An evening pause: Hat tip Wayne DeVette, who notes, “The band’s name comes from a photo of W.C. Fields in Kenneth Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon, which bore the caption ‘W.C. Fields with gin blossoms’, referring to the actor’s telangiectasia-spotted face and rhinophymic nose by the slang term for the skin condition known as rosacea.”
An evening pause: Performed on television sometime in the 1960s.
Hat tip to Diane Zimmerman.
Sorry this is late. Got distracted this week with doctors’ appointments and other silly stuff.
An evening pause: This song is from the Broadway production of Cole Porter’s Guys & Dolls, which unfortunately got cut from the movie. It is song by an older man, a kind of father figure in the play, wishing the best for a young woman co-worker.
This version is actually the best live performance I could find, and amazingly it is from Beijing in 2017.
An evening pause: I just finished reading a book of letters written by a soldier who participated in the battle of Antietam, just south of Burnside Bridge. The irony was that Burnside spent more than a day and multiple attempts to capture the bridge, when in fact his troops could have simply walked across the creek at any point, never getting their legs wet above the knee. The soldier was Captain Wolcott Pascal Marsh, and his regiment actually forded the creek further south and advanced farther than almost anyone else in Burnside’s battalion. The book: Letters to a Civil War Bride.
Like all the Civil War battle fields, Antietam is definitely worth visiting.
Hat tip Cotour.
An evening pause: Hat tip Wayne DeVette, who adds this tidbit, “Shortly after he hit up on that song, his wife divorced him and demanded an outrageous cut of all his future earnings.”
An evening pause: From the Bowes Museum in northern England, east of the Lake District.
Hat tip Cotour.
An evening pause: Performed live 1971, before he rejected all of western civilization and became a Muslim.
Hat tip Ferris Akel.
An evening pause: Performed live in Bahrain in 2024. It shouldn’t surprise us that these Arabs play bagpipes. It is merely a reflection of the British colonial influence from the past century.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
An evening pause: For the long weekend, some tricks you can use in your next poker night.
Hat tip Cotour, who adds, “Never play cards with strangers.”
An evening pause: Performed live on the television show The Midnight Special in 1973.
Hat tip wampyre.
An evening pause: Performed by the Orchestre National de Lyon, Jun Märkl, conductor.
And no, it wasn’t written for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was simply a good choice for the score.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: Performed live 2024. A great song to herald in the weekend. May all my readers find themselves dancing in the dark with their perfect lover.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
An evening pause: Music by Disturbed.
Hat tip to Wamphyr, who adds, “It’s fun to watch a grandmother rock out like this.”
An evening pause: Performed live c2016.
Hat tip Judd Clark, who also recommends the long and interesting essay at the youtube page describing the artistic and musical history of this piece.
An evening pause: A blues piece performed live 1994.
Hat tip Alec Gimarc, who adds that “Al Kooper was the creative force behind Blood Sweat & Tears.”
