Neil Diamond – Coming to America
An evening pause: The video is a bit too darkly lit, but the chemistry of the audience with Neil Diamond’s singing is enthralling. “Today!”
Tag: television
Beethoven — second movement, Fifth Symphony, performed by NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini
An evening pause: This March 22, 1952 television performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony from Carnegie Hall by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, was probably the most remembered by the generation of our parents. I show the second movement, because it happens to be my favorite. Listen as the opening theme returns several times during the piece, only changing the last time into something even more beautiful.
Watching Toscanini as he conducts is fascinating as well.
The Ten Tenors – Bohemian Rhapsody
An evening pause:
Yanni – Nostalgia
An evening pause:
Loreena McKennitt – The Stolen Child
An evening pause: William Butler Yeats’ poem, The Stolen Child, set to song.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breat,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping
than he can understand.
Monty Python – The Cheese Shop sketch
An evening pause: An ideal metaphor describing modern telephone customer service.
Walking on water
An evening pause: Walking on water. As the youtube website explained, “They filled a pool with a mix of cornstarch and water made on a concrete mixer truck. It becomes a non-newtonian fluid. When stress is applied to the liquid it exhibits properties of a solid.”
Jack Benny meets Twilight Zone
An evening pause: Jack Benny meets Twilight Zone. “You can call me Twi.”
Manfred Mann – Blinded by the Light
An evening pause: I dare anyone to watch these guys perform this song and still claim that rock stars aren’t talented musicians.
Holistic ER
An evening pause:
Compliation of news fails 2011
An evening pause: Why I never get my information from television news.
Frank Sinatra – High Hopes
An evening pause:
John Cleese – How to irritate people by being considerate
An evening pause: From the 1969 mock documentary by John Cleese, How to Irritate People.
Judy Garland – Pretty girl milking her cow
An evening pause: From her 1964 television show.
Candid Camera demonstrates the power of conformity
An evening pause: From a 1960 episode of Allen Funt’s Candid Camera television show.
Christopher Walken reads “The Three Little Pigs”
An evening pause: How about another modern retelling of a classic children’s tale? Christopher Walken reads “The Three Little Pigs”.
Fry and Laurie – Tricky Linguistics
An evening pause:
Eric Idle – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
An evening pause:
John Adams – the vote
An evening pause: To close out my Declaration of Independence celebration that I began two days ago, here is the vote and public release of the Declaration, as portrayed in the 2008 John Adams mini-series.
To all government leaders, you ignore these words at your peril:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. [emphasis mine]
Quebe Sisters – It’s a sin to tell a lie
An evening pause: Some hot fiddlin’ to the song, “It’s a sin to tell a lie.”