MozART Group – Wild, wild West
An evening pause: A gently humorous tribute to American music. Hat tip Dick Jones, courtesy of Diane Zimmerman.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Cam – Can’t Help Falling In Love
An evening pause: I’ve posted the original version by Elvis Presley from the movie Blue Hawaii (1961) back in 2013, but this live version,live at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on January 8, 2016, is definitely worth seeing. She dedicated the song to her fiancé, Adam Weaver, and during the performance it is obvious that she is singing directly to him in the audience.
I also dare you to watch it without singing along.
Hat tip Edward Thelen from reminding me that this song needs a revisit.
El Camino del Rey
An evening pause: I posted this video of El Camino del Rey (The King’s Road) back in 2010, but when Willi Kusche suggested it I thought, why not post it again? It shows a walk along the crumbling walkway high on the cliff walls of El Chorro canyon in Andalusia, Spain and is not for those with any fear of heights. Considering the craziness we are enduring with this year’s presidential election, I think this hike is relatively mild in comparison.
National Youth Orchestra of the USA – America the Beautiful
An evening pause: In honor of Washington’s actual birthday, today, February 22.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
John Denver & Cass Elliot – Leaving on a jetplane
An evening pause: Performed live August 19, 1972 on The Midnight Special. As one commenter noted on the youtube webpage, “This really happened right?” Sadly, as Danae noted to me in an email, both are now gone, far too soon.
Apollo 11 First Stage liftoff in Ultra Slow Motion
An evening pause: This footage was taken on July 16, 1969 at 500 frames per second, and shows only what happened at the base of the launch tower as the engines of the Saturn 5 rocket ignited and lifted the rocket into the air. Though the video is more than 8 minutes long, the actual events recorded lasted only about 30 seconds, beginning 5 seconds before T minus 0.
What struck me most as I watched this was the incredible amount of complex engineering that went into every single small detail of the rocket and the launch tower and launchpad. We tend to take for granted the difficulty of rocket engineering. This video will make you appreciate it again.
It is also mesmerizing. A lot happens in a very short period of time.
Hat tip Kyle Kooy.
A modern caveman in a modern cave
Lou Rawls – You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine
Balloon Flight over Cappadocia, Turkey
Abraham Lincoln – a tribute on his birthday
An evening pause: As today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, I feel compelled to repost my Lincoln tribute from last year. Above all, it is necessary we remember again the amazing good will he repeatedly expressed, even to those who hated him and wished to kill him. As I said last year:
We should also remind ourselves, especially in this time of increasing anger, bigotry, and violence, of these words from his second inaugural address, spoken in the final days of a violent war that had pitted brother against brother in order to set other men free:
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
England Dan and John Ford Coley – I’d Really Love to See You Tonight
An evening pause: Another nice song performed live on the 1970s television show The Midnight Special..
Hat tip Danae.
Brainstorm
An evening pause: In one of the most powerful death scenes ever, Louise Fletcher plays a scientist who suddenly realizes it is about to happen. From the 1983 film Brainstorm.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
Oregon as seen by a modern drone
An evening pause: The music is by “Lost in You” by Lior. The video demonstrates the endless possibilities that drones will bring to us in future years.
Hat tip Danae.
Marlene Dietrich – Lili Marleen
An evening pause: The song, aired initially during World War II by the Nazis for their troops, became a popular hit for soldiers on both sides of the war. Marlene Dietrich then recorded it as part of her effort to win the war for the Allies, in both English and German. She noted once that the German version is “darker”. Here is the English version.
Hat tip Engine Mike.
Long and Big Trucks
Kristin Chenoweth – I Will Always Love You
An evening pause: Performed live at the Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center in her hometown of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, her family were in the front row and, like her, strongly moved by the moment.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show – Sylvia’s Mother
The Roman Legion at War
An evening pause: Following up Friday’s evening pause, here is a nicely done short explanation of the infantry tactics of the Roman military, using accurate footage from various Hollywood movies. There were reasons why the Romans conquered the world and held it for so long, and these tactics were basic to that success.
Hat tip Rocco.
Crystal Gayle – Cry Me A River
Maksim Mrvica – Bohemian Rhapsody
Using Roman tactics to quell riots
An evening pause: The following was a drill by South Korean police to practice the techniques they use to control demonstrations and riots. Anyone who knows anything about Roman military tactics will instantly recognize what they are doing.
While this is not a real world situation, in an actual riot these techniques are certainly going to be effective. They also illustrate who is the civilized side in these disturbances.
Hat tip Rocco.
Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly – True Love
An evening pause: From the 1956 film High Society. And for my wife Diane today.
Hat tip Edward Theen.
Jinan Acrobatics Troupe – Rings
An evening pause: Two things to note: First, they purposely knock the rings down periodically to show that they are not held up very firmly. Second, one of the musical pieces they play is the main theme from the film Exodus (1960). The score won an Oscar for Ernest Gold.
Hat tip Danae.
Gordo – street drummer
Billy Joel – Travelin’ Prayer
An evening pause: Stick with it, as they finish slightly early and need to improvise a bit at the end to fill time.
Hat tip Kyle Kooy.
Howard Shore – The Shire (Concerning Hobbits)
An evening pause: I am not a big fan of the movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I find them heavy and over-wrought, focused too much on special effects and what I call “cool adolescent stuff”, none of which has anything to do with the very real and human story that Tolkien created about the battle between good and evil.
This short piece from the music score, however, evokes everything about hobbits that Tolkien intended. As he has Gandalf say, in describing hobbits, “Soft as butter they can be, but sometimes as tough as old tree roots.”
And since hobbits and the Shire are nothing more than Tolkien’s metaphor for England and the British culture he knew from before World War II, this song also evokes the quiet majesty and humbleness of that now lost world, “a nation of shop-keepers” who, like the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings, were in the end able to stand firm and beat back the evil of the Third Reich despite overwhelming odds.
Hat tip Rocco.
AirPano – Panoramas taken throughout the world
An evening pause: As they state on their webpaye, AirPano is a not-for-profit project created by a team of Russian photo enthusiasts focused on taking high-resolution aerial panoramic photographs. These are not videos, but stills. Quite amazing.
Hat tip George Petricko.
Captain & Tennille – Love Will Keep Us Together
Lonette McKee – Ill Wind
An evening pause: From the 1983 film, Cotton Club.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.