A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
An evening pause: The players are Henri Sigfridsson, Rachel Bullen and Etienne Boudreault. The music is late 20th century classical. Though this can sometimes be grating, this piece is quite comparable in sound and melody to a lot of great 20th century art rock. And the instruments are unusual, the playing is grand, and it definitely gives us some variety.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
An evening pause: Performed live in 2019, when he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: Nicely done, in this age of no memory and a forgotten past.
How does it feel
To be an expert in a dying field
How do you know
It’s over when you can’t let go
You can’t stop
Can’t rewind
Love is learned over time
‘Til you’re an expert in a dying field
Hat tip Gavin Packard.
An evening pause: Unfortunately, there is no translation on the youtube webpage to identify the music.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: Performed live in 1987 on Martha’s Vineyard.
Hat tip Alton Blevins, who sent it as a memorial for the passing of Simon’s two sisters last week.
An evening pause: A very different dance number from the 1969 film Sweet Charity, the first that Bob Fosse directed.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: It is a commercial for KUKA robotics, and it is a bit staged, a competition between a KUKA robot and table tennis professional Timo Bollo playing music on glasses. Nonetheless, the punchline is good. Human creativity can always beat out robotic programming.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: Another piece with Catarina Sisinni the lead singer. Seems perfect for Halloween.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: A nice way to start the weekend. As noted by the orca expert, “They’re really just big dolphins with a fancy paint job.”
Hat tip Cotour.
An evening pause: The dress and lighting effects raise this to a whole new level.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: Also fast and breathless, like last night’s pause, though of a somewhat different musical genre.
Hat tip Tom Wilson.
An evening pause: A tour of Oxford, set to the music used in the first two Morse television series, Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis, both of which were set in Oxford. As for the music, I wonder if my readers know the trick/pun Pheloung used as a basis for the theme’s main melodic line.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
An evening pause: This movie scene was created for the Christopher Guest pseudo-documentary film A Mighty Wind (2003), recreating with marvelous and loving accuracy a look back at the folk song era of the 1960s, but doing it about a bunch of completely mythical folk groups. The song is by the actor Eugene Levy, who plays Mitch. Catherine O’Hara plays Mickey.
The irony is that though this is actually the best song by far in the movie, the scene was deleted. The only time you hear this song is over the end credits. However, as Levy is quoted on the youtube page:
“At the end of this movie, when we do the concert, it was all filmed basically live. We’re not pre-recording the music and lip-synching to it. We’re actually filming it live. It put a little added pressure on what you thought was a relatively good singing voice. It took a little work and I think I can speak for Catherine, too, as two of the relatively non-musician people. It was exciting and scary.”
A touching and surprisingly effective film, expressing the magic that can happen to us all, but sometimes only in a short burst that is soon lost and cannot be truly recaptured.
An evening pause: Paul Simon’s masterpiece of poetry, always worth hearing again.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
An evening pause: The band is Greek, specializing in swing. The singer is Catarina Sisinni. This was performed live in 2016 in Thessaloniki.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: This guy, Master Du, specializes in trimming the hoofs of donkeys that have become deformed and need specialized work. (Make sure the closed captions are on to get some translation of the narration.) This is how it is done in China. I wonder how that compares to the techniques used in the U.S., and other nations.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, who found this work so interesting she ended up watching Master Du videos for more than an hour.
An evening pause: Performed live in Prague 2017.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
I am in need for evening pause suggestions. If you are interested in suggesting an evening pause, please say so in the comments (without providing a link to that suggestion). I will contact you so you can forward it directly to me to schedule. The guidelines for submitting Evening Pauses:
1. The subject line should say “evening pause.”
2. Don’t send more than three in any email. I prefer however if you send them one email at a time.
3. Variety! Don’t send me five from the same artist. I can only use one. Pick your favorite and send that.
4. Live performance preferred.
5. Quirky technology, humor, and short entertaining films also work.
6. Search BtB first to make sure your suggestion hasn’t already been posted.
7. I might not respond immediately, as I schedule these in a bunch.
8. Avoid the politics of the day. The pause is a break from such discussion.
An evening pause: This was the first episode in Benny’s second season on television, following nineteen years doing a regular radio show. The first singer is Bob Crosby, brother of Bing. The taxi driver is Mel Blanc, voice of Bugs Bunny and almost all of the characters in Warner Brothers best cartoons.
Almost everything in this episode works, but make sure especially you stay with it to see the Benny’s performance as lead fiddler of a hillbilly band.
