An evening pause: Let’s take another hike in a place most people wouldn’t want to go. This time, to Mount Huashan in central China. This is a holy mountain with a temple at the top. To get there you need to climb up a lot of steps along an exposed ridgeline. Eventually, you must also put on a harness and do what is called the plank walk. Enjoy!
An evening pause: A concert performance of Ennio Morricone’s theme from Cinema Paradiso (1988), one of the best films ever made. Even if you don’t speak Italian, see it in Italian with subtitles, rather than the dubbed version.
An evening pause:Forbidden Planet (1956). Almost a half century after its creation, this science fiction film is still one of the best every made. The story is supposingly inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This is also the film that gave Gene Roddenberry his inspiration for Star Trek.
An evening pause:El Camino del Rey (The King’s Road) is a crumbling walkway high on the cliff walls of El Chorro canyon in Andalusia, Spain. The hike is not for the faint-hearted.
An evening pause:Kate Rusby, singing her song Polly. The video and audio might not be great, but the performance is stellar. And the lyrics, telling such a simple story of love, make it worthwhile regardless.
An evening pause: Not only does Eddi Reader probably have one of the most beautiful voices in the singing world today, she links that voice to some of the best Irish instrumentalists in the game. Watch her and her band bring down the house in this live performance of “Willie Stewart”.
An evening pause: Though it might look real, the music machine in this short is animated, a creation of Animusic, a company dedicated to producing animated shorts set to music.
An evening pause: Here’s some modern music, Poker Face, performed not by its original singer, Lady GaGa, but by Molly Lewis, someone far more appealing.
An evening pause: In our modern “politically correct” society, many people object strenuously when I express my unwavering preference for the British-American culture that founded the United States. It seems that today’s polite society considers it judgmental and unfair to suggest our way of life is superior to others. Well, before you protest, please listen to this speech from the movie Gettysburg, in which Colonial Joshua Chamberlain explains why he decided to fight for the Union in the Civil War. To quote, “We are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.” Then he adds this most important point: “Here we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was.”
That is our culture. That is what we as a society have always stood for. And it is these values that I wish to propagate to the stars, a desire for which I will make no apologizes.
An evening pause: Of all the animators in the world today, Hayao Miyazaki is probably the best. Every single one of his films is an incredible viewing experience. Here is a clip from Whisper of the Heart (1995), a truly wonderful film about young love and hope. Though he didn’t direct it, Miyazaki wrote the screenplay and storyboards as well as produced it. Not surprisingly, the film is seeped in his style, with the same unique but believable characters, unpredictable but compelling story-telling, and a magical originality that is rare in movies today.
An evening pause: In the 1960s, the Jackie Gleason Show was one of television’s most popular variety shows. Each episode had one regular routine, where Gleason played Joe the bartender, visited by an unseen Mr. Dunnaghy. Invariably, Joe would bring out his friend, Crazy Guggenheim, played by Frank Fontaine. Fontaine, as Crazy, would then hold everyone spellbound for five plus minutes with the most silly charactor humor one can imagine.
An evening pause: Though the sound and video quality from this recording from the Julie Andrews Hour (1972) is not the best, watching Julie Andrews and Cass Elliot do this medley of some of Cass Elliot’s hit songs is still breathtaking.
An evening pause: Tomorrow will be the 41st anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. So, let’s start the week with a clip from the 1972 film version of Man of La Mancha to show why some impossible dreams are certainly possible. In this short scene, Peter O’Toole, as Cervantes, explains why he does not like to look at life, “as it is.”