A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
An evening pause: This talk was given in October 2016, so the speaker, Bret Copeland, readily admits with great humor that he is describing something that no longer happens. Nonetheless, there will come a time when this will be done again, by vehicles better made and more often used. It is important to know how it was done.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
An evening pause: Performed in 1957 on Cole’s short-lived television show. Originally written by George and Ira Gershwin for their 1930 Broadway musical, Girl Crazy, which also made Ginger Rogers a star.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: The speaker is paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger, who has focused on compiling a database of the various symbols used by prehistoric cave artists, and suspects, because there are surprisingly so few symbols over a very long time period, that they represent the first glimmers of abstract writing, in a very primitive form.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: Arranged for 8 (!) pianos. From the youtube webpage:
2 successive performances of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Turkish March from “Die Ruinen von Athen”, arranged by Richard Blackford for 8 pianos. Played by Gina Bachauer, Jorge Bolet, Jeanne-Marie Darré, Alicia De Larrocha, John Lill, Radu Lupu, Garrick Ohlsson and Bálint Vázsonyi at a Gargantuan Pianistic Extravaganza in London, 1974.
Please note that the 2nd performance is NOT a shredding video – these great pianists were actually playing what you hear!
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: For tonight, a poem, one that I think all politicians should consider deeply as they try to establish their “legacy.”
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: “How does a person deal with the unfairness of life? The only way you can do it is face it, head on.”
An evening pause: The music is the Flower Duet from the opera Lakme by Léo Delibes. Tomorrow’s evening pause will be a magnificent short documentary about this man and how he came to kite flying. And I wonder if you can guess what he had done for a living.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
An evening pause: From the movie Topsy-Turvy (2000), Shirley Henderson, Dorothy Atkinson and Cathy Sara singing. The movie is about the creation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado. Not surprisingly, the best scenes in the movie are the scenes where they perform songs from the operetta, such as this 2010 evening pause.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: I usually dislike most music videos because of their cliches and fakery, preferring live performances instead. However, this 1967 Nancy Sinatra music video, from the very early days of such things, is so simple it doesn’t bother me that much. In a sense, it even highlights the music.
Hat tip t-dub.
An evening pause: Hat tip Sayomara. This pause is slightly different, and is really two-for-one. The background music is Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” but the visuals are of SpaceX’s future spaceport site at Boca Chica beach near Brownsville, Texas. Apparently someone used a drone to fly over the site and videotaped it. As Sayomara noted, this “shows how far away this site is from being usable.”
An evening pause: Performed during a wedding reception, December 2012, in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who wrote, “Pietro Mascagni’s ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ is often translated as ‘Country Ways.’ His opera departed from those of his day in that his characters were not of the nobility. He portrayed the lives and struggles of ordinary people. The performance is by the Gaetano Donizetti Symphonic Orchestra of Gessate and conducted by Pierangelo Pelucchi.”
An evening pause: As I have said before, it is very important to be silly once in awhile.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
An evening pause: As I return from Israel and the Middle East, this piece somehow seems appropriate, played on the Sumerian long-neck “gishgudi.”
Hat tip Sayomara.
An evening pause: I would never sit through a performance of the music played during this 1949 short film showing the power of the steam locomotive. Juxtapositioned with the powerful images of the train in motion, however, this music works splendidly. The film itself is an example of the kind of short avant garde films produced during the 1950s and 1950s, and well worth watching.
Hat tip Blair Ivey.
An evening pause: The song is Tom Waits, and is performed as part of a show put on by the group, Lady Sings it Better.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: This recreation attempts to recapture the reality of how Lincoln himself might have said the speech. Listen to the words, however. This is no pandering speech, as we routinely see today. It is hard, muscled, and honest, bluntly recognizing that all, from both sides of the Civil War, must pay for the scourge of slavery.
It is fitting to watch it today, on the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: From the really evocative science fiction film Dark City (1998). The film ain’t perfect, but it sticks with you long after you see it.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
