Camel – First Light
An evening pause: Performed live 1977.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, who considers this her favorite Camel song.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Joe Ely – Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes
An evening pause: Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.
The Ventures – Wipeout
Retired engineer builds giant and revolutionary train, in his backyard
An evening pause: This story is not simply some cutsy human-interest tale about how some guy makes something cool in his backyard. Max Schlienger built this scale model prototype to demonstrate his concept for better and more efficient type of train.
Hat tip Cotour.
The Interviewer
An evening pause: The most dangerous thing one can do is make false assumptions about people, based on superficial knowledge.
Hat tip Mike Nelson and his sister Carol Nelson.
Liberace – Malaguena
An evening pause: Stay with it, because after the music Liberace and Sammy Davis do some comedy and a dance number that is pure light-hearted entertainment, the kind of thing that was normal on television in the 1960s, and now seems so difficult for modern performers to achieve.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Climax – Precious and Few
An evening pause: Hat tip Diane Zimmerman, who had not thought of this 1972 song until we saw the band make a quick cameo playing it on a 2001 Simpsons episode.
New York Mets – September 24, 1969
An evening pause: This pause was first posted by me back in 2011. As tonight is the fiftieth anniversary of that grand moment, I post it again, if only to remind the jaded and pessimistic youth of today that miracles really can happen. As I wrote then,
In 1969 the lowly New York Mets, doormats in the National League from the moment the team was created in 1962, came out of nowhere to win the pennant and the World Championship of baseball. … I and my friend Lloyd attended the game in which the Mets clinched first place in the National League Eastern Division. Below is video showing highlights of the game plus the final out, with the crowd pouring onto the field. Though you can’t see me, I am in that crowd, jumping for joy at this most unlikely sports miracle. There was no rioting, only happy fans chanting “We’re number one!” in exuberant disbelief.
And I still have that small piece of turf from Shea Stadium, collected on that night, proof that the unexpected and improbable is always possible.
The unlikeliness of the Mets championship in 1969 cannot be overstated. Before 1969, the team had never finished higher than next to last, each season losing more games than they won. Then, in 1969 they posted a 100-62 record, while coming from far back to overtake the favored Chicago Cubs for the pennant. Moreover, during that 1969 season all kinds of unusual things kept happening. To give just one example, they won a double header by scores of 1-0, with the pitcher in both games driving in the winning run.
As their first manager and Hall-of-Famer Casey Stengel would say, “You could look it up!”
In 1973 the Mets won the pennant again, following the motto “You gotta believe!” pushed by their relief pitcher Tug McGraw. McGraw was so right. Combine talent, dedication, hard work, and an unwavering belief that all things are possible, humans can sometimes do amazing things.
Luca Stricagnoli – Can’t Stop
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers – They Can’t Take That Away From Me
An evening pause: Another movie pause tonight, this time showing the films themselves. This clip includes two performances of this song, from two different Astaire & Rogers films. The first, from Shall We Dance? (1937), has Astaire singing the song, knowing that the Rogers character is leaving him. Of course she ends up not going.
The second clip is from The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), their last film together and done after a split of ten years. They knew then this would be their last film, and now the words have a meaning far greater than the story in the film. When they exit at the end of this song, they know it is pretty much for the last time.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
Shirley Bassey – Goldfinger
An evening pause: The theme song from Goldfinger (1964) might have been one of the best theme songs among all the Bond films. This live performance by the voice from that original film is from 2011, when she was 78 years old.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Wayne Hancock – Thunderstorms and Neon Signs
An evening pause: The visuals here have a very nice documentary feel, even those shots which were clearly staged. They all invoke the highway world of travelers, almost anywhere in the U.S.
Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.
Tom Hanks – Forrest Gump finds out he has a son
An evening pause: Without question Hanks has been one of the world’s best actors in the past three decades. And his choice of scripts has always been excellent. From Forrest Gump (1994).
Hat tip Cotour.
Herb Alpert – Puttin’ on the Ritz
An evening pause: From the youtube page:
The Puttin’ On The Ritz music video is a creative collaboration between Alpert, artist Glenn Kaino and filmmaker Afshin Shahidi with choreographers Napoleon & Tabitha D’umo from So You Think You Can Dance and produced by Kerith Lemon. One long camera shot follows the lead dancer, Vincent Noiseux on a musical journey and features musicians Lani Hall, Bill Cantos, Hussain Jiffry and Michael Shapiro as well as corps dancers like Kherington Payne and others that have been seen on So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Best Dance Crew, Dancing with the Stars, This is It, Step Up and more.
Hat tip Tom Biggar, who notes that Albert makes some cameos, which I think includes both the bus driver and the bartender.
Joe Lycett – Parking Ticket Story
An evening pause: If only we could always communicate this easily with government officials.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Departure (or “Space Travel Agent”)
An evening pause: Sadly, I think this short film captures well the cold inhumanity of the coming future, even if it also shows us a technological society capable of routine tourist travel to the stars.
Hat tip Cotour.
Jon David Kahn – American Heart
An evening pause: On this day of remembrance, this song seems fitting. And as the lyrics boldly state,
I won’t be made to ever feel ashamed
that I’m American made
I got American parts
I got American faith
In America’s heart
Go on, raise the flag
I got stars in in my eyes
I’m in love with her
And I won’t apologize.
The image that best reveals what America represents, as a messenger of freedom, is that photograph of the American soldier gently cradling a baby refugee from war. Or as said in the 1993 movie Gettysburg, “We are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.”
Chris Botti & Lucia Micarelli – Emmanuel
An evening pause: Hat tip to Thomas Biggar, who wrote, “This piece was written by Michel Colombier and released in 1971. Emmanuel was written to honour the memory of his son who died when he was only 5 years old.”
Mathematicians and chalk
Mat Gurman – Hotline Bling
An evening pause: Kinda calm and relaxing.
Hat tip Thomas Biggar Rex Ridenoure of Ecliptic Enterprises.
Both have been generous with their suggestions, I just got them confused for this particular pause.
The Paul Hogan Show – Product Placement Sketch
An evening pause: Movies and television would never do things like this. Never!
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Roy Orbison & k.d. lang – Pretty Woman & Crying
An evening pause: Two songs on this appearance on the Tonight Show on December 7, 1987, plus a bit of their interview afterward with some interesting tidbits.
Hat tip Thomas Biggar.
Gatos do Sul – Fire the Pandeiro player
An evening pause: I am not a jazz fan, but these guys (especially the flutist and violinist) seem to be having so much fun!
Hat tip Diane Wilson.
Sophie Fatu – Fly Me To The Moon
An evening pause: I like this far better for Labor Day than anything else I’ve thought of. It’s cute, sweet, nice, and hopeful. And it somehow seems fitting as we close out the summer of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing.
Hat tip Frank Kelly.
Felix Dierich – A Year Along the Geostationary Orbit
An evening pause: The view of Earth in 2016 as seen by the Japanese weather satellite Himawari-8 from geostationary orbit.
Hat tip Thomas Biggar.
Dick Cavett interviewing Orson Welles about famous people
An evening pause: Wells made one of the greatest films ever, Citizen Kane (1941), and then spent the rest of his life failing at finishing almost anything. Along the way he met some interesting people, and in this short clip during an interview on the Dick Cavett Show from July 27, 1970, he tells some of those stories.
His story about Churchill fits the gracious and humorous personality of that man to a “T”.
Hat tip Cotour.
Etienne de Lavaulx – The Sounds of Silence
Itai Kriss & Telavana – Mafroum
An evening pause: Some jazz, that starts like 1950s cocktail music, and transcends into something very different.
Hat tip Diane Wilson.
Danil Danzheev & Ezendey Balbin – Altai throat singing
An evening pause: I think only someone who was raised speaking Russian (or some variant) could naturally be able to achieve these deep sounds.
Hat tip Thomas Biggar.
Antique tortoise shell singing bird box
An evening pause: Unlike yesterday’s evening pause, tonight we look at some remarkable engineering that works perfectly, from the 1920s.
I would love to learn how this works.
Hat tip Diane Wilson.