Tag: entertainment

The first music video in zero gravity

10:30 am

Update: The music video itself has been pulled from youtube for copyright reasons that I don’t quite understand. However, the making of video is still available, and that will give you a pretty good feel for some of the stuff in the original piece.

I was going to make this an evening pause, but then decided it shouldn’t wait. This music video, by OK-Go, is unique and somewhat historic, as it I think is the first to have been done in zero gravity, using an airplane to fly parabolic arcs. It demonstrates clearly the fantastic and as present almost unimaginable possibilities of dance in weightlessness, as it also might be the first time that professional dancers, the two women, are given a chance to do moves in microgravity.

Be sure to also watch the making of video below the fold. And go here for the story behind the video.


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Marlene Dietrich – Lili Marleen

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The song, aired initially during World War II by the Nazis for their troops, became a popular hit for soldiers on both sides of the war. Marlene Dietrich then recorded it as part of her effort to win the war for the Allies, in both English and German. She noted once that the German version is “darker”. Here is the English version.

Hat tip Engine Mike.

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Howard Shore – The Shire (Concerning Hobbits)

6:01 pm

An evening pause: I am not a big fan of the movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I find them heavy and over-wrought, focused too much on special effects and what I call “cool adolescent stuff”, none of which has anything to do with the very real and human story that Tolkien created about the battle between good and evil.

This short piece from the music score, however, evokes everything about hobbits that Tolkien intended. As he has Gandalf say, in describing hobbits, “Soft as butter they can be, but sometimes as tough as old tree roots.”

And since hobbits and the Shire are nothing more than Tolkien’s metaphor for England and the British culture he knew from before World War II, this song also evokes the quiet majesty and humbleness of that now lost world, “a nation of shop-keepers” who, like the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings, were in the end able to stand firm and beat back the evil of the Third Reich despite overwhelming odds.

Hat tip Rocco.

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Leningrad Cowboys & the Red Army Choir – Sweet Home Alabama

6:01 pm

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.

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Jose Feliciano – Feliz Navidad

6:01 pm

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.)

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