Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Funny Ballerina
An evening pause: Time for some silliness, brought to us by three dancers with six dolls.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Abraham Lincoln – an annual tribute
An evening pause: On this, the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, I must once again honor his memory, most especially because the Marxist, anti-American bigots who are now running roughshod across our once free nation wish to cancel him by actually accusing the man who freed the slaves of being a racist.
And though he freed the slaves, I think Lincoln’s most enduring contribution to American history, a contribution that now has sadly been lost, was his limitless good will for everyone, even to those who hated him and wished to kill him. Had he not been assassinated, American history might have been far better because Lincoln would have had the clout to ease the worst elements of Reconstruction, while forcing through reforms in the former southern slave states.
The modern Democrats in Congress — and their supporters nationwide — might benefit by reading some history about Lincoln. Alas, I have no hope of this.
As I wrote for last year’s tribute,
Lincoln stood for freedom for all humans, the central heart of the American experiment. He was willing and did die for that stance. We should all be willing to do no less.
The video below shows probably every photograph ever taken of Lincoln, in chronological order. You can see him age and mature. You can also see a gaunt and serious man who appears to care deeply about whatever he does.
The Hindley Street Country Club – More than a feeling
Josh Tanner – Decommissioned
Wild Cherry – Play that funky music
An evening pause: Recorded live in 1976.
Hat tip Mike Nelson, who has found a nice alternative video site to Youtube by using the Wayback machine archive to find this video.
Steve ‘n Seagulls – Nothing else matters
FlippinDingDong – Trailer Annie
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who rightly added, “No clue what this means, but I’m certain the student animators had fun making it.”
Fun to watch too. They might have done it on a computer, but it sure has the feel of hand-drawn animation.
Evanescence – Bring Me To Life
The Muppets – Bohemian Rhapsody
An evening pause: I know I’ve posted this song more than a few times previously, but this version is truly unique. I had even posted it previously, back in 2012. More than enough time however has passed, so I think it okay to show it again. As I noted then, “A very talented actor once told me that a great deal of all comedy is based on contrast, on juxtaposing extreme opposites in unexpected ways.”
This does that quite well I think.
Hat tip Frank Kelly.
Bell Labs – The Transistor
An evening pause: This 9-minute documentary, made in 1952 by Bell Labs, provides a short and clear history of the transistor as well as its predecessor, the vacuum tube. It also tries to imagine the future that such a new invention might bring. As the youtube page notes,
While The Transistor’s vision of the future seems somewhat quaint in retrospect, it captures a moment in time before the transistor became ubiquitous; a time when Bell Labs wanted the world to know that something important had occurred, something that was about to bring tremendous change to everyone’s daily lives.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Nathan Evans – The Wellerman
An evening pause: It seems a lot of people took Evans singing in the center and did their own piece, singing along with him. This video puts many of them together. You can see the full list on the youtube page.
Hat tip Tom Donahue.
Eddy Goldfarb – The Man Who Invented More Than 800 Iconic Toys
How a recording-studio mishap shaped ’80s music
The Association – Never My Love
Foxes & Fossils – Harvest Moon
The Carol Burnett Show – Star Trip
Sergei Vasiliev – Russian Cyberpunk Farm
An evening pause: Russian-made, and filled with Russian fantasies and reality. Can you tell which is which?
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Ladyva – Für Elise
An evening pause: The original is by Beethoven. The interpretation is American Boogie Woogie.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Warren Zevon – Lawyers, Guns, and Money
Herman’s Hermits – There’s A Kind Of Hush
An evening pause: This live performance is from 1999. The song was a hit in 1966.
Hat tip Roland.
I am in need of evening pause suggestions. Those that have suggested before know the routine. Those that haven’t should note their interest in participating in the comments here, and I will contact you with the guidelines. Do not post your suggestion here however.
Beals Science – Resurrecting a carbide lamp
An evening pause: Long time cavers are very familiar with the carbide lamp, as it was used routinely until around 1998, when LED lights arrived and finally superseded it.
Until then, the advantage of a carbide light was the quality of the light it produced, a soft bright glow rather than the harsh reflective rings produced by older electric lights.
The disadvantage however was the endless fiddling required to keep them working. For example, near the end of this video when he finally gets the light to work, he turns up the water flow to brighten the light. I guarantee that very soon the light would go out, as he was flooding the carbide. The water drip had to be precisely right. Too slow and not enough gas. Too fast and too much water.
I personally hated carbide lights because of that fiddling, especially because lamps made after 1970 were junk and didn’t work well. Most cavers who used carbide would scour yard sales to find old lights like this one, as older carbide lamps were made well and would work reliably.
Hat tip Jeff Poplin.
Styx – Fooling Yourself
The Grass Roots – Temptation Eyes
An evening pause: Forgive the television artifacts in the video. Recorded live in 1982.
Hat tip Roland.
Pearl Jam – Off he goes
An evening pause: Performed live 2016.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
NOTE: Youtube will not allow me to embed this video. Click on the picture, and then click on the link to go to youtube where you can watch it.
Squirrel vs Physicist
An evening pause: This battle between an inventive physicist and an even more determined squirrel does raise the question, who really is smarter?
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Stevie Nicks – Landslide
Tan Ce Ding – The Masseuse
An evening pause: The future?
Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who added, “What is our responsibility to our devices when they become self-aware? And what will be our responsibility to each other?
Edison Lighthouse – Love Grows
Margaret Thatcher does “Yes Minister” skit
An evening pause: Yes Minister was a British comedy show set within the halls of Parliament. In the past year I have posted a number of clips from the show (here, here, here and here) that illustrate how truthfully it skewed the political class.
Today we have a skit with two of the show’s stars performing with the actual prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher. She clearly understood the truthful humor of the show, as she explained once during an interview.
Hat tip Andrew Worth.