Good evening, EBD here, welcome to the Wednesday edition of SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, a real treat for SDA opera buffs: we present Der Holle Rache, aka the Queen of the Night’s Vengeance Aria, from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Opera fans typically love to while away their evenings debating which performer’s version of any given aria is the best one, so tonight we give you two quite different versions of the Queen of the Night Aria, one by French Coloratura Natalie Dessay and one by Florence Foster Jenkins so that SDA readers may decide for themselves which version is best for them. Feel free to discuss the matter, just not in the thread. If you feel it necessary to comment, remember that musical preferences are strictly a matter of taste, so please avoid heated arguments, profanity and all-caps. In my personal opinion, both versions of the aria are exemplary in their own way.
So, grab your opera glasses and work up a persistent scratchy cough, we’re off: first, Der Holle Rache as sung by French coloratura Natalie Dessay, and then by the remarkable Florence Foster Jenkins.
The thread is open for your reader tips.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation, we have a special presentation in honour of Tuesday’s results. Dedicated to the lovely and gracious Miss Kate McMillan, here is Mr. Louis Armstrong performing Hello Dolly (2:29, live). And now, if y’all will very much forgive me:

Hello, Katee. This is Vitruvius, Katee.
It’s so nice to see you back where you belong.
You’re lookin’ swell, Katee; I can tell, Katee:
You keep glowin’, still crowin’, you’re still goin’ strong.

I feel the room swayin’, while the band’s playin’,
One of our old favourite songs from way back when.
So: take her wrap, fellas, find her an empty lap, fellas,
Katee’ll never go away, oh yeah.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Monday night jazz show, here are Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, and June Christy performing How High The Moon (3:05). And, yep, that’s Nat on piana and Mel on drums. You saw it here first, on SDA Late Nite Radio.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Sunday night show, here is a special presentation of Here it Comes (4:20), as performed by the Manning Chorus, from the National Geographic’s series “Monster Moves”.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Plato & Aristotle

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio and to our new Saturday night Distinguished Lecture, Documentary & Interview series. To provide an overall structure for these shows, at least for the next several months, we’re going to start with the first part of philosophy: metaphysics, that is to say, what exists? From the largest to the smallest, from empty to infinity, what is the fundamental reality we exist in? These questions address the undergirding upon which all else rests, so let’s take a look at some of them first. Then we intend to head toward epistemology and axiology, and eventually politics and art, though there may be deviations from time to time.

Before we get started with tonight’s show, if you are not already familiar with the Hubble telescope’s ultra-deep-field images of galaxies, which Richard refers to near the beginning of his talk below, you may wish to first watch this video: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (6:13). In this video, we find that a little tiny portion of the sky, that until these images we thought was dark, actually contains on the order of ten thousand galaxies (of the roughly hundred billion galaxies that we think exist, each with on the order of a hundred billion stars, which works out to about 10²² stars in total, for those of you keeping score at home).

So now, tonight, without further ado, for your delectation, here is Dr. Richard E. Rothschild‘s excellent talk: The Universe is Rated “R” for Violence (46:03), in which he, a professor of physics at the University of California in San Diego, discusses the changes that are happening on huge scales within known existence, of which neutron-star thermonuclear flash-burning is perhaps my favourite. And you may well say, but Vitruvius, metaphysics is above or beyond physics, so why are we doing physics tonight? Well, it’s because I disagree with that taxonomy. I think that meta-foo includes foo. I don’t want to argue about it, if you don’t agree, just ignore me and watch the videos, already.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Friday night old-time radio crime-detective show, here is the Music To Die By episode of Casey, Crime Photographer (1948, MP3, 6.6 MB, 28:36), brought to you by the Anchor Hocking Glass Corporation. Interestingly, perhaps, the last word in the show, before station identification, is Canada.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Thursday night wild-card show, here are Ian Dury and The Blockheads performing Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 (1979, 4:46).

Nota Bene: I’m modifying the SDA LNR schedule slightly, as follows. Firstly, starting last week, Saturday night will, at least for the next some months, now be our Distinguished Lecture, Documentary & Interview show. Secondly, our old Saturday night contemporary music show has been merged into our Thursday night wild-card show (which already contains country, folk, comedy, and miscellanea), thus explaining tonight’s show. Our other shows remain as currently scheduled: Sunday is classical music, Monday is jazz, Tuesday is vintage music, Wednesday is DJ EBD, and Friday is old-time radio.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening, welcome to SDA Late Night Radio.
On New Year’s Day, after more than a thousand cars were set on fire in France, mostly in the, how you say, banlieues, French security forces described the previous evening as having been ‘rather calm’ and ‘without major incident.'” Oui, tout va tres bien, tres bien, cela n’est rien.
Tonight, for your delectation, we present a musical tribute to the certain je ne sais quoi that has had a huge effect on Canadian politics, particularly on our government contracting….procedures. I am referring, of course, to the Gallic shrug. So without further ado, here’s Ray Ventura et ses Collegiens performing Tout Va Tres Bien, Madame La Marquise.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Tuesday night vintage music show, here are Ben Pollack and his Californians performing Waitin’ For Katie (1927, 3:00).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Monday night jazz show, here courtesy of mail from listener Exetaz is Mr. Frank Sinatra performing Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim‘s Wave (4:26).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Sunday night classical music show, here courtesy of mail from listener David are Pinchas Zukerman (currently of Ottawa) and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performing Max Christian Friedrich Bruch‘s Violin Concerto #1 in G Minor, Op. 26 (8:18), Part 2 (9:15), and Part 3 (7:49), in Tel Aviv in 2007.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to the last chance we’ll have here in the SDA LNR studios to post a two-hour video under the guise of the free time some of us have been fortunate enough to enjoy during this holiday season, here is geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells presenting his Journey of Man documentary (1:53:21).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Friday night old-time radio show, here is Mr. Benny Goodman with his Instrumental Trio & Guests hosting the Camel Caravan Swing School (1937, 5.6 MB, MP3, 24:30), including one of the earliest available complete recordings of Mr. Goodman’s Sing, Sing, Sing, with Mr. Gene Krupa on drums (starting at 18:30).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Thursday night wild-card show, here is Peruvian soprano Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo, better known as Yma Sumac, performing Tumpa (Earthquake), from her Voice of the Xtaby album (1955, 3:16). Why yes, we do have an original copy of this album here in the SDA LNR studios; why do you ask? Oh yeah? Well I’d like to see you sing five octaves !-)

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our 2009 New Year Show, here are Andre Rieu, The Johann Strauss Orchestra, and The European Pipe Band performing Auld Lang Syne (3:40).

And here are the SDA Commenter Statistics for 2008.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Tuesday night vintage music show, here are Irving Aaronson and his Commanders, featuring Irene Bordoni, performing Cole Porter‘s Let’s Misbehave (1928, 2:46), which contains the famous line: I always squeeze my Pekingese when he’s good.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Monday night jazz show, here are the John Pizzarelli Trio performing After You’ve Gone (4:26). That tune reminds me of Samuel (Doc) Johnson’s admonition to the effect that we must always strive to keep our friendships in good repair.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Sunday night classical music show, here are the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, in their 2007 Silvesterkonzert (New Year’s Eve concert), performing Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky‘s Pictures at an Exhibition (26:33) and Part 2 (12:30), Sir Simon Rattle conducting.

It is interesting, perhaps, to compare Part 2 of this production to the Baba Yaga’s Hut and The Great Gate of Kiev pieces by the University of Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and the Gdansk Music Academy Strings, which we previously featured here at SDA LNR.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Saturday night contemporary music show, here is Eartha Kitt (who passed away nudius quartus) performing C’est Si Bon in 1962 (3:03).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to SDA Late Nite Radio. Tonight, for your delectation and pursuant to our Friday night old-time radio crime-detective show, here is Miss Candy Matson performing the San Juan Batista episode of her YUkon 2-8209 show (1950, 30:26).

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.