U.S. Navy Midshipmen – Naptown Funk
An evening pause: It ain’t Anchors Aweigh, but the passion is the same. Wholly produced and performed by Navy midshipmen on the streets of Annapolis, with a zero budget.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
Loggins & Messina – Watching the River Run, House at Pooh Corner, Danny’s Boy
An evening pause: I am usually terrible at remembering the names of songs and the pop singers who sing them, so there are many pop songs that I know and really like that I have no idea what they are named or who performed them. Thus, though I have been very familiar with the name of Loggins & Messina, I never knew these were their songs until I saw this very nice clip of a live concert they put on in 2005. And what impressed me most about this particular performance was their focus on creating good music.
Hat tip Danae.
Hope and Cagney dancing
An evening pause: From the 1955 Bob Hope film, The Seven Little Foys, with James Cagney playing George M. Cohan. Neither man is remembered for their dancing, but from this scene you wouldn’t know it.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
John Williams – Flying theme from ET
An evening pause: I have always thought Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) to be incredibly over-rated, poorly edited, shallow with a predictable script, and not very interesting. Why the public went mad for it in 1982 always baffled me. Nonetheless, Williams’ score was and is magnificent, and a listen here might explain that madness somewhat.
Hat tip Danae.
The United Kingdom Ukulele orchestra – Tubular Bells
An evening pause: There are no bells here, nor tubes, but it sounds right nonetheless.
Hat tip Danae.
Aaron Copland – “The Promise of Living” from The Tender Land
An evening pause, posted early for Thanksgiving: I posted this for Thanksgiving back in 2012. It is worth watching and singing again, in these terrible times. The hope of America will always live on, even when America is gone. Ordinary people want freedom, love, family, and the right to live their lives as they wish, without harming others, so they can bring in “the blessings of harvest,” whatever that harvest might be. It must be our goal to allow that to happen, and to stop those that wish to prevent it.
The promise of living
With hope and thanksgiving,,,
Tommy Emmanuel, John Jorgenson, Pedro Javier González – Sultans of Swing
Oldest known footage of New York City
An evening pause: Having left Brooklyn last night, let’s take a look at what New York City looked like to the first documentary filmmakers. I myself am struck by two things immediately: First, how much the city really still looks like this. The buildings might have changed, but New York is still crowded, packed with buildings and people. Second, how much change also occurred in a very short time. The streets went from horses and carriages to street cars to automobiles in just a few decades, quickly, and with relatively little difficulty. Today such changes are hard, slow, and very expensive, mostly because of the introduction of an unending number of regulations.
Gene Pitney – Last Chance To Turn Around
An evening pause: This 1950s song, which many think is titled “Last Exit to Brooklyn,” actually has no connection to the 1950s book with that title. As noted at the youtube webpage, “Maybe Hubert Selby, the book’s author objected or Gene didn’t want to confuse people since they are unconnected.” Thus, the different title.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
The Pacific Crest Trail in Three Minutes
An evening pause: I prefer to do it a bit slower, but this will give the couch potatoes here a sense of why I and others like to go hiking.
Hat tip Danae.
The Portland Cello Project – Denmark
Vine to Wine
An evening pause: Making wine, the modern way. It is interesting how many steps here are still done by hand when they clearly could be automated. I suspect that it doesn’t pay for this winery to upgrade to more sophisticated equipment because their overall output is relatively small and it is more efficient for these steps to still be done by hand.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann, who tells me he is thinking of planting his own grape vines this year.
John Rich – The Battle of New Orleans
on account of because
An evening pause: From the 1941 Howard Hawks classic, Ball of Fire, about eight professors who hire a burlesque dancer to explain slang to them. Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime, who notes, “Barbara Stanwyck demonstrates the art of seduction, complete with luminously backlit hair, opposite the uncharacteristically prim Gary Cooper.”
“I’m going to show you what yum-yum is!”
Mendes Harmónica Trio – Beethoven’s 5th Symphony
Copenhagen Phil – Ravel’s Bolero
An evening pause: You really can’t pick a better classical piece for a flash mob performance than Bolero. It builds bit by bit, allowing the performers to slowly gather as if by accident. I also noticed that they seemed to be really enjoying the casual dress nature of this performance, which occurred at Coperhagen Central Station on May 2, 2011..
Hat tip Danae.
Vera Lynn – We’ll Meet Again
The proper way to peel hard boiled eggs
Noteworthy – Amazing Grace
An evening pause: Normally I do not post music videos where the singers are lip-syncing so that they can stage some clever visuals, as is done in this video. However, the singing is so good, and the singers and song is filled with such joy, that it is worth listening and watching regardless. A good way to end the week.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Tony MacAlpine Band – Tears of Sahara
An evening pause: Hat tip Danae. Like Danae, I don’t go in much for progressive metal, but the playing here is so good. And if you like the music, even better.
Tomato harvesting
An evening pause: Another video suggested by Phill Oltmann illustrating how engineering has revolutionized the agricultural field. In this case its tomatoes, which I think illustrates quite well why mass produced tomatoes are simply not as good as vine grown tomatoes from your garden. Assuming the tomatoes in this video are not intended for canning, they have to be tough to withstand the harvesting process so that they remain whole for the fruit stand.
Kingston Trio – They’re rioting in Africa
An evening pause: The amazing thing about this song is that it was written in the 1960s and does a good job of describing the insanity today. In the 60s it was actually exaggerating the chaos a bit. Today, it probably understates it. The only thing about the song that I objected to then, and now, is its eventual pessimistic view of humanity. We ain’t perfect, but we ain’t all bad either. In fact, I think there is probably more good than evil in most of us. We just need to listen, think, and choose. Chaos happens when we don’t, and instead act like mindless instinct-driven animals.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Excommunication scene from Becket
An evening pause: On the eve of this year’s election day, this scene from Becket (1964) expresses well what I wish the American voters would do to both the Democratic Party and the Republican leadership in Congress. They all need to go, for the health of the country and because of their repeated malfeasance in office.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of the new edition of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
John Jorgenson Quintet – Ghost Dance
Camille Saint-Saëns – La danse macabre
An evening pause: Performed with spirit by the Radio France orchestra, in anticipation of Halloween.
Hat tip Danae.