Jason Colacino and Katie Boyle – Honky Tonk

An evening pause: How about some hot dancing today? Some truly original moves that I think Fred Astaire would applaud.

Hat tip Mike Nelson. Note too that he found this on X. It is nice to give youtube some competition.

Gin Blossoms – Hey Jealousy

An evening pause: Hat tip Wayne DeVette, who notes, “The band’s name comes from a photo of W.C. Fields in Kenneth Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon, which bore the caption ‘W.C. Fields with gin blossoms’, referring to the actor’s telangiectasia-spotted face and rhinophymic nose by the slang term for the skin condition known as rosacea.”

Wang Leehom – More I Cannot Wish You

An evening pause: This song is from the Broadway production of Cole Porter’s Guys & Dolls, which unfortunately got cut from the movie. It is song by an older man, a kind of father figure in the play, wishing the best for a young woman co-worker.

This version is actually the best live performance I could find, and amazingly it is from Beijing in 2017.

American Battlefield Trust – Famous Civil War Photos in 360°

An evening pause: I just finished reading a book of letters written by a soldier who participated in the battle of Antietam, just south of Burnside Bridge. The irony was that Burnside spent more than a day and multiple attempts to capture the bridge, when in fact his troops could have simply walked across the creek at any point, never getting their legs wet above the knee. The soldier was Captain Wolcott Pascal Marsh, and his regiment actually forded the creek further south and advanced farther than almost anyone else in Burnside’s battalion. The book: Letters to a Civil War Bride.

Like all the Civil War battle fields, Antietam is definitely worth visiting.

Hat tip Cotour.

1776 – Hatching an Egg

A evening pause: It is July 4th, a time to celebrate not only the Declaration of Independence but the geniuses who created it. This wonderful song from the 1976 movie version of the 1972 musical, 1776 does it so perfectly. I posted it several times before, but it bears repeating because, as I said in those earlier Independence Day posts, “not only did the musical capture the essence of the men who made independency happen, it is also a rollicking and entertaining work of art.”

And as I have also said previously, “Despite the hate being spewed against America and its founding principle that all humans are created free with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that truth still shines. As John Kennedy said of himself, ourselves, and these founding fathers. ‘We stand for freedom.'”

I pray that most Americans still agree, and are willing to fight with me the growing mobs across our land who no longer do.

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