#Ann Ming

[theonlyadawong]

Much Ado About Nothing

Royal Shakespeare Company, 2022

Dir. Roy Alexander Weise

Photos by Ikin Yum

[katelynnwrites]

the moment they knew they won bronze 🥹, paris olympics 2024 bronze medal match, 9/8/24

[tomorowisjustamystery]

Nici calling everyone by their middle name 😂

[loveisdamnation]

don’t make me say it

tag, anne carson | between angels, stephen dunn | at a waterfall, reykjavik, eileen myles | it is february, luther hughes | yr dead, sam sax | clementine von radics | you are in love, taylor swift | past lives, future bodies, k-ming chang | what savage blossom, edna st. vincent millay

[fantastickkay]

From People, March 2000

[capfly]

[doe-earth-n]

Anne is introduced to Dimension N as this chapter is her first appearance.

Duncan, Richie, and Tori have to deal with an immortal stalking a mortal woman who doesn't want to be with him.

Ming offers a proposition to Felicia.

This is set before "Line of Fire" for the purpose of "Beginning of a New Life."

[greensparty]

2024 Northeast Comic Con Fall Edition Wrap-Up

For many years now I’ve been lucky enough to cover the Northeast Comic Con (read my coverage here), a fun cool convention for lovers of comics, pop culture, and collectibles. Most recently I attended the Spring NECC in March.

Here are some of the highlights of some of the guests I got to speak with at this season’s NECC:

Actress Anne Dudek has appeared in a great deal of film, TV and theater in the last 20+ years. A Newton, MA native, she has had recurring roles on House and Big Love. But I asked her about her role as Francine Hanson, Betty Draper's friend and neighbor on AMC's Mad Men (I worked at AMC Networks when Mad Men was capturing the zeitgeist) and the experience of working on that show? She says "It was an incredible experience. Matthew Weiner, the creator, is a genius and I loved every second of it. I was in every season except for one. I loved the writing. I loved the directors."

Speaking of AMC, the channel's unscripted Comic Book Men was a sleeper hit when it aired from 2012-2018. Built around Kevin Smith and his comic savvy friends at his comic book store, the show brought comic book culture to mainstream TV. One of those friends on the show was Ming Chen, who was the webmaster for View Askew and is also a SModcast podcaster. I asked about his experience of being on the show? "Listen, I'm just a nerd who grew up loving Star Wars and G.I. Joe and James Cameron movies. It used to be such a solitary thing being a geek. There weren't many out there or if you were, you didn't tell anybody about it. I'm glad I stuck to my fandom. Some people tell you not to read comic books. I'm glad I did not listen to them. But it was just cool to be on a show that celebrated all the stuff that I love and I was able to bring it to other people. It awakened a lot of people's inner-nerdom. The other thing I loved about it is that a lot of the show was just me and my friends asking a lot of 'What If?' questions. I didn't realize people would relate to it as much as they did. Then I realized in every dead end job there's all kinds of people sitting around having those same conversations." The series had a great run of 7 seasons / 96 episodes!

Oh and speaking of Kevin Smith and the View Askew-niverse, one of Smith's most frequent collaborators is actor Brian O'Halloran. After playing Dante Hicks in Clerks, he returned for the sequels and numerous other Smith films as Dante or another Hicks. I have met O’Halloran many times over the years beginning at the 1998 Vulgarthon in Red Bank, NJ. Since then I’ve run into him and talked at many conventions. In 2022 I interviewed him and Clerks III co-star Jeff Anderson via zoom. When I spoke with him then, I asked if he had any plans to direct sometime soon. He said "I’ve been working on a script for a while so I will hopefully at some point be like “alright, that’s it I’m making this movie”. I followed up to see if there was any news? He said "No news, but I have a script I've been working on for a couple years now that I'm pretty particular about. It's a comedy and comedy is something that I think is a lot of work to write for, it's not as simple as people think. But I've been working on that for a while, which would be the thing that I'd want to direct. I helped assistant direct other peoples' projects over the years. So the world is not new to me for that. Obviously working with Kevin [Smith], M. Night Shyamalan, and James L. Brooks watching really great directors work is a lesson and a treat that no film school can teach you. When you get out there and work with these people it's the best experience. I hope to in the next few years - when this absolutely pretty face is no longer pretty enough to look at, I'll jump behind the camera." I also asked if he was able to say anything about the sequel to Mallrats. He says it "had to be put on the shelf after the passing of Shannen Doherty. She had a big part in that film and the loss of her puts a hold on that project. Kevin is pivoting to his two favorite characters Jay and Silent Bob. Next up is Jay and Silent Bob: Store Wars. Hopefully that begins shooting next year."

Speaking of NECC guests who I've had the pleasure of meeting in the past, I got to meet actress Kelli Maroney at the 2018 Rock and Shock. I got to talk to her about Night of the Comet, which just recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. I asked about one of my all-time favorite movies Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which she played Cindy the cheerleader in. "Well, I had auditioned for Stacy, but I don't know if they had already cast Jennifer Jason Leigh at the time. I know there was at least one day where me, Phoebe Cates and Brian Backer auditioned all day long and read the whole script over and over again for the producer, Amy Heckerling and Cameron Crowe. Then they called me up and asked me to play the cheerleader. You don't really know how other people see you. Up until then I had played a juvenile delinquent and an awful human being and to myself I thought 'where are they getting this cheerleader thing?' [laughs] Cause we don't see ourselves as other people see us. It took me ten or twenty years to finally see why they saw me as the cheerleader. But it was phenomenal. I didn't drive so for my first time out to California, my choices were the teamsters could pick me up at the crack of dawn or I could get myself there somehow. But I got to watch Universal City come to life. It's just like that commercial on Turner Classic Movies only better. It exceeded my expectations!" And then after we chatted for a minute, Kelli came out from behind her booth and gave me a big hug. This has to be one of the rare occasions where a celebrity guest was truly that gracious and appreciative. Thank you Kelli!

I didn't get the chance to speak with musician / actor /podcaster Michael Des Barres, but I briefly caught some of his panel. I talked with him last year at the NECC's 2023 MusicCon. Just a few weeks ago I actually talked to his ex-wife Pamela Des Barres as well. I had hoped to chat with him about Power Station, Seinfeld, or MacGyver. Maybe next time!

The big theme this NECC was The Monkees. They had Zilch!, a Monkees tribute band performing. They had appearances by Coco Dolenz, the sister and musical collaborator of Mickey, and also Bill Chadwick, a songwriter and musical collaborator of The Monkees. I asked him if he had a favorite Monkees song? "Well I'd have to say something like 'Zor and Zam' because I wrote it." Alright, how about his favorite Monkee song he didn't write that's his favorite? "I'd say 'Won't Be the Same Without Her'." I also stopped by and talked with the good folks at Monkee Mania Radio, where I recorded a station ID, which will be airing sometime next weekend!

...And the big star of this NECC was Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. After the passings of Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith, he is now the last Monkee standing. Over the years I've seen him around at other cons, but never got the chance to talk to him because the lines were too long, including last year's MusicCon. Unfortunately Mr. Dolenz was not doing press so I couldn't ask him a question for my coverage, but I did purchase an autograph and he signed my vinyl record of More of The Monkees and shook my hand. He is a gentleman and a scholar!

Big thanks to Gary Sohmers and the NECC team for another fun-filled con!

For info on Northeast Comic Con and their other events: https://necomiccons.com/

[theonlyadawong]

The Harder They Come

Book by Suzan-Lori Parks, songs by Suzan-Lori Parks and Jimmy Cliff

Co-Dir. Sergio Trujillo

Dir. Tony Taccone

The Public Theatre, 2023

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and The Public’s Writer-in-Residence, Suzan-Lori Parks, brings to The Public a new musical adaptation of the 1972 movie, THE HARDER THEY COME. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the breakthrough film, produced and directed by Perry Henzell and co-written with Trevor Rhone, tells the story of Ivan, a young singer who arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, eager to become a star. After falling in love and cutting a record deal with a powerful music mogul, Ivan soon learns that the game is rigged, and as he becomes increasingly defiant, he finds himself in a battle that threatens not only his life, but the very fabric of Jamaican society. (X)

(Photos by Joan Marcus)

[katelynnwrites]

MY GIRLS!!!! 🥉

[tomorowisjustamystery]

[battlecouplesoulmates]

I'm writing a fic where a Death/Rio from another universe shows up but she looks completely different to Aubrey's Rio and Agatha has to deal with them both. I'm not sure how to resolve it yet, Agatha choosing Aubrey's Rio or choosing both.

I haven't chosen actors based on Aubrey/Rio and Kathryn/Agatha, just actors I'm a fan of.

[hunxi-after-hours]

"From books to film to theatre, writers have always been inspired by the stories that came before them. As artists, what are we if not the sum of all we’ve seen and absorbed and alchemised into our own voice? The history of oral storytelling is a history of retelling; the art of storytelling is almost always an act of retelling in some way."

—Wen-yi Lee, "The Comfort (and Discomfort) of Retellings"

"BIPOC retellings are often about demanding a place. Otherwise or at the same time they can critique the rosy nostalgia of fairytale worlds (or the usually-fascist leaning that comes with hyper-defence of Classics and Canon and Civilisation). Queer retellings of great love stories are often claims less to the characters and more to that great love in itself. Retellings are often saying: we, too, claim crowns and prophecies, great loves and romantic tragedies. If these stories have been impressed on everyone as the epitome of human storytelling and mythology, then everyone has equal rights to them."

[...]

"At the same time, there is also a power in simply letting ahistoricity exist, and deliberately not acknowledging oppressive structures at all. Regencies without racism; queer-norm historical settings. Sometimes people are just allowed to imagine themselves in nice things.  "Whether it’s interrogating or (re)claiming the original, I think these retellings are most powerful when they have something to say—when they step into the ring with a conversation in mind."

[...]

"The swell of Chinese fantasy has made more mainstream both mythological elements as well as direct retellings: Shelley Parker-Chan’s genderbent Ming Emperor in She Who Became the Sun and Xiran Jay Zhao’s mecha-pilot Wu Zetian in Iron Widow; Ann Liang’s A Song To Drown Rivers, a romantic retelling of one of China’s Four Beauties; Sister Snake, Amanda Lee Koe’s modernised take on the Legend of the White Snake’s monstrous snake women; S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws, a queer spin on other Chinese classic Water Margin; Sue Lynn Tan and Emily XR Pan’s reimaginings of the legend of Chang’e (Daughter of the Moon Goddess and An Arrow to the Moon, respectively) and Van Hoang and C.B. Lee’s versions of Sun Wukong (Girl Giant and the Monkey King and The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, respectively)... "We’re somewhere. The next step is obviously okay, good, now more.    "I think about non-Western retellings that bear the weight of also being tellings, of being the first time these characters and symbols and histories have ever been presented in the Western or English-language literary scene. What retellings are received as comfortable, and which are received as exotic? ...But I can’t nowadays think about books without also thinking of the social and financial factors affecting their writing, publishing, marketing, distribution, and translation. There are ranges everywhere. So it’s retold once. Will it be retold in different languages, in different countries, in all the bookstores? Even after 'Are we able to tell it?' it’s 'Are we able to sell it?'"

[grandmaster-anne]

11 March 2024 Princess Anne departs the 2024 Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey. © Ming Yeung

[good-books-to-read]

Travel destination: China

If you Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

Alice had always felt invisible at her prestigious school until one day she actually turns invisible, her life can’t get any worse, then her family informs her they can no longer afford the tuition, Alice comes up with a plan to monetise her powers however what started out with a few innocent secrets escalates to actual crimes.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

This story reimagines the rise to power of the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu a poor forgotten daughter in a famine stricken village fights to survive everyday, destined for nothing while her brother greatness, however with a turn of fate her father and brother are killed and she seizes her brother’s destiny as her own and takes on his infinity leaving her village behind to train as a monk.

The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker

Set in an alternate history Tang Dynasty China where Empress Wu finds a answer to immortality.

Zilan is a bit different to her peers, not only is her father a foreigner she’s a alchemist who practises the illegal art of raising the dead, her only dream is becoming an imperial alchemist and providing for her family, however this is no easy feat.

The Awakening Storm by Jaimal Yogis and Vivian Truong

A middle grade graphic novel about a young girl who has just moved, her main concerns are fitting in and making friends however an old women gives her a strange egg on a field trip which turns out to be a dragon, which is more work than you think, from keeping it hidden to saving it from evildoers, Grace’s life has changed.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

A retelling of Cinderella set in futuristic Beijing where a plague is ravaging the population, Cinder is a cyborg, gifted mechanic and has a mysterious past and is blamed for her stepsister illness, but when her life becomes intwnied with the prince, she finds herself in the middle of intergalactic struggle.