Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Falkirk Wheel
An evening pause: Some more cool engineering: how to move a boat eight stories from one canal to another. More here.
Reagan tells Soviet jokes
The Beatles – Happy Birthday
Ode to Forgetfulness
Glenn Miller Orchestra – Chattanooga Choo Choo
Bob Hope to the troops
Remembering Columbia
An evening pause: On this day eight years ago, the space shuttle Columbia broke up as it returned from orbit. Rather than watch that sad sight again, I’d rather remember the shuttle’s achievements. Watch this footage of Columbia’s first landing on April 14, 1981, which proved it was possible to glide powerless back from space and land safely on a runway. Though we as a nation might be abandoning this approach right now, future generations will use this as their standard way to return to Earth.
Several things to note as you watch the video. First, the shuttle’s angle of descent is extremely and frighteningly steep, until the very last moment. And every shuttle landing is like this. The shuttle is heavy, but it is still attempting to glide powerless to a landing. To do so it needs the thickness of the atmosphere combined with high speed to give it lift. Thus, it plows downward at a mucher higher speed and angle than any airplane, then quickly levels out at the last moment.
Secondly, this first landing did not have a drogue chute to slow the shuttle down. Rather than complicate things, they simply let the shuttle roll until it came to a stop.
Don Slepian – Next Time
An evening pause: Music by Don Slepian (1984). Graphics: analog video synthesizer.
Loreena McKennitt – The Old Ways
Jack Benny vs Groucho
An evening pause: All funny, but the best moment is the look on Groucho’s face when he asks Benny the “Big Question”.
Challenger accident, 25 years ago
An evening pause: Twenty-five years ago today.
The final words in Reagan’s speech come from a poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ing there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Happy anniversary
Nora the piano cat
Flooding in Australia
Some rock climbing
Michael Buble – I just haven’t met you yet
Cat, I’m a kitty cat!
Johnny Carson and Betty White
Cars of dreams
Joe Cocker – The moon’s a harsh mistress
An evening pause: Joe Cocker, “The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress.” Performed live August 20, 1983, Loreley, Germany.
The Shirelles – Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Live, 1964)
Diner scene from Five Easy Pieces
An evening pause: All Jack Nicholson wants is some toast. Five Easy Pieces (1970). This scene is probably more famous than the film itself.
William Byrd Suite as transcribed by Gordon Jacob
Linda Ronstadt – You tell me that I’m falling down
Walk to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Lindy Hop showdown
An evening pause: While our politicians fight it out in Congress, let’s watch a different kind of showdown.
The Ultimate Showdown
The climax to The Roaring Twenties
An evening pause: The Roaring Twenties (1939). Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney were often cast as gangsters. However, their film personas’ were very different. Bogart’s characters generally showed a trace of weakness in his soul, while Cagney’s characters were rock solid no matter how much things fell apart. The finale of this classic Hollywood film, in which each man dies, illustrates this difference quite starkly.