Patsy Cline – I Fall To Pieces
An evening pause: Performed live on “The Glenn Reeves Show” on February 23rd, 1963.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Four-wheeled robot climbs walls
An evening pause: This short video demonstrates that all is possible if one combines flying drone capability with that of a road vehicle. I’m not sure if this has any practical value, but it sure is cool to see 1960s comic book engineering come to life.
Hat tip Danae.
Daft Punk – Get Lucky
An evening pause: Hat tip Kyle Kooy. I don’t think the Chinese military realized that they were marching to this music, but gosh darn it, they sure appear to. As Kyle noted to me, “Somebody took a Chinese military parade and set the music to the American song “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk. … [It] creates a very mesmerizing video that is both upbeat and somewhat eerie at the same time.”
Glowworms in Motion – time lapse
An evening pause: What could be better? Glowworms, a cave, and beautiful music by Dexter Britain called Light Bridges.
Hat tip Danae.
“You’re just not couth!”
An evening pause: Judy Holliday and Broderick Crawford from the 1950 classic, Born Yesterday.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
2CELLOS – The Book of Love
Mark O’Connor & Wynton Marsalis – Boil ’em Cabbage Down
2014 Budapest Airshow highlights
An evening pause: Not only is the flying amazing, including some stunts under structures (which is usually forbidden in most cities), the music, a piece called Celestial by Audio Network, is great too!
Hat tip from both Edward Thelen’s, father and son.
Bob Stromberg with Ken Davis – Hand Shadows
Leningrad Cowboys & the Red Army Choir – Sweet Home Alabama
An evening pause: I can think of nothing more appropriate to begin the new year with than this performance. Nothing.
Hat tip hondo.
By the way, with the New Year I am in desperate need of more Evening Pause suggestions. If you’ve sent me suggestions in the past, you know the email address. If not, post a comment here saying that you have a suggestion (without mentioning what it is) and I will email you for it.
Robbie Williams & Frank Sinatra- It Was A Very Good Year
An evening pause: From a 2001 live performance. A fitting song, and presentation, to end our year.
Hat tip Danae.
Seth MacFarlane – What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson
Andre Rieu – 2013 Brazil Skater’s Waltz
An evening pause: Something for the party week between Christmas and New Years. Stay with it, because this orchestra really does know how to enjoy itself.
Hat tip Danae.
Pagagnini – Pachelbel’s Canon in D
An evening pause: Funny, and they demonstrate that it is possible to play the Canon in D as a tango, bluegrass, gypsy, and practically any musical style you can imagine.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Jose Feliciano – Feliz Navidad
An evening pause: From this secular Jew to my Christian fans, please accept my sincerest wish that you have a glorious and merry Christmas.
Hat tip Tom Biggar. (I like this particular performance because it is so raw. Feliciano is blind, and the video shows it clearly. Yet he has the incredible courage to get up and perform to millions.)
Ditto Orchestra – Christmas Medley
An evening pause: I like this because, as Danae says, the orchestra is “somewhat obscure and youthful, but apparently Korean and affiliated with a concert hall named ‘Club Balcony.’ The director’s nickname seems to be ‘Izzy.'” They come at this music, which to western ears has become so familiar you almost don’t hear it anymore, with fresh ears. And I especially like their hats.
Hat tip Danae.
Roy Clark – 12th Street Rag
Daniela Andrade – Christmas Time Is Here
William Zeitler – Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Landing an F-15 with only one wing
Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal
An evening pause: Played on an instrument which the website calls L’orgue de barbarie. To me it resembles a glorified organ grinder, except that it plays a wide range of midi-type sounds. Very clever. And it succeeds in making a Michael Jackson song sound interesting to me, for the first time!
Hat tip Rocco E.
Olivia Newton-John & Bob Hope – Silver Bells
An evening pause: As we move into the heart of the Christmas season, this piece from the 1974 Bob Hope Christmas Special will allow us to remember a time when the idea was to express some good cheer and good will, not whine about oppression because someone said something we didn’t like or agree with. Note that a few of Hope’s jokes at the beginning are very time sensitive, as this was aired just after the 1974 elections where the Republicans got badly beaten. Hope, who was Republican, still had no problem cracking jokes at his own party’s expense.
Hat tip Danae.
The King’s Singers – Greensleeves
How to land on a carrier with a missing front wheel
An evening pause: With his front nose gear refusing to deploy, the pilot describes how he still safely landed his Harrier jet on an aircraft carrier.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann
Gabriella Quevedo – 7 Years
An evening pause: A lovely pleasant piece of music, arranged by her from a piece written by Lukas Graham.
Kurt Nilsen – Walking In The Air
An evening pause: From the film The Snowman (1982), music by Howard Blake. Hat tip Danae for suggesting the song.
National Youth Orchestra of the USA – Simple Gifts
An evening pause: From Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and performed during a seven city tour in China in 2015. The orchestra is privately funded and is part of a program by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute for training young musicians ages 16–19.
Hat tip Danae. Stay till the end for a nice and clever surprise.
Roosevelt’s speech responding to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
An evening pause: On this anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, we should listen to President Franklin Roosevelt’s entire speech to Congress on December 8, 1941. He came before Congress to ask them to declare war on Japan.
For those of us who remember President George Bush’s speech after 9/11, the differences are striking. Bush aimed his ire at one element in the Islamic world, al-Qaeda, while ignoring their numerous allies in Iran, Gaza, the West Bank, and elsewhere. He also made it clear that the military would be asked to do the work, not the entire nation. “Be ready,” he told them, while suggesting to everyone else that they need do nothing themselves to join in the battle. Bush did not demand a nationwide commitment. In essence, he asked Americans to just continue shopping.
Roosevelt instead said this: “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.”
The entire nation was now at war, and the goal was total victory so that Japan would never be able to do it again. For the next three and a half years that was the goal. And not just against Japan. The goal was to destroy Japan as well as all of its fascists allies. And to do it as fast as possible.
Had Bush responded to 9/11 as Roosevelt had to Pearl Harbor, the nation would have not just invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, it would have continued into Syria, Pakistan, and then Iran. In addition, there would have been no gentle treatment of Saudi Arabia. They are as complacent in the Islamic War against the west as is Iran, and must either change, or be changed wholly.
Instead, Bush gave us a weak and partial victory that accomplished nothing, and allowed more violence and terrorism to raise its ugly head again, aided and encouraged by the even weaker and wimpier leadership of Barack Obama (illustrated by his own absurdly weak speech just yesterday). The result has been the attacks in France, Benghazi, and California, and increased violence in Israel, Iraq, and Syria. And the rise of a terrorist nation called the Islamic State.
Anyway, watch and see how a real leader responds to evil:
Richard Galliano Tangaria Quarter – Autumn Leaves
An evening pause: Listening to this I almost feel I am a child again at a wedding or bar mitzvah, with my parents’ generation on a crowded dance floor dancing to this kind of soft music. A fitting way to begin the Christmas season.
Hat tip to Danae.