Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs – Wooly Bully
Training WWII gunners to hit moving planes from a moving plane
An evening pause: While figuring out why this works is really complicated, the simplicity of the technique and engineering is superb, and illustrates again why the U.S. did so well against Germany.
And yes, that is the voice of Mel Blanc.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Sean Rowe – To Leave Something Behind
An evening pause: This guy might not be the greatest guitar player or singer, but stay with it, the song and words I think make up for any lack in playing.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Taxi -Jim Spikes Louie’s Coffee
An evening pause: From one of television’s best comedy shows. Note the number of people from this show who became very big movie stars.
Hat tip Cotour.
Hanson – MMM Bop
Dad vs Daughter
An evening pause: It seems there is a fourth story plot available to writers (see yesterday’s evening pause).
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Kurt Vonnegut – the Shapes of Stories
An evening pause: There is an old saying that all story plots can be summed into one of the following three categories: Man vs Man, Man vs Nature, and Man vs Himself.
Vonnegut gives us a far better summary.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Foreigner – Waiting For A Girl Like You
Deniece Williams – Let’s Hear It for the Boy
Make Mine Freedom
An evening pause: A 1948 cartoon, made at the start of the Cold War. It uncannily predicts quite accurately what is happening now, in America, because the Boomer generation and those who followed poo-pooed its lessons. They knew better!
I post it on Memorial Day because I wish to remember what once was.
Hat tip Lazarus Long.
Anne Reburn – Mr. Sandman
Sommerrodelbahn im Stubaital – Mountain Coaster
An evening pause: Let’s go for a ride!
Hat tip Tom Biggar, who notes that this is “Europe´s longest Mountain Coaster with a track length of 2.8 km (1.73 miles) and an elevation difference of 640 meters (2,100 feet). It also has forty steep curves reaching a maximum speed of 42 kmh (26 mph).
Leroy Anderson – Syncopated clock
An evening pause: A very well known piece of music from one of the most popular composers of the post-World War II era that you’ve probably never heard of, Leroy Anderson.
Any New Yorker who grew up in the 1960s will immediately recognize it as the theme music used for CBS’s afternoon and late night movie presentations, where they would squeeze two hour movies into 90 minutes slots that were really only about 60 minutes after commercials. (My first impressions as a child of many of Hollywood’s great movies was noticeably distorted because of this.)
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Heart & the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – Alone
Formula 1 Pit Stops: 1950 vs Today
A Icelandic volcanic eruption, for the people
Moranbong Band – Csardas & Gypsy Airs
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who notes,
Talk about an eclectic Evening Pause. “Csardas” was written by Italian, Vittorio Monti, in the early 20th century. “Gypsy Airs” was composed by Spaniard, Pablo de Sarasate, in the late 19th century. Both compositions are inspired by Hungarian music. And the orchestra is North Korean.
The band was organized by North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un. This performance was from 2012. From the link this interesting tidbit:
In December 2015, Kim Jong-un sent the band to perform in a series of shows in Beijing to improve relations between China and North Korea; these would have been the band’s first performances outside of North Korea. However, the band left Beijing on a scheduled flight to Pyongyang only a few hours before their performance was scheduled. China’s Xinhua news agency stated that all of the band’s performances had been cancelled due to “communication issues at the working level.” The Korea Herald reported that North Korea had cancelled the tour because China had requested that North Korea’s missiles should not be shown during performances.
Don Williams – Good Ole Boys Like Me
BBC Earth – Swarms of ten million starlings in Rome
The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays
Vikki Carr – It Must Be Him
The Insane Engineering of the X-15
An evening pause: This history, largely forgotten, seems especially significant now that the first wholly commercial space flights are about to happen.
Hat tip Lazarus Long.
Alizee – J`en Ai marre
An evening pause: Performed live 2004, when such joyous concerts were possible.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Ethiopia’s Chapel in the Sky
Hilary Hahn – Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64
The Largest Stirling Engine On The Market
An evening pause: It might be engineering but it is also art. For more information about the engineering behind this engine, go here. For some information about the builders themselves, go here.
Hat tip Cotour.
Devo – Uncontrollable Urge
Alejandro Aguanta – Zorba’s Dance
An evening pause: The main them form Mikis Theodorakis’ score from the movie Zorba the Greek (1964).
Hat tip Tom Biggar.