An evening pause: Very nice cover, with both women playing on the same harp. Note however that this is not live, nor are the visuals from a single performance. It appears to me that the players recorded the song in a studio, then shot themselves performing it several times at different angles. Later they edited those visuals to match the studio taping.
No matter. Very well done, and quite hypnotic.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
An evening pause: A very detailed look at some of the behind-the-scenes history for one of John Ford’s best westerns, The Searchers (1956), starring John Wayne.
This isn’t my favorite Ford film. I prefer My Darling Clementine (1946). Nonetheless, The Searchers is still one of the best, and this short documentary will also give you a feel for the actual American culture of the time, a culture that cared about the truth and tried to treat people with respect.
If you want to watch but save time, you can set the playing speed at 2X normal and understand everything completely.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
An evening pause: In memory of the many ordinary and great people who worked and will work hard to build good things, now and into the future.
Hat tip Cotour.
An evening pause: I think I like this version of this Dire Straights song best of all, as played on the gayageum.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
An evening pause: A very silly but quite entertaining cross-breed between the opening theme to Gilligan’s Island and Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
A evening pause: Some forgotten history worth learning. Might even make you want to try the plant in your next salad.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
An evening pause: For my younger readers, Foster Brooks’s comedy was based on his amazing ability to play a funny drunk. And he did it when Americans still could laugh at this stuff and knew there was no reason to get outraged.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
An evening pause: This makes a great bookend to yesterday’s evening pause. And yes, they are having as much fun playing as the musicians yesterday.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: 2CELLOS is Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser. This was performed live in Tokyo in July 2015. And boy, were they all having fun doing it.
Hat tip David Eastman.
A evening pause: An entertaining animated cartoon from Soviet Russia, 1938. It subconsciously reveals much about Russia’s rough society of that time between the world wars. Even in the 1930s Russia was still largely an illiterate peasant culture, less than three generations since the freeing of the serfs and now ruled by Stalin and the communists with an iron hand.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: A short seven minute tour of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
You will never see a museum in this manner. And as they go by, how many of these flying vehicles can you name?
Hat tip David Eastman.
An evening pause: This cover of Johnson’s song is by someone who for some reason doesn’t give his name on his youtube page. Blind Willie Johnson was a gospel singer from the 1920s who had been blinded as a child. If you want to hear him performing his magnificent guitar piece go here. There are no visuals, sadly, which is why I choose this cover, as it is I think important to see the playing to understand how brilliant the piece is.
Hat tip Mike Nelson, who in noting that Johnson’s recorded performance was one of the pieces of music included on the Voyager spacecraft the U.S. sent beyond the solar system, asks, “Is this the behavior of a “systemically” racist society?”
An evening pause: A father and daughter duet, only possible through the magic of modern technology.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
An evening pause: This seems a very appropriate evening pause to end my 10th anniversary July fund-raiser for Behind the Black.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann, who though not American truly appreciates the American concepts of freedom.
An evening pause: This sequence from the animated film Robots (2005) is a very typical scene from almost every modern Hollywood film, whether real or animated (though the difference is getting harder to see as they put more and more CGI in every film). Regardless, it is fun, and takes the idea of a Rube Goldberg device to a very strange extreme.
Hat tip Bob Robert.
An evening pause: This was John Lennon’s last live concert appearance, an unannounced walk-on during an Elton John concert at Madison Square Garden in 1974. And yes, that is Yoko Ono in the audience watching. At the time the two were separated, and this event apparently was crucial to getting them back together.
Hat tip Roland.
An evening pause: I think it worthwhile to compare this performance with the performance from the very first evening pause, July 1, 2010, excerpted from a 1968 movie.
The contrast reveals a great deal about how our culture has changed.
Hat tip Wayne Devette.
