Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire – Swing Time

An evening pause: From the 1936 film of the same name. Fred improvises to save Ginger’s job as a dance teacher. Watch how Rogers’ impression of him and her interaction during the dance evolves so naturally. I have always found her to be not only a great dancer, able to keep up with Astaire (the king of all dance), but also a marvelous actress.

Note too how this is not the gymnastics of modern dance, which is often only one small step above a Jane Fonda exercise video, but an amazingly nuanced and choreographed sequence of complex steps and moves, set to American pop music but with graceful classical ballet in mind.

Hat tip Judd Clark.

Thanksgiving repost: Miracle on 34th Street

An evening pause: This was posted in 2023. Time to repost.

Original text:
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This movie used to be a tradition for television on Thanksgiving. At that time the holiday was well linked with the then joyous and relatively Christian Macy’s Day Parade (now warped into a queer agenda demonstration). [Editor: an agenda that thank god appears to be on the run.]

I think it makes for a good opening to the holiday season.

Robert Goulet & Julie Andrews – My Cup Runneth Over

An evening pause: From the 1966 Broadway musical, I Do! I Do!, and performed here on the Julie Andrews Show. I originally posted this in 2012, on our wedding anniversary. This chorus now strikes me most profoundly:

In only a moment we both will be old
We won’t even notice the world turning cold
And so, in this moment with sunlight above
My cup runneth over with love.

Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.

“Weird Al” Yankovic – Smells Like Nirvana

An evening pause: A parody of “Smells like Teen Spirit,” according to the webpage, but as far as I am concerned it is a very funny parody of most “official” music videos, the kind I generally don’t like to post as evening pauses because, as Yankovic says in the first verse:

What is this song all about?
Can’t figure any lyrics out
How do the words to it go?
I wish you’d tell me, I don’t know

It gets better from there.

Hat tip Alan Hennings.

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