Arthur Wesley Dow: View of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada (1919)
Good evening, Kibitzers!
I hope everyone had a pleasant holiday weekend! I did, but now I’m struggling with the fact that Tuesdays are even worse Mondays than Mondays are. The day gets extra Monday bonus points for featuring a departmental meeting first thing in the morning. I hate meetings that are called because it’s {day of the week} rather than because there’s something to discuss. On the other hand, at least I don’t have to appear at it in person any more. It’s well worth buying my own coffee.
We have another assortment of videos today. I’m not sure it actually takes less time, honestly, to assemble one of these, but it definitely does take less forethought.
Just a day late for Memorial Day (through no fault of hers), Calla Smith sings the national anthem in the Navajo language, in Window Rock, Arizona, prior to the Window Rock (HS) Lady Scouts playing the Page Lady Sand Devils for the 3A North basketball championship. [You can hear Calla Smith sing the anthem for the Phoenix Suns here, but it’s disappointingly just in English.] [2:25]
Here’s the rather long video I was promising eeff the other day: Grady Hillhouse of the Practical Engineering channel talks about the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and how bridges are, or should be, designed against ship collisions. [If you are going to be recovering from surgery, you might also like his Every Kind of Bridge Explained in 15 Minutes.] [28:44]
For the recent geomagnetic storm that splashed auroras all over, storm chaser Brett Adair of Live Storms Media went on out to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and shot some spectacular footage. [4:17]
SciShow host Hank Green discusses side effects of discontinuing anti-depressant medications, particularly the weird phenomenon dubbed “brain zaps”. [10:46]
Sir David Attenborough had his 98th birthday this month, and in celebration, the BBC offers this 98-second (or just a bit longer, it seems) montage of scenes from throughout his long career. [1:47]
Now we come to the cookout section: Chef John offers these tasty-looking skewers of grilled balsamic beef. [9:18]
The Cooking with Kirby YouTube channel is about Mexican food, as in, food that Mexican people make nowadays. Elote, Mexican “street corn”, is a pretty famous treat that, on the cob, is kind of messy to eat. Here, Kirby makes Cóctel de Elote, basically that same treat in a cup. Here, it’s scaled up to a multi-serving salad made easy with canned corn, that would certainly liven up a barbecue. (Sadly, he refers to, but does not demonstrate, a version trimmed with bacon, jalapeños, and hot Cheetos. If you are interested, I’m sure your heart will guide you to the proper formula, but here’s a short video of interest.) [6:26]
When we hear from Dutch guitar wizard Laszlo Buring, it’s usually because he’s playing something in the style of Mark Knopfler. Today, however, he’s playing the solo from Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb in the style of Stevie Ray Vaughan, including his famous guitar-behind-the-head trick. [1:46]
To my surprise, when I started assembling this group of videos, I found there was a cat section. Here it is.
The title of this video, Remove Cat Before Flight, is an instruction this glider crew maybe should have heard earlier. Don’t worry, everyone is fine! [2:56]
This man, Robert Sijka, is a photographer who takes extremely striking portraits of Maine Coon Cats, of which his wife is a breeder. His whole YouTube channel, pretty much, is devoted to these handsome cats, and who can blame him? [8:26]
Norwegian Forest Cats readily solve a puzzle meant for dogs. The cat on the left does the heavy lifting here, but no political parable is intended. [2:39]
This is just cats stealing pizza. Tip: cats do not accept instruction that directs them not to steal pizza. [2:42]
By way of a musical finale, this is from a live performance by Mumford & Sons at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz Fest. They are joined onstage for House of the Rising Sun by Celisse, Jon Batiste, and Trombone Shorty. [7:49]
We have some new political snark from the Parody Project to close out with: The Real GOP goes to the tune of Billy Joel’s Always a Woman to Me. [3:33]