner Dom.
At the time of its dedication in 1905, the great Sauer Organ of the Berliner Dom was the largest in Germany, with its 7269 pipes and 113 registers, distributed across four manuals and pedals.
While not directly related to Christmas or the holidays, I think this piece is still appropriate for the season.
Hat tip Judd Clark, who adds, “Though I had reservations because of its length and because it has been subject to innumerable transcriptions and performances on different organs by different organists it has become cliché. But, it is an exceptional performance on an exceptional organ in an exceptional hall.”
An evening pause: Performed simultaneously by Mrs. Rodriguez in American Sign Language.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
