An evening pause: Though Gustav Holst entitled the fourth movement of his The Planets suite Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity, its sweeping melody has always invoked for me the open and majestic plains and mountains of the American west. Sir Charles Mackerras conducts the BBC Philharmonic orchestra.
An evening pause: Loreena McKennitt singing her musical version of Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott.
An evening pause: Here’s another Rube Goldberg machine, this time created for a music video from the band OK Go.
An evening pause: The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain doing the music (with sound effects!) from the film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966).
An evening pause: From Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overture, the song “Someone in a Tree,” from the 1976 Broadway production.
It’s the fragment, not the day
It’s the pebble, not the stream
It’s the ripple, not the sea
That is happening.
Not the building but the beam
Not the garden but the stone
Only cups of tea
And history
And someone in a tree.
An evening pause: Gene Kelly doing the title song number from Singing in the Rain (1952).
An evening pause: My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Hayao Miyazaki’s classic animated film. This short segment near the film’s beginning, showing the family’s arrival in a new home, illustrates Miyazaki’s incredible ability for creating real characters in a real story, even if that story has a fantasy element.
An evening pause: The Snake Pit (1948). The story of the rescue of an insane woman (played by Olivia de Havilland). This scene expresses the longing for sanity by all the patients in the insane asylum.
An evening pause: Bill Staines, singing his lovely song, Sweet Wyoming Home.
An evening pause: An American hymn, How can I keep from singing?
An evening pause: The Muppets, again!
An evening pause: Stan Rogers’ classic song, Northwest Passage.
For just one time, I would take the northwest passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea,
Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage,
And make a northwest passage to the sea.
