Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Martha Raye – No Time At All
An evening pause: Martha Raye sings “No Time at All” from the Broadway musical, Pippin.
There’s one thing to be sure of, mate.
There’s nothing to be sure of.
Fleetwood Mac – Albatross
“Can we go again?”
The 1960s space race: The US orbits its first living animal, Enos the chimpanzee
An evening pause: Fifty years ago today the United States succeeded for the first time in placing a living animal in orbit, four years after the Soviet’s launched the dog Laika into space. On November 29, 1961 NASA orbited a chimpanzee named Enos as a dress rehearsal for John Glenn’s orbital flight, then scheduled for early in 1962. See this article for some details about Enos difficult flight.
Since the flights of Gagarin, Titov, Shepard, and Grissom earlier in 1961, the 1960s space race had seemed in abeyance as NASA geared up for its first orbital manned mission, while the Soviets were typically silent about their plans. Yet, for those like myself who were alive at that time, the suspense never abated. What would happen next? Could the U.S. beat the Russians to the Moon? Only time would tell.
Michael Crawford – The Music of the Night
Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton – Can’t Find My Way Home
An evening pause: This is how I feel right now, after more than a month of searching for a new home in Tucson.
David Lanz and Paul Speer – Behind the waterfall/Desert rain medley
An evening pause: David Lanz and Paul Speer performing live at the National Auditorium, Mexico City, 1993, with Neal Speer (drums) and Janet Foos (keyboards.
Einstein explains E=mc²
George Winston – Thanksgiving
This time the turkey wins
The Kennedy assassination
An evening pause: On this date, forty-eight years ago, I was ten years old, home sick with a cold instead of at school. As I watched a silly afternoon rerun of a 1950s comedy sitcom (I don’t even remember what show it was) and sipped chicken soup (of course), the show was interrupted with the news of Kennedy’s assassination.
For each generation, there is often a single moment that defines their future. For the baby boomer generation, it probably was this moment more than any other.
The Pilgrims arrive in New England
An evening pause: Three hundred and ninety one years ago on this day the Pilgrims first sighted the shore of New England. Knowing that they soon would disembark and attempt to create a new society in this New World, they gathered and signed what we today call the Mayflower Compact, what might be called the first ever consciously written social contract in human history.
Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.
This idea, that society is formed from the consent of its members, still forms the bedrock idea of America. And woe to us if we ever forget it.
The Moody Blues – I´m Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band)
Charles Laughton – The Gettysburg Address from Ruggles of Red Gap
An evening pause: On the anniversary of its first presentation, Charles Laughton gives his interpretation, from the movie Ruggles of Red Gap (1935).
Ninja Cat
Daffy Duck – The Great Piggy Bank Robbery
The Arrogant Worms – Rocks and Trees
Ray Lynch – The Vanished Gardens of Cordoba
Shifou Mountain Footpath Construction
An evening pause: In China they are building a tourist footpath on the side of Shifou Mountain. For additional information as well as video of the work, go here.
A plank path along cliffs is taking shape in a scenic spot in Yuyang city, South China’s Hunan Province. The path zigzags several hundred meters long but is only one meter wide along cliffs, without guardrail. The path builders walk on it as if in an ordinary street.
Deborah Harry – The Tide is High
An evening pause: Deborah Harry performing The Tide is High live, with a full orchestra, a horde of dancers, and audience participation.
Mary Black – The Moon And St.Christopher
From Here to Eternity – Reverly
An evening pause: In honor of this Armistice Day, the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year: Montgomery Clift plays revelry, from the 1953 classic movie, From Here to Eternity.
How much does the internet weigh?
Escape from Berlin
An evening pause: In honor of the fall of the Berlin Wall on this day in 1989, I post below Part 2 of a documentary on the history of the Wall’s construction and the many escape attempts by East Germans. Though the documentary does a poor job of explaining why East Germans desperately made attempt after attempt to flee to the west (a wish to escape from oppression and go somewhere where they could freely live their lives), it does include some incredible film footage showing the various escape attempts. Part 1 outlines the Wall’s initial construction, during which many people could easily break through.
Part 2, embedded below, describes the first deaths, when the communist East German government gave its guards orders to “shoot to kill.” Part 3 is even more fascinating, showing the effort by West Germans to dig tunnels under the 150 foot death strip in order to get friends and relatives out. Parts 4 and 5 show later attempts, when the Wall had become more impregnable, including one escape using an arrow (!) and another using two ultralight airplanes. Part 6 shows the Wall’s fall in 1989.
For twenty-eight years a government decided it had the right to imprison its citizens because they longed for freedom. In the end, all that government really achieved was to prove that freedom is better, and that good intentions — based on intellectual ideology and imposed on people by force — lead nowhere but hell.
Jibjab – Time for some campaigning
An evening pause: In celebration of election day. This might have been made for the 2008 election, but it is remarkably up-to-day now, three years later.
Judi Dench – Send in the Clowns
An evening pause: From a 1995 television profile of Dame Judi Dench, ending with her performance of “Send in the Clowns” from a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music.