An evening pause: As noted at the youtube webpage, “a feel-good tribute to the Doobie Brothers hit.” It appears this guy produces a new cover song each Friday “to celebrate the best day of the week.”
An evening pause: About a minute into this I was thinking, this is exactly the kind of bicycle tricks that teenage boys began doing in the 1980s. And that’s about when she really got started.
An evening pause: For me personally, this song is perfect, on my birthday. Or as Gordon Dickson wrote in his magnificent science fiction book, Way of the Pilgrim, “He felt the urge to speak like a great hand at his back, pushing him forward, a hand that could not be resisted.”
An evening pause: Performed by the Eufonico String Orchestra, Rafał Nicze, conductor, as part of the 3rd Polish Nationwide Music Schools’ Symphonic Orchestras Competition, May 19, 2015.
The music here is soooo British, as it should be, written by Holst in honor of the St Paul’s Girls’ School where Holst was Director of Music for almost thirty years.
An evening pause: A special evening pause, to remember what happened on this date 32 years ago. Despite the many successes shown here, there of course is one that stands out for different and tragic reasons.
An evening pause: Hat tip John Harman. This video has been around for awhile, but I hadn’t ever actually watched it until now. What it shows is very cool, but sad in so many ways. As a government project the whole Soviet space shuttle program was generally a dead end waste of resources (as was our own shuttle). Yet, it was possibly one of Soviet Russia’s greatest technological achievements — which they have allowed to rot away in these abandoned hangers, rather than opening them up for their citizens to see and admire and learn from.
A evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen. The camera work could be better, but the song is really good, and as Edward notes, “I have to say that any group with a name like this is cannot be all bad.”
An evening pause: I previously posted a biography of Robert Mitchum by this same filmographer. This one, about James Garner, is equally worth a viewing. And like the Mitchum biography, it shows how humble and ordinary a man Garner was.
An evening pause: The music is by Enrico Morricone from the film The Mission (1986). There it is entitled Gabriel’s Oboe, a musical piece I have posted previously here as an evening pause. Here it is sung to lyrics written by Chiara Ferraù, celebrating the joys that freedom brings. “I dream of souls that are always free,/Like the clouds that fly.”
Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who notes that this song is written by an Italian and sung by a Korean about the American aspiration of freedom. Seems to me that this illustrates two aspects of that American aspiration, one of which is freedom, the second of which is that freedom is something all people from all cultures aspire to.
An evening pause: To help start out a new year, a scene from the 1940 John Ford classic, The Grapes of Wrath, based on John Steinbeck’s novel. While the movie tended to make government a saintly hero, which bothered me from the first time I saw it, it also captured the heart and generosity of the American spirit, as certainly existed in the previous century. Even if you are poor and desperate, if you insist on paying your fair share and don’t ask for a hand out, Americans immediately rally around you, in a quiet unassuming way, without wishing credit or accolades.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
Note that I am in need of suggestions for evening pauses. If you have made suggestions before, you know where to send them. If you haven’t and want to, leave a comment here and I will email you. Don’t include the link to the pause, however, as I want to schedule it, and that will blow the punchline.
An evening pause: A nice way to close this year’s Christmas season. Hat tip Wayne DeVette, who notes this performance’s “unique arrangement.” Quite refreshing.