Holy shit is this amazing. I had no expectations of anything when I hit play, but I was absolutely blown away by Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson leading this truly great version of “Stairway to Heaven” at the Kennedy Center Honors. It really is as good as everyone’s been saying.
Jason Bonham, son of the late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, played drums. As the song progresses, back-up singers, a string section and the Joyce Garrett Youth Choir come onstage.The bowler hats on Bonham and the singers, were meant as a tribute to John Bonham, who passed away in 1980.
The President and First Lady, fellow honoree David Letterman, Jack Black, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and a visibly moved Robert Plant watched. The performers got a well-deserved standing ovation at the end.
The ancient and mysterious Stonehenge, in the plains of Salisbury in Wiltshire, England, is arguably one of the most famous monuments in the world, inspiring modern builders to erect replica monuments in hundreds of the sites all over the world. Some are accurate scale-down or 1:1 models, while others are derivatives of the original structure with the sculptor adding their own touch to the design. Some are made of concrete, steel or granite, others are made of bamboos and foam. Some are permanent structures that have become attractions in their own right, others are temporary installation made during a festival. Some bear little resemblance to the original monument. Here are some of the strangest imitation of England’s famous Druidic circle.
Carhenge
Carhenge is located near the city of Alliance, Nebraska, on the High Plains region of the United States. It consist of 39 vintage American cars arranged in a circle and partially buried to keep them upright. Arches were created by welding more cars atop the erect ones. The entire structure is spray painted with a shade of gray to mimic the color of stone. The idea was conceived in 1987 by Jim Reinders as a memorial to his father.
Foamhenge is a full size replica built of Styrofoam and locatred in the town of Natural Bridge, in Virginia, USA. Its creator, Mark Cline, took great pains to shape each ‘stone’ to its original shape, fact-checking his designs and measurements with the man who gives tours of Stonehenge in England. Each block is set into a hole in the ground, reinforced by a steel pipe that goes through the block. The pipe is anchored to the ground with cement. Each stone is placed in astronomically correct position. Read more about the Foamhenge.
Phonehenge, made of British phone boxes, once stood on the rock-and-roll themed amusement park called the Freestyle Music Park near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It has been dismantled.
Fridgehenge was a Stonehenge replica built of refrigerators. Fridgehenge stood outside Santa Fe, New Mexico for almost a decade, but following complaints from neighbors, it was dismantled in 2007.
Some people can go up as high as the sky and they don’t think twice about it. On high ladders, cranes, beams on high buildings or climbing up a soaring communications tower these guys never flinch.
Some of the best photos of this behaviour were taken during the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City. Construction of the 102 story building was completed in 14 months. An amazingly fast time for such a giant building.
Excavation of the site began on January 22, 1930, and construction on the building itself started symbolically on March 17—St.Patrick’s Day—per Al Smith’s influence as Empire State, Inc. president. The project involved 3,400 workers, mostly immigrants from Europe, along with hundreds of Mohawk iron workers, many from the Kahnawake reserve near Montreal. According to official accounts, five workers died during the construction. Governor Smith’s grandchildren cut the ribbon on May 1, 1931.
Some photos of the construction workers way way up:
Must be waiting for more girders.
Looks like they ordered out. No pizza back then so this must be cookies.
And today workers still go very high to construct very high structures and for maintenance.
The photo below shows workers doing maintenance on the highest communications tower in the United States. It is a TV tower in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. These guys went up 2,200 feet. That is a 1,000 feet higher than the Empire State Building.
Very strange orb in San Antonio, Texas back in 2012. Computer generated images (CGI) were not all that widespread back in 2012. But if this is a hoax it’s a good one. If it isn’t a hoax, what in tarnation is that bloody thing!?
Tom Cruise is hoping to blast into the Hollywood record books by shooting the first action movie in space.
Nasa is working with Cruise to film aboard the International Space Station.
There are no details of the film, but Deadline – which first reported the story – said it would not be a new instalment of Mission: Impossible.
The report also said Cruise, 57, is also working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which will transport two US astronauts to the ISS for Nasa later this month.
Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote on Twitter: “Nasa is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the Space Station!”
Musk replied to say the project “should be a lot of fun!”
Cruise played an astronaut in 2013 film Oblivion, when he safeguarded Earth’s natural resources from alien invaders.
He also narrated the 2002 Imax documentary Space Station 3D. It’s not known when the star will blast off to the ISS for real.
Risky business: 4 daredevil stunts from Cruise’s career
By Ian Youngs, entertainment reporter
As well as being one of Hollywood’s most popular action heroes, Cruise is known as a daredevil who does many of his own stunts.
In an interview about his new Top Gun sequel, co-star Miles Teller says: “I think when Tom hears that something’s impossible or can’t be done, that’s when he gets to work.”
That sounds not unlike his Mission: Impossible character Ethan Hunt, who has been seen in many of the most daring scenes.
1. Leaping off a roof (and breaking an ankle)
In 2017, he broke his ankle while jumping from one rooftop to another (attached to a cable) for Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
Despite instantly knowing he was injured, he carried on by hauling himself onto the roof and running off.
“I knew it was broken,” he later told The Graham Norton Show. “I just said, ‘Ugh,’ and I ran past the camera. We got the shot, it’s in the movie.”
His co-star Simon Pegg joked: “Everyone said, when you got up and ran out of shot, ‘Oh, that’s so him. To complete the shot with your foot hanging off – that’s so him.'”
2. Climbing a skyscraper
In 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Hunt is seen scaling the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – the world’s tallest building – from the outside.
Although Cruise trained for four months and was wearing a harness – which was edited out – he said he struggled with crosswinds as he tried to swing in through a window.
“It took a while to work out how not to come slamming into the building head first,” he said.
3. Hanging off a plane during take-off
In Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Cruise hangs from the side of a plane by his fingertips as it takes off. It was really him, and it was a real plane.
He performed the stunt four times over two days, again wearing a harness, but the crew had to scour the runway for the tiniest items that could have been thrown up and hit him.
“While we are going down the runway, we’re worried about bird strikes, any kind of particle that the propellers could pick up, any kind of stone,” Cruise told USA Today.
“I remember I got hit by a stone that was so tiny, you cannot believe. I thought it broke my rib. Lucky it went to my vest and not my hands or my face, it would have penetrated and gone right through.”
4. Falling off a cliff
One of his other famous stunts appears in the opening scene of Mission: Impossible 2, where Hunt climbs – and then almost falls off – a vertigo-inducing cliff, apparently with no ropes.
Cucumber-cool Cruise was actually attached to a thin safety wire, which was later erased – but that did little to calm director John Woo’s nerves.
“I was really mad that he wanted to do it, but I tried to stop him and I couldn’t,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn’t even watch the monitor when we shot it.”
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