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fuckyeahgoodomens · 4 years

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Ineffable Con 2020 Fun Facts

Fun facts from the Ineffable Con 2 (2020) guest panels :):

Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

David G. Arnold (the music composer)

Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

1. Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

What do they have from Good Omens:

Rob has the statue from St. Beryls, all four motorbikes from the four horsemen, Crowley’s Devon watch, box signed by David Tennant with Crowley’s sunglasses and Aziraphale’s cocoa mug with Michael Sheen’s DNA :).

Douglas has the playing cards from Episode 1 and heavily annotated Good Omens book they used for filming with inscription by Neil: ‘For Douglas, make us love, make us cry, 3rd August 2017’.

Neil has Aziraphale’s chair from the bookshop that he bought from the BBC and he uses it for Zoom meetings.

What is their favourite thing that was not in the book and was added to the TV show:

Neil: all of the first half of Episode 3 - an absolute joy.

Rob: also the beginning of Episode 3.

Douglas: David Arnold’s music and Peter Anderson’s front titles.

Could Aziraphale get out of the Bastille easily if he wanted to?

Neil: if he could: absolutely. Did he have any conception of the mess he was in: probably not. It’s one of Neil’s favourite pieces of acting - the absolute delight on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that Crowley’s there and then he turns around and rather petulantly, grumpily goes oh it’s you - that moment of joy on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that he’s been rescued is one of Neil’s favourite things.

Neil and yoghurt starter: I had this slightly mad thing where I would explain to everybody that fans were yoghurt starter. And I said, ‘Basically you start out with yoghurt starter and you put it into your warm milk and you leave it, and the yoghurt starter goes off and turns the entire thing into yoghurt.

Neil realized that there was a cat in his house (Neil doesn’t have a cat :)). After the panel Neil said that he was going to look for the cat with a can of sardines and Douglas joked that he would find Michael Sheen in a cat costume.

What was the best and worst about making the series:

Douglas: the best - the camaraderie, getting to know the people, the cast and crew.

Rob: the best - realizing that the book could be translated to the screen and watching it happen. The worst - coming to the end of the shoot and saying goodbye to everybody.

Neil: the best - the amount of love from everybody, the worst - fighting budget battles (producers wanted gone all of the cold opening and the death of Agnes Nutter).

Did they expect that Good Omens would attract so many LBGTQ+ people and how they feel about that:

Neil: Yes, absolutely. There are definitely people out there who seem to think that I accidentally wrote a love story with all of the beats of a love story including a break-up halfway through, without somehow noticing that I’d written a love story. And I may not be the brightest candle on the candelabra, but as an author who’s been doing it for a long time, I’m very well aware of when I’m writing a love story, thank you very much. And so from my perspective I knew that the love story would be one of the driving things that would get us from the beginning to the end. And I also made a bunch of decisions about our angels and our demons in terms of casting, in terms of gender that everybody backed me up on, which I loved. You know, the idea that the archangel Michael is played by Doon [Mackichan] is something that is... or Beelzebub is Anna Maxwell Martin, whatever, there’s... it’s not like we are going: these are women, there are men, we are going: these are demons, these are angels. They... this is not a thing. And also doing something like Pollution, where you go in and go: okay well if we were doing this in... if 1989 was now, if there were they pronouns, we probably would have done that. We didn’t think of it at the time but that’s no reason why we can’t do it now. And we did and I remember having a... not exactly a battle, but a... my very tiny skirmish with one of our execs who was very nice and very bright and was like: ‘Why are you saying they?’, and I’m like... and I... explaining, and he’s like: ‘Well I’ve never heard of that before.’, and I’m like: ‘Oh, okay, but trust me, just trust me, it’s all fine, just trust me.’

Douglas: And you know I have to say, just following on what Neil’s saying, I’ve been directing for quite a while, and I tend to notice if characters are falling in love, I tend to notice a love story happening in front of me, and I think it’s there, and everything is meant, guys, everything is meant.

Neil added: I would just say, there are some things that you do while you’re writing a script intentionally. The fact that... I wanted to do this, well, it was a thing I did that I really enjoyed doing... where whenever people accuse them of being a couple: they don’t deny it, they don’t argue, there’s no flustering on their part. They absolutely… you know, everybody… what I’m trying to say is: yes, other people in the story are perceiving them as a couple too. And here is Uriel perceiving them as a couple, here is wonderful Dan [Starkey, playing the passerby] …and you know, you do scenes like that because that’s... you are trying to make a point here and you’re trying to make a point on how people are perceived.

Season 2, yes or no [fiends, all three of them!]:

Douglas: What’s that?

Neil: Of what?

Rob: Is it muted for me as is for everyone else?

Neil confirmed that they are going to be Funko Pops. [yay!]

2. David G. Arnold (the music composer)

He didn’t read the book before he was approached to do the music. He was asked to do it by Douglas Mackinnon he knew from the Victorian episode of Sherlock and he said yes before even knowing what it was about because he wanted to work with Douglas again.

The first piece of music he wrote for the show was the brass band doing the Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon [Episode 6, in the park before the kidnapping].

The second piece of music he wrote was the lullaby that Crowley sings to Warlock. He always liked the lullabies like in Mary Poppins so he said to Neil: Why don’t we do it like Walt Disney, but if Walt Disney was possessed by Satan? That was about 7 months before he needed to write anything again while they were shooting and it kept going round his head the whole time - the melody stuck with him and when it came to the Opening Title of the show, this became the middle bit.

The original opening title was Everyday by Buddy Holly and each episode was supposed to be closed with a different version of it: a death metal version, an angelic choir version, a carmina burana version... and he actually made all those. But he likes to find the musical identity of the show and put it in the opening titles because it’s important and it tells you: ‘This is the word you’re going to experience’, so he wrote his own opening title with the lullaby in the middle and played it to them [probably Neil and Douglas] with Buddy Holly as the backup and: Neil just turned around in his chair and said, ‘That’s Good Omens.’. From that point the instructions were with no rules, just to create whatever he wanted: the further you can go the better, the weirder and the stranger you can think the better. It’s a rare thing to be shown a world like Good Omens and be let free to run around in it.

His favourite ending title is the Queen one in Episode 1.

One of the reasons he didn’t do a theme for Crowley and a theme for Aziraphale is that the theme of the show is theirs - it’s theirs and they share it and it’s both of theirs and there is no separating in that regard.

About Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship reflected in the music score: It’s interesting isn’t it, because the relationship changed in a way slightly frequently and majorly infrequently. It seemed right from the start that their relationship was somehow seeded and planted and had begun by the time we saw them even though they may not have realised it themselves, you know, with the pair of them on the wall, considering one is a demon in the Garden of Eden and one is an angel. They act very charitably towards each other and they act with a lot of things you might not expect. And underneath that there is a sort of sense of togetherness and support even though they both know that their paths are going to diverge and they have different responsibilities. So I always felt like, right from that moment, when the wing came up on the wall, that there was something special about their relationship. Three moments that stuck with him: in Episode 3 saving the books in the church when they completely rely on the other for survival in the way that they were very open about, one in the car outside the nightclub in 60s Soho - the Holy Water, you go too fast for me, that genuinely tearing, that there was reluctance in those words that he spoke and that sort of things as a composer is gold, it’s about making those moments more, and in the last episode in a scene they’re not event in when we see Adam and Dog in the fields and Anathema that music there which celebrates Crowley and Aziraphale’s music which is the theme of the show - their shadow has passed over everyone’s emotional journey, and everyone’s emotional journey is theirs as well. The argument in the bandstand was important as well.

His favourite leitmotif from the series is the lullaby.

About the scene in the car in episode 2 when Thomas Tallis changes into Queen: Terry’s favourite piece of classical music was the Thomas Tallis piece [Spem in Alium] so Neil asked if they can go from Thomas Tallis - a choral piece from 16th century - to We Will Rock You, and: ‘You never say no. You don’t say that you can’t do it. What you have to do is to be the first person who solves the problem.’ In the end it was a two-days work just for this little bit and he mentioned that he never had these sorts of challenges anywhere else before.

His favourite non-musical detail in the show - the crucifixion, how the scene was shot, how it was upsetting, and how it was made more effective by Aziraphale and Crowley’s inability to stop it, that they had to observe and watch it, that it had to happen. I remember seeing that at the time and thinking, I wasn’t expecting that level of brutal honesty, in terms of the pictures that I was looking at and what they chose to show. And I think all the more effective for it.

3. Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

When creating the costumes for the characters she started with mood boards.

Aziraphale - she knew that he needed to have something winglike in his collar so that’s why there are sweeping lapels very often. Using velvet [for the waistcoat] because that was nice and soft and had all the appropriate qualities. His watch and fob that has little gold wings hanging from it and other tiny bits of symbolism. Tartan bow tie. Beautiful cashmere checkered trousers - not quite tartan but a nod to it. A mid to late Victorian coat, Michael only made his decision on the coat a couple of days before the filming. Aziraphale in the present settled on a ring with angelic symbol and harp cufflinks, earlier his ring in ancient times has got a much more roughly hewn set of wings on it, so before jewellery making became sophisticated he modernised slightly - he magicked it up to be a bit more modern, more gentleman signet type of ring, but he never modernises entirely. His heart is much more in the past.

After they began to define Aziraphale they started to look at how the Heaven army of angels might look - the element of tartan came sort of from Aziraphale and the angels have a not-tartan kilt with a semi military type jacket and a military band across that might hold arms or not, because they are not really violent. She used spats to make them look quite neutral and genderless so hiding fastenings and concealing little details like that seemed a way to do that.

Gabriel doesn’t wear spats because he’s on Earth such a lot. His shoe has a cover with two buckles on the side giving the same neutral element. He wears a cashmere light-as-air suit.

The other angels are all in bastardized versions of what era they may have died in, so they could have died in the 1930s or the 1800s and the costume would have an element of that era about it - though of course as an angel you can change things.

The Quartermaster Angel - the costume is a combination of slightly Indian type military, maharaja pants, longer spats from another era, all combined pieces of military tailored to be magical and slightly nonsensical, as Heaven might be.

Crowley - she felt that he wrapped around like a snake sheds its skin so she wanted something double breasted because that seemed to envelope his snakey charm. David wanted to be more casual than wearing a suit. Under his collar he always has a flash of red like the snake that he comes from - the red belly. They put a red seam into the sole of his boots so always there is a hint of where he came from. The red tie in the blitz. He was more rock and roll than Aziraphale and modernised more to a snakehipped rock and roll star really. His present jacket - the fabric there is quilted, they found an 80s jacket that had elements of things they enjoyed - part of that was that it had a slightly quilted quality to the fabric which was like a textured snakeskin. It took quite a long time to create the fabric and then to make the jacket from that - they quilted some fabric and washed and whooshed it repeatedly to create a bit of puckering in it. He has a snakey scarf around his neck like a chain mail linked scales of skin scarf that he wore that complemented his neck chain. The trousers he wore in Victorian times are the same he wore in the 60s when he meets young Shadwell. His present trousers - slightly waxy denim - we just were looking for a slithery finish. Crowley’s neck chain - there is only one in the world - her tailor has a Gothic church full of interesting stuff like busts and drapes with old things, this chain mail scarf was there and David was looking for something to complete his costume and liked it.

Hastur and Ligur are her favourite characters - they were so enjoyable to create. She had an amazing book of 1920s and 30s criminals and they used that as a starting point, because they were all quite worn out and bedraggled and poverty stricken and like hell might be ideally. They burnt and decayed the bottom of them as if they were rotting from the Earth and rotting back into the ground - all demons have sort of gators as if they were rotting from the ground up.

One of the most difficult things was the demons - when they realized they had a few days to create hundreds of demons in South Africa (4-5 days for almost 200 demons). It was as if I had been dissolved in holy water when they asked me for another 150 costumes.

The sleeves of Anathema’s coat have been inspired by a Victorian cycling coat.

The historical costume that Newt’s ancestor wore influenced his and Shadwell’s costumes - they used elements of the historical costume to put a little cape on Newt and Shadwell and their wax coats to give them the quality of that look. Newt's costume has a lot of mustard to make him feel a bit awkward and uncomfortable - it's not the most flattering colour on a northern European complexion.

The nuns’ headdress needed to look a little bit demonic - she bought a whole book on nuns’ headdresses for research. They also used the V in the nurse's apron because that was nicely demonic. The nurses' watch has got this Satanic symbol at the top - a little take on the medical since old nurses’ uniforms used to have watches.

For Madame Tracy she went back into the 70s, slightly Biba-esque makeup and a cape. They had only one pair of her goggles so it was always a nightmare to find them.

Which part of the cold opening is her favourite: I love ancient Rome because there is at least 6 to 12 metre of fabric in a toga and that was quite fun wrapping that around the boys and creating those., and her favourite was the Globe.

The lapels represent wings in every way and every shape and every form. Wings are very important.

4. Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

The first thing that the director Douglas Mackinnon (with whom he worked on Doctor Who and Sherlock) said to him was: for all the graphics, for all the title sequence, for everything, I want you to promise me one thing, and that is very, very simple, promise that you send me emails that say: ‘this might be absolutely nuts, but my idea is...’.

The opening title it’s full of easter eggs - it’s a type of sequence that’s been designed to watch a thousand times, for example: on the escalator down to Hell there is one character running up deciding that he doesn’t want to go to Hell or the sea is full of plastic bags because we don’t look after the planet.

Every single face in the title sequence is either Crowley’s or Azriphale’s, they are repeated all the way through - inspired by Neil saying that there’s good and evil in all of us, so there is a grand procession of people of all the characters from the story - marching towards Armageddon - but all the characters have been taken over by good or evil. And along the way our two heroes are kind of playing tricks on each other, doing good, doing evil

The opening title combines multiple elements - two dimensional animation elements, three dimensional animation elements, CGI and live action (the people in the procession were created by live action on a travelator). So the result is a kind of strangeness - such as 3D figures with 2D animated tracked heads - which makes it unique.

Their first idea and version of the opening title was based on tapestries of old, subverting them, but then they wanted something more new and fresh.

Both Douglas and Neil were an important part of the opening title creation process.

The opening title sequence took about a year to make from the creative start with four intensive months towards the end.

One of things that inspired him was a Bauhaus theatre image from 1930s.

Question if the hand-drawn font for the graphics will be a purchasable font: no, because it was original and it’s unique and it was created just for this - it was for the love of the show and the story and it will be kept there.

In the scene where there are three photos of witchfinders - Neil and Douglas revealed in the DVD commentaries that two of them are their grandfathers - the third one is Peter’s great uncle.

Originally the signs telling us things like ‘Thursday’ or ‘Mesopotamia’ - were done as if somebody (who was living inside the television screen) ran up close to the screen and showed us the sign. In the end they simplified it, only showing the signs. The one time that it was sort of left in the show was when in Episode 5 a little demon in the video game shows a sign ‘GAME OVER’.

Outside of his work on it, what was his favourite thing on Good Omens: spending time with Douglas and Neil, and also working with Milk VFX - I think I can honestly say it's the best job I've ever worked on with the nicest people.

5. Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

He first read the book when preparing for the audition - the character wasn’t in the book but he got into it, loved it and couldn’t put it down.

He didn’t know about the name Eric until the script was published and people started calling the demon that, he really likes the name and thinks it fits.

There was a version of the script where the demon was going to be dressed in different costumes each time he was discorporated (for example one in long hair wearing a dress) - they would be all the same but different incarnations, in one version they had different accents.

The first scene he shot was the one where the demon goes to Heaven to deliver the Hellfire (and also wants to hit ‘Aziraphale’ which was cut). That first day was also his favourite moment of shooting because there was an immediate welcoming atmosphere and everyone was lovely and in love with the production.

Disposable Demon is like a permanent intern, running errands for the higher ups in Hell.

His favourite part of the costume were the eyelashes (though he loved the whole costume).

If he could change anything about the costume he would also want cool contact lenses - some brightly coloured ones.

Question what animal (like other demons have on their heads) comes to mind when we see the Disposable Demon: he didn’t think about it at the time, but later he saw people talking about his horns as bunny ears and found it interesting, and also the facts that there are so many of him and that he is quite happy and friendly for a demon so the bunny makes sense, so he might be a sort of a rabbit. Or perhaps something goat type because of the horns.

Question if there is another role in Good Omens he would have liked to have played: he always thought that the four horsemen were very cool and Pollution was his favourite so probably Pollution (also was the most jealous of Pollution’s contact lenses).

If there were a season 2, he would be there in a heartbeat.

Question about Eric’s feelings on Crowley, if he’s a bit of a Crowley fan: I think he might be. There is something about Crowley and how he is somehow a little bit different from the rest of the demons. - and the Disposable Demon has, much like Crowley, interest in the human world. He could well be 6,000 how many years old, the same as everyone else, but he seems to have this younger vibe and I think he thinks that Crowley is quite cool.

Good Omens fandom is his first experience with a fandom of this scale. It speaks a lot, the fact that this kind of very, this minor character, a character who is only on screen for a very short amount of time gets any kind of attention at all, it's quite amazing really, it goes to show how big and enthusiastic the fans are. I never experienced anything like that.

6. Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

When Crowley used a miracle to switch off the Bentley lights in Episode 1 at nuns manor it was done by: there was actually a very small guy called Louis turning on and off the switches quickly.

David Tennant was allowed to wear the snake eye contacts for only 3 hours a day otherwise they could damage his eyesight.

For Mary, the Bentley, it was the second time she was ‘blown up’ on film - first being in the Endeavour with Inspector Morse about three years earlier.

He was a bit nervous during filming the bookshop fire scene because the Bentley was so close to a real fire - not wanting the paint to blister. The car was moved off after a few minutes of filming but still.

About the damage to Mary: Unfortunately, we overran, and Rob my stunt driver had already booked a holiday and off he went and so when he returned in January, on the 10th of January, I had this new driver who really had no clue how to drive old cars, so I showed him around, I showed him to go around corners. He came around the corner, the door was not closed properly for some reason and the door flew open as he went around. And instead of slamming on the brakes which is extremely efficient and would stop him straight away he kept on going, hit another car and really smashed the door quite badly. It did take the car off the roads for 10 months. The door was completely remade because of this accident and it cost the total of £24 000 to rebuild the car to get it back to running as it is today.

The Bentley’s part most difficult to maintain and service is the engine.

Would Mary be available for a potential season 2: definitely!

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oftincturedwords · 3 years

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Get To Know Me

I was tagged by @ezras-channel-rat thank you friend !! <3

1. Star sign and/or Hogwarts House:

aries , but i was born on the twenty-first of march thus the last day for aries star sign , so it doesn't match wholly since i have some taurus traits as well… not that i truly put much faith in star signs. & whilst i haven't ever seen nor read harry potter , i've taken quizzes & most often its ravenclaw i get , even though everyone i've met says that i more so match a hufflepuff ??

2. Put your Spotify/music app on shuffle. What are the first 4 songs that come up?

1.) computers down by david arnold ( good omens soundtrack )

2.) writing’s on the wall by sam smith

3.) the horror and the wild by the amazing devil

4.) work that way by the east pointers

3. Who is your celebrity crush?

i don't have crushes per se , but there's so many that i would love to meet ( but most likely never will because i get too nervous meeting new people & i know i would embarrass myself too much to ever recover from ahdkflf so i stay away from any opportunities to ) such as david tennant , michael sheen , sebastian stan , pearl mackie , jodie whitaker , paul mcgann , olivia coleman , ben whishaw , patrick stewart , billie piper , rami malek , shane taylor , joey batey , tom hiddleston , matt smith , daniel craig , karl urban , howard charles , keira knightly , lee pace , santiago cabrera , ian mckellen , luke pasqualino , james mcavoy , arthur darvill , wentworth miller , tom burke , ioan grufford , james d’arcy , alex kingston , kenneth branagh , & etc. so many more.

4. What’s a sound you love?

i love the absence of sound in the early morning that's punctuated by the soft russel of the wind through tree branches & later by bird song once the pale glow of the rising sun begins to lighten the sky. too i have a heartened fondness for kittens meowing , their rumbling purrs and quiet, rolling mrrs. the sound of rain , whether by mere drizzle or fierce storm , accompanied by wind and thunder. stories or poetry being read by a clear yet emotive voice , captivating my attention as much as they've captured the voices of the characters they read for.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?

no , i don't believe ghost exist. i believe the things that haunt us are an entirely different entity.

6. How about aliens?

yes. there's too much out there for me to believe we are the only living things ever to develop & evolve / be created.

7. Favourite place to travel?

spain , there's still so much more i long to see & i loved every minute of my times there. so beautiful & i love the atmosphere there.

too i love anywhere there are woods though , so i could be happy just going for a walk in the forest xD

8. Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

no , because i don't remain angry or upset over any wrong against me. i just don't for some reason , whether there's an apology or not.

9. Tag 7 people who should do this:

( no pressure to do this if you don't want to ; it's only if you do want to ) @snidgethex , @flosimo , @pain-in-the-asguardian , @bisamwilson , @lindir , @theancientvaleofsoulmaking , & @inspirationmerls

#dashboard games #thank you again !! <33 #tag games

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samueluwawah · 3 years

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RULES OF LIVING WITH PEOPLE

1. When you meet young people - INSPIRE THEM.

2. When you meet children - EDUCATE THEM.

3. When you meet old people - HELP THEM.

4. When you meet wise people - STUDY THEM.

5. When you meet leaders - HONOUR THEM.

6. When you meet foolish people - AVOID THEM.

7. When you meet humble people - TREASURE THEM.

8. When you meet arrogant people - IGNORE THEM.

9. When you meet gracious people - EMULATE THEM.

10. When you meet aspirational people - ELEVATE THEM.

11. When you meet strong people - SUPPORT THEM.

12. When you meet godly people - BLESS THEM.

13. When you meet elderly people - RESPECT THEM.

14. When you meet weak people - STRENGTHEN THEM.

15. When you meet hardworking people - ENCOURAGE THEM.

16. When you meet kind people - ESTEEM THEM.

17. When you meet Honest people -

PROMOTE THEM.

18. When you meet virtuous people - REWARD THEM.

19. When you meety evil people - EVADE THEM.

20. And in all situation “Watch, Pray and wish everyone well.

1. *Dr. Ben Carson said,* "I struggled academically throughout elementary school yet became the best neurosurgeon in the world in 1987."

*LESSON:* Struggling is a sign that you are on a verge of success. Don't quit yet.

2. *Bill Gates said,* "I didn't even complete my university education but became the world's richest man."

*LESSON:* School does not make you rich. School is only supposed to polish what will make you rich, not make you rich.

3. *Christiano Ronaldo said,* "I told my father that we would be very rich but he couldn't believe me. I made it a reality."

*LESSON:* Your words rule your life. If you mean what you have said, each word will come to pass. You get what you say.

4. *Hear Lionel Messi!,* "I used to serve tea at a shop to support my football training and still became one of the world's best footballers."

*LESSON:* Believe in your dream. Don't let your pain tell you how your future will look like.

5. *Steve Jobs penned,* "I used to sleep on the floor in my friends' rooms, returning coke bottles for food, money, and getting weekly free meals at a local temple, I later on founded Apple Company."

*LESSON:* That you are small today doesn't mean you will be small tomorrow. Keep trusting God.

6. *Former British PM, Tony Blair said & I quote,* "My teachers used to call me a failure, but I became a Prime Minister."

*LESSON:* Don't let someone else's opinions of you become your reality.

7. *Bishop David Oyedepo said,* "I started Living Faith Church from a lawn tennis court with three members only & preached prosperity. Many of my friends criticised me, but today we have the largest church auditorium in the world & two world-class universities."

*LESSON:* Believe in yourself even if no one does & never think of quitting.

8. *Nelson Mandela said,* "I was in prison for 27 years & still became president."

*LESSON:* You can be anything you want to be no matter where you have been or what you have been through.

*9.REECE* "I drove a taxi to finance my university education but today I'm a billionaire."

*LESSON:* Don't let your past decide the kind of future you need to have.

10. *Harland Sanders, Founder of KFC said,* "I was on the verge of suicide when an Idea of opening a restaurant hit me after I retired as a cook in the Navy."

*LESSON:* Nothing is ever too late. "Too late" is a language of failures. Your future can begin at any age. Don't ever let AGE limit you.

11. *Aliko Dangote said,* "I worked for my uncle since I was a small boy, people looked down on me. I later on took a loan from my uncle to open a tiny shop. I worked hard to make ends meet. Now I am the richest Man in Africa.

*LESSON:* Failures or limitations of the past have no control over the greatness in you. To him that believes, all things are possible.

12. *Barack Hussein Obama said,* I am a son of a black immigrant from Kenya, I graduated from Harvard and later on became a Senator in Chicago. I was also the President of the most powerful nation on Earth.

*LESSON:* Never design your life like a garden where anyone can walk in and out. Design it like the sky where everyone aspires to reach!

13. *Arnold Swarzzenegger said,* I traveled to America in search of financial independence when I was 15yrs old. I became the world's strongest man 7 times and Mr Universe. I then got my Economics degree, then I became one of Hollywood's best actors before I was voted twice as governor of California."

*LESSON:* Don't wait for everybody to believe in your ability and dream thanks.

https://businessontop.com.ng

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brokentoothkiss · 4 years

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hello i was tagged by @perhapskismet (thank u! 🤍💌) to answer some questions about myself!!

name/nickname: kendall, but also ken and kenz

gender: girl, i use she/her/hers <3 but you can refer to me by little nicknames even if they’re predominantly masculine (cowboy, captain, chief, homie, bro, prettyboy, etc) along with any others

star sign: virgo~

height: 5’7!! ladies if i can’t reach the shelf you need, you can return me for full money back

time: 7:20pm

birthday: august 31

favorite bands/groups: the 1975, the lumineers, the neighbourhood, the strokes, haim, coin

favorite solo artists: role model, troye sivan, orville peck, phoebe bridgers, lorde, bleachers, father john misty

song stuck in my head: bike dream by rostam

last movie: pride and prejudice (2005) which i enjoyed but i’m a total sucker for unspoken love and enemies to lovers

last show: sandition (or at least i’m planning on watching it cause i can never get enough of historical dramas, one disease of many i inherit from my mother)

when did i create this blog: i wanna say mid to late 2019, so i’ve had it for a year now

what do i post: it used to be dark academia, then pink/red lovecore, but now it’s warm pastel pictures and love-based textposts (i’m sure my listography is way more comprehensive than me lol)

last thing i googled: oh nooooo it was “do worms have eyes” for one of my friends, it’s a long story, but to be clear, worms don’t have eyes, they have receptors that can sense when it’s light or dark :))

other blogs: i have one other blog @iwatcheditring for 1975 stuff

do i get asks: yeah if i reblog an ask game but for the most part it’s just me n my mutuals (but i’m always open to anons if you have something to say!! tell me something!)

why did i choose this url: wanted that angelic, lovely vibe. obvs a lot of urls are already taken but withangel is short and sweet. got a lot of angelic imagery goin on around me in 2020 too actually 🕊

following: i’m following 62 blogs

followers: 145 and i love everyone

average hours of sleep: 6-8 counting the times i pass out during the day because i’ve crawled back into bed when i get home

lucky number(s): 11, 3, 8 and possibly 7

instruments: i can figure out songs note by note on the guitar and keyboard, but don’t practice frequently enough :/ though i adore people who can play any kind of instrument

what am i wearing: cream colored turtleneck under a warm, brown, zip up jacket from my dads work years ago, plaid pajama pants, and a small pair of my mom’s costume earrings (she wore them to junior prom 🌞)

dream job: a writer or an artist or even a therapist but i’m not sure if i could pull the skills needed for any of these jobs on a professional level (also the systems fucked and i have to find a way to live)

dream trip: want to go to italy, particularly to see the italian countryside, and scotland (everybody will make fun of me but i might deeply want to see france and hear french spoken by native speakers...)

favorite food: pasta!!!! especially with alfredo sauce or if it’s ravioli

nationality: american but my last name is obviously german, and i share a lot of ancestors from germany

favorite song: all time fav is “mine” by the 1975

last book read: kids of appetite by david arnold

three fictional universes: you’d like to live in: the one where i’m farmer wives with my mutual rosa, the one where i make s’mores for my friend val and then we take a night walk around town, and the one where i fall asleep in the passengers side of my baby si’s car while we drive around listening to the 1975 (not fictional universes just daydreams 🤧)

tagging: @ikea-boy @easeupkid @boyishs @souplove @familytherapy @sapphothetic @light-eater @airsigh @areweforgiven @ivy1975 (or ur main blog) @myfavouritecolorisblue @juenereveuse @thenineteenseventyfive @mariferish @bluesargnts @moodyhouse @keiras and @lifeviamemes but no pressure at all i’m just taggin my mutuals mwah :)

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Top New Young Adult Books January 2021

You Have a Match: A Novel by Emma Lord

Type: Novel Publisher: Wednesday Books Release date: Jan. 12

Den of Geek says: Theres something quintessentially charming about summer camp stories, where kids trade their day-to-day for the wilderness. But this protagonist can’t escape everything at camp, and she’ll need the help of her sister to figure out the story of more than one family.

Publisher’s Summary: When Abby signs up for a DNA service, it’s mainly to give her friend and secret love interest, Leo, a nudge. After all, she knows who she is already: Avid photographer. Injury-prone tree climber. Best friend to Leo and Connie…although ever since the B.E.I. (Big Embarrassing Incident) with Leo, things have been awkward on that front.

But she didn’t know she’s a younger sister.

When the DNA service reveals Abby has a secret sister, shimmery-haired Instagram star Savannah Tully, it’s hard to believe they’re from the same planet, never mind the same parents — especially considering Savannah, queen of green smoothies, is only a year and a half older than Abby herself.

The logical course of action? Meet up at summer camp (obviously) and figure out why Abby’s parents gave Savvy up for adoption. But there are complications: Savvy is a rigid rule-follower and total narc. Leo is the camp’s co-chef, putting Abby’s growing feelings for him on blast. And her parents have a secret that threatens to unravel everything.

But part of life is showing up, leaning in, and learning to fit all your awkward pieces together. Because sometimes, the hardest things can also be the best ones.

Buy You Have a Match: A Novel by Emma Lord.

Lore by Alexandra Bracken

Type: Novel Publisher: Disney-Hyperion Release date: Jan. 5, 2021 Den of Geek says: A twist on Greek mythology from an accomplished author promises creative world-building and fantasy adventure. Publisher’s summary: Every seven years, the Agon begins. As punishment for a past rebellion, nine Greek gods are forced to walk the earth as mortals, hunted by the descendants of ancient bloodlines, all eager to kill a god and seize their divine power and immortality.

Long ago, Lore Perseous fled that brutal world in the wake of her family’s sadistic murder by a rival line, turning her back on the hunt’s promises of eternal glory. For years she’s pushed away any thought of revenge against the man–now a god–responsible for their deaths.

Yet as the next hunt dawns over New York City, two participants seek out her help: Castor, a childhood friend of Lore believed long dead, and a gravely wounded Athena, among the last of the original gods.

The goddess offers an alliance against their mutual enemy and, at last, a way for Lore to leave the Agon behind forever. But Lore’s decision to bind her fate to Athena’s and rejoin the hunt will come at a deadly cost–and still may not be enough to stop the rise of a new god with the power to bring humanity to its knees.

Buy Lore by Alexandra Bracken.

Siege of Rage and Ruin by Django Wexler

Type: Novel Publisher: Tor Teen Release date: Jan. 5, 2021 Den of Geek says: This month’s high fantasy installment is the finale in a popular series, and one that makes us want to see how the characters arrived and where they go from here. Ghost ships! Mind control! Publisher’s Summary: Isoka has done the impossible―she’s captured the ghost ship Soliton.

With her crew of mage-bloods, including the love of her life Princess Meroe, Isoka returns to the empire that sent her on her deadly mission. She’s ready to hand over the ghost ship as ransom for her sister Tori’s life, but arrives to find her home city under siege. And Tori at the helm of a rebellion.

Neither Isoka’s mastery of combat magic, nor Tori’s proficiency with mind control, could have prepared them for the feelings their reunion surfaces. But they’re soon drawn back into the rebels’ fight to free the city that almost killed them.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Buy Siege of Rage and Ruin by Django Wexler.

The post Top New Young Adult Books in March 2021 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/39EpqNo

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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ilguna · 4 years

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i also have a list of shit my history teacher (this year) has said and done so I will share it with you:

warning: its really fucking long bc he would say/do shit MULTIPLE times a day

goes onto the next slide, “it’s a meme, get it?” proceeds to explain the meme (its the hey arnold meme with the first)

also goes onto another slide, with the twitter opinion meme. at the end of the paragraph it says “this class smacks, I’m lit”

“I’m going to beat up your brother. i am going to pummel him.”

On the 6th day of class he finally realized that there was a total of 6 guys and the rest were girls

student: “You should not put it in (as an assingment)”. teacher; “laugh out loud, im dead”

he was teaching us how to write a DBQ, the computer had a pop up saying that the battery was low, and then a spider shows up out of fucking nowhere, hanging from the ceiling. he CLAPS it, jokes about eating it, and then sets it on his desk (not in the trash can 2 feet away) so he can “deal with it later”

his endless military stories, specifically ORANGE DESERT

he wrote “if you would have had your thinking skull on” on my first DBQ

him saying “I hate this” after typing a word wrong multiple times while teaching us DBQ’s lmfao

“For the lols”

Threw a box of tissues across the room into the trash can

threw a box of tissues at a student

he had this obsession with throwing expo markers at his whiteboard, trying to make it land on the metal part so expect that a lot.

“Do you want me to drown him in a bathtub?” (which was about a student’s dog that had separation anxiety lmaoo)

Sang the rain drop, drop top song

The collars on his shirt turned up

“He’ll be beaten for that distraction” (after his son called him during his lesson and he willingly answered)

“Stay woke”

“It was a hot boy summer for him”

expo marker landed on the metal thing for once thanks to a towel that was there

kyle (it must have been a story or something i dont remember)

He woah’d at some point

HAHA so there was a kid in my class that had got caught with a bong on the second week of school and he was suspended. when he came back to class, we were going over what the south grew in the U.S. very early on into colonization. and he used the bong kid as an example of a tobacco farmer

tried to eat a balled up paper

“important revolutionary war stuff”

“My bae, George Washington”

“They could’ve killed g-dubz, but they didn’t”

called george washington “g-dubz” frequiently

“Facts”

“Swagtastic”

he got excited over a military general (baron friedrich von steuben) for being a gay military general--”That was very well respected!”

“He had a ton of swagger”--referring to ben franklin

“His nickname was the swamp fox. You guys can call me that”

The snowball fight story--his brother was friends with a kid he hated next door. my teacher challenged the kid--Eric--to a snowball fight. In preparation, my teacher had froze snowballs, and so when he did have the fight, he LITERALLY knocked Eric out and left him on the front lawn unconscious (he was an elementary school kid)

one time he gave us the punishment quiz by accident, tried to make up for it by giving everyone the answer to #6. however, it turned out to be wrong so he just gave us all 100′s instead

another military story of the goat he bought from an old man with his buddies. unfortunately they had to kill the goat to eat, but the FACT that my teacher said this “a cute little goat--you know, baaa?” as if we didn’t know what a goat was

He was the golf/hockey coach!! so not only would he talk about beating up the kids in the golf club

he would also do random golf swings all the goddamn time! with no gold club or ball, it was just air.

“You are about to get clowned, young lady”

pronounced pamphlet as pamplet fora good part of his teaching career (another story he told us)

“It’s definitely not the declaration of independence you mouth breather!”

George washington = bae on a powerpoint

“you tied me up real good”

“France also popped off”

Compares the Connecticut compromise to ppap (with the song and everything!)

Told someone to shut up after they suggested that Iowa was the least populated state (he’s from Iowa)

hick iowa, to be exact

Wrote 23 as 32, realized his mistake and said “oop im dyslexic”

“If it’s a purge, I’m killing everybody”

“Federalism, not onion!’

“Who’s the dumbass guy? Ducey!” (our state governor)

he got arrested once. his mugshot is on google images and everything

he got arrested bc some guy was destroying his house w a baseball bat at a party his friendw as throwing (but it was at my teachers house). my teacher respectfully punched him and brought him to the front lawn. called the cops when the guy wouldnt leave and ended up being arrested too. teacher thought his career was over and threatened the guy the entire way to the police station

“laugh out loud!”

“We beat the begeezus out of a bunch of british people”

pronounced wolf as woof

“Who was his daddy? Who’s his daddy?”

Called a swim cap a bonnet

“Kick!”--then proceeds to kick a tennis ball. before that he had just thrown it to get out of his way

“Jesus, you’re a big boy”

for like 2 weeks straight he used that same tennis ball to try and erase a whiteboard. and im not talking rubbing it on the board, he fucking threw it at the wall, getting it off little by little. he eventually gave up, though

“I’ll snot rocket into the trash can”

“Cause I realize most of you are morons”

was obsessed with the cowboy boogie

“Every time I cough, my tail bone hurts”

“Do i look normal?”

“I look like an old man”

“Shut up your faces”

“I see you back there, queen”

“Some of you girls need to learn from this article”--the article was old & about girls being submissive

“that would hurt some people’s feelings, but I’m not gonna show it hurt mine”

“He’s just--’meow’”--about his cat

he had a sweater that had his face on it, photoshopped over a boxer that a student gave him. he wore it during winter

flicked a tennis ball across the room with a hockey stick. hit the coffee thermo on his desk, stared for a couple of seconds, and THEN realized that it was open

First off, all you kids making memes about dodging the draft--we don’t want your dumbasses anyway” --continued to rant for a few minutes after that

he HATED the national anthem with a burning passion

“I’m old as shit”

also, his cat’s name IS meow cat

more expo marker throwing

“Hey there handsome”-- to the teacher next door

“Henry clay is going to haunt you until april” (unfortunately we didnt make it that far into the school year bc of covid. disappointed that i didnt get to be haunted)

Singing electric avenue

“but here’s the tea”

“Flagstaff is like--” *reaches as high as he can to put expo marker on the wall

“I’m adopting all of you, and we’re moving to saudi arabia”

teacher: “I’m gonna break bowers kneecaps in front of you. you still want to be on strike?” not bowers but a different kid: “no...?”

Cleaned the shades in the middle of him explaining something

“You know your pinky toe? this little roast beef?”

THE TURTLE SOUP STORY. when my teacher was still a kid, he found a turtle in the wild, and brought it to his grandparents house (they owned a farm). he took care of the turtle for a while, even after his grandfather found out. until one day he came home and saw blood everywhere, went to find the turtle to see it was gone. then found his grandfather chopping up the fucking turtle so they could have it for soup for dinner. his grandfather literally made him fatten up the turtle so they could eat it

“Did mr.*****--?” (referring to himself in 3rd person, also blocked out to protect privacy)

“i’m going to staple your nostrils closed. staple, staple. ‘I can’t breathe mr.*****!’ should’ve done your DBQ!!”

his pedo stache

stood with a paper and smiled, thinking that a student was taking a picture of him when it was really the paper

doesn’t know who gaston is???

him: “I’m going to staple your noses together. One staple” Student: “*****’s piercing parlor!”

*singing* “beauty and the beast”

“I’m going to tackle you”

more random golf swinging

“What’s up (my name)?” me: hi *he then hits the bun on the top of my head on his way in the door*

And he did it again the next day

he literally made kids compete with pastries

which reminds me, he brought donuts in 2 days in a row like a week after that and make us (his first hour) take bites bc he realized he didn’t want to eat it. one of the girls was glad to take it from him, everyone else told him no

“Good morning (my name) how are you?” me: “I’m sick again... do you need help? (with the door)” him; “Actually, yes” (normally he can open the door even when his hands are full but there was a stack of pop tart boxes that were as tall as him so) i opened the door, he goes in and says, “thank you (my name), for not being rude”

the following quotes are for the Hot Seat

Student: “what do you do--?” him: “you’re in the hot seat!”

“Some people cry”

“La *****, luxurious”

“You sit here, and you stare (into the projector light)”

basically everyone in the class had to answer a question as a review. there was a stool in front of the smartboard, perfectly placed so that the projector light would LITERALLy be in your eyes. i actually got the question right on some miracle.

“2 points of weed?”

“Can I get some of that hot leaf?”

“They will make more drugs! You can’t do that much drug!”

“You guys bullied me and stole it”

“Whole rest of the nation sucked an egg”

“Whelp, let’s just kill myself”

“Do you guys know david chapel?” *sigh when everyone says no*

*some girls singing the national anthem* Him: “no! none of this, none of this!”

“Calibri’s for idiots” (the font)

“The only thing that was in--shit”

“and uncle sam--gettin lit”

“Their daddy--UH--”

“They’re going to blame the jews--my people” (he got a dna test done, he’s not actually jewish)

“Whatever you say, boomer”

“Use my words to plagiarize in college”

“I’m jewish, that’s offensive”

“Tell him he gave me instant cancer”

Me: “can i go to the bathroom?” him: “I’ll allow it”

him: “He’s antisemetic and it hurts my feelings” student: “what does that mean again?” him: “Hates jews :(”

“You guys can call me kingfish if you’d like”

~ after we said no to the nicknames, we tried to make one for him ~

student: “cornhusker!” him: “no, that’s offensive... and it’s also nebraska”

student: “corn picker!” him: “no--that sounds like a racist term or something”

“Unless corona really does take over--” (thank u, mr. for ruining the school year”

Student: “how old was she (his mom) when she had you?” him: “thirteen”

“My mom just turned 40 the other day...” (a joke)

him: “My brother got t-boned by a semi truck last night” Student: “Why are you laughing?” him: “Because he lived.”

“Yeah bc I would hide out in a public school with 300 new kids a year” (about him not living in iowa so he’s hiding out in az to get away from his “criminal record” (refer to the 1 time hes been arrested))

“Baby death?”

“Their family has more money than jesus”

*Standing outside the door yelling “CORONA” to students walking in”

“Hey I’m *****, f-word, blah, blah”

“We should fight our cats.”

“OH that’s a big chonk cat.”

“Mortal Kombat is pretty cool. I haven’t played in 25 years”

he told us in class once that we shouldnt open the front door if cops show up at a party. just to shut the blinds and be a little quieter bc the cops cant legally open the door

also one time he had a gun pointed to his face but he never finished that story bc he never liked it

during quarantine he set a DBQ as 1000 points (and i still didnt do it)

and “Here’s the tea, kiddos!”

honorable mentions: all the time he’s sent out emails bc theyre fucking hilarious

#ilguna #high school #gen z

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noramoya · 5 years

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#ThrillerLiveCloses #ApprovedByMJon2009

“Right now our world has been turned upside down, with a pandemic that is changing our way of life. It is affecting us all, financially, emotionally and socially. For me it has resulted in THRILLER LIVE closing prematurely (and permanently) in the West End, as all theatres around the country have been shut, in the public’s best interest. Myself and the rest of the team totally understand and respect that we must all practice social distancing, working together to beat this virus. But yesterday was a very sad day as I joined the cast, crew and other creatives at the Lyric Theatre for one last time. We wanted to come together to say goodbye to each other at the theatre that had become our home for the past 11-years. Ironically we were just two more performances away from becoming the 11th longest ever running show in the West End. Still to be 12th, and the longest ever running show at the Lyric Theatre is an incredible achievement. Another thing the coronavirus has shown us is that we never know what is around the corner and we shouldn’t take what we have for granted. Through hard times, we get to see what matters most and what we really need to value.

One of our cast members said that leaving the Lyric Theatre was like losing a loving partner. And that is partly true, in that sometimes you don’t appreciate what you have until it is gone. But I am sure that each and every one of the Thriller Live cast and crew will go on to great new ventures, just as previous associates have. It’s been an INCREDIBLE journey which has formed great friendships, partnerships and even relationships with babies to boot! For me it seems that things have gone full circle. For it was 30 years ago today (20th March 1990) when I first met the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and he inspired me to see a world of endless possibilities. He showed me humility, kindness and a laughter like I’d never heard before.

We were at Record One Studios where he was free and at his creative best, producing the ‘Dangerous’ album. Watching a genius at work, who since the age of 5 had been perfecting his craft to become the world’s greatest ever entertainer was a true privilege. And then came an invitation to lunch at Neverland. That was the most memorable weekend ever. I’d never seen a landscape and home so beautiful. A place where Michael could dream peacefully, and one could lose themselves in magical abandonment. Which I did playing on the arcades, riding on the funfair and watching movies in the theatre. Just before I left, as I walked out the oak door, Michael said come back anytime. And I did, at least once a year - return to Neverland, as did many lucky fans, and various charitable organisations that Michael opened his doors for, because he loved to give, help and see others happy. That was the Michael Jackson I knew - a humble, innocent soul, who also happened to be one of the greatest artists of all time. There are many, many other stories that I have shared over the years, and fans and friends will know. Each one of them still as colourful in my mind now as it was when I first lived them. I thank Michael for those memories, and even though he is gone, it has never felt like a goodbye.

From all of us at “Thriller Live”, we want to Thank everyone who came to see the Show in the West End. We are Grateful that we could keep Michael’s Legacy and Music alive through the production and cá look forward to continuing touring the world in years to come. Now here follows a long, long list of thanks to just a few of the many people who made the show possible in the West End. There has been literally hundreds of people involved on and off the stage, so apologies that I can’t list everyone, but each of you are just as important in making this show a special part of West End history ! Producers Paul Walden & Derek Nicol, Mark Strange – General Manager, Ginette Sinnott – Head of Marketing, and everyone else at Flying Music (past and present) – thank you for believing in the show and all you have done to make it a worldwide success.

•Gary Lloyd our amazing Director & Choreographer. I could write a book about his character and talent, so please go read his own ! John Maher our meticulous Musical Director extraordinaire. • Every single band member past and present including Damien Cooper, Oliver Latka, Ryan Alex Farmery, Adam Kovacs and Mike Bradley - the greatest compliment you can pay these guys, is that some audience members still ask if the show is ‘live’. Yes! Applause when screen goes back and our musicians are revealed ! • Yasmin Yazdi, Jo Dyce, Rose Wild and Aisling Duffy – our fierce Resident Directors and Assistant Choreographers whom over the years have put hundreds of cast members through their paces. • Sharon Speirs and Caroline Stroud, our two long running and outstanding Company Managers over the past 11-years. And thank you to others who stepped in. • Nigel Catmur – Lighting Designer, Chris Whybrow – Sound Designer, Jonathan Park – Set Designer, Rob Jones and Catherine Teatum – Costume Designers – thank you for making this show look and sound so great ! • Our hard-working crew – Dawn Harvey, Paul Bond, Glenn Jenkins, Sophie Kemp, Kelvin White, Bill Dimeo, Matthew Giles, Alice Johson, Sara Markwick, Gemma Tucker, Melissa Cooke, Karli Can Heerden, Inca Jaackson, Rosie Woods and Jo Conlon – thank you for being there every day and making the show possible. • Not forgetting dozens of former crew members from Becky Potts and Jessica Plews to Craig and Kate Garratt and many, many more. • A big shout out to Haydon Eshun and John Moabi, our longest running West End cast members. These two guys are stage legends, whose performances did Michael proud every single night. • Respect to Kevin Wilson PR for keeping our name up in lights and doing it always with the utmost enthusiasm. • Thank you to Debbie O'Brien Casting – the talent we have seen over the years has been incredible including Zoe Birkett, Hayley Evetts, Maria Lawson, Samantha Johnson Carter, Cleopatra Madonna, Britt Quentin, Alex Buchanan, Jerome Singer, Trenyce Cobbins, David Jordan, MiG Ayesa and so many more outstanding vocalists ! • We have also been blessed with hundreds of amazing dancers since 2006 and through to the end of this West End run. They, with the singers and musicians are the life blood of the show, which relies, not on massive production, but pure heart and soul to deliver the energy, authenticity and chemistry that was part of Michael Jackson. • Thank you Nica Burns at Nimax for giving us a home for 11-years, and all the staff at the Lyric Theatre for looking after us, and over 2 million audience members throughout the years. • Massive appreciation to Kerys Nathan, our original Director & Choreographer from 2006-2008. You’ll always be a part of the show. • Thank you to every single cast member from the original West End cast featuring Ben Forster, Roger Wright, Denise Pearson, Ricko Baird, Kieran Alleyne, Layton Williams (OFFICIAL), Sterling Williams, Lewis Davies, Kamilah Beckles, Christabelle Field, Elliot James, Earl Perkins, Emily Rumbles, Dannielle Rothman, Sean Williams, Ashton Russell, Ross Sands and Jordan Darrell, to our last with – Wayne Anthony-Cole, Vivienne Ekwulugo, David Julien, Miles Anthony, Florivaldo Mossi, Lauren Gore, Filippo Coffano, Leslie Garcia Brown, Deavion Brown, David Devyne, Mitchell Eley, Ike Fallon, Eliza Hart, Gabriela Hernandez, Amelia-Annie Layng, Arnold Mabhena, Rishard-Kyro Nelson, Oskarina O'Sullivan , Shola B Riley, Triple Calz, Cannon Hay, Isaiah Mason, Ishaan Raithatha and Messiah Unusudimi. • To everyone on our suspended touring production, and all those before which has seen us visit over 34 different countries, thank you, thank you and thank you again. We will see each other hopefully soon as we continue this journey. Until then stay safe, and don't eat too many pies, there is only one costume budget. •Apologies too many not named above, some whom I greatly admire and some whom I am proud to now call friends, you are all in my thoughts.

Lastly, and most importantly – thank you to MICHAEL JACKSON ! “THRILLER LIVE” is your Music, your Artistry and your Magic ! Thank you for your Inspiration , Love and Humanity . 🙏🏼

Dreams do come true — Adrian Grant .

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insanityclause · 5 years

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Just months ago, following a critically acclaimed run at London's Harold Pinter Theatre, the four-person cast of Betrayal all made their Broadway debuts. One of the four was Eddie Arnold.

With poetic precision, rich humor, and an extraordinary emotional force, Betrayal charts a compelling seven-year romance, thrillingly captured in reverse chronological order. Arnold brings humor to the revered Pinter play, not only starring as the Waiter, but also understudying 'Jerry' and 'Robert'- roles played by stage and screen stars Charlie Cox and Tom Hiddleston.

Before Betrayal, Eddie starred in stage productions of Hamlet, The Vote, Journey's End, Jumpy, Saki. His film credits include: Mary Queen of Scots, Dead in October, Guardians, The List. Television credits include: "People Just Do Nothing," "Sticks and Stones," "De Infiltrant," "Man in an Orange Shirt," "The Vote."

As the play begins its final weeks on Broadway (closing on December 8, 2019), Eddie checked in with BroadwayWorld to reflect on the show's journey so far and how he is preparing to say goodbye to Broadway.

I know that a lot has happened in the past year, from opening in London to coming here... has it all hit you yet that you're really on Broadway?

I don't think it will hit me until it's too late and I get back home and say, "Oh no, it's over!" [Laughs] I feel like I'm living in this hyper-reality of the world that I used to be in. London was so incredible and such a lucky experience to get to share the stage with these three geniuses, and to be directed by Jamie [Lloyd], and to speak Harold Pinter's lines. But to then have the opportunity to come to New York, which I've only been on holiday to, and be able to come and offer it up to a new set of eyes is incredible. The American audience gets to experience it in a different way now. It was all so incredibly lucky. I feel like i've been floating on this bubble of happiness the whole five months I've been here. I've fallen in love with this city.

You're now a few months into the run. How has it been going at the Jacobs since opening night?

We are definitely all counting our lucky stars every night that we got this lovely, beautiful theatre that we've been invited to perform in. The audiences have been so receptive and so responsive. The funny thing is that the play has so many different threads that you can follow throughout, that an audience can be laughing hysterically one night and almost silent the next night... and yet they are just as into it at the end. They end up getting lost in the words and liking or disliking one of the characters for whatever reason. Or the next night someone else becomes vilified or loved or pitied. Each time it is so different.

It's really beautiful to see that every night, because I get to listen to it through the relays for about two thirds of the show. I get to watch how the audience is gauging it and how the actors are honing in on parts of each scene and working it in a different way. It really pumps me up. Like a football team has "Eye of the Tiger," I get to listen to Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox and Zawe Ashton perform scenes 1-6.

The magic of live theatre! Every time is something different...

Coming into the show in a later scene, in a production where the other characters don't leave the stage, I always get this beautiful feeling as the audience turns and watches me walk on. They're going, "Who the heck is that guy and why is he on stage?" And then it moves to, "Oh, ok! Here is a new dynamic that we haven't seen that will spice things up." They warm very quickly. I think Pinter has written it in a really great spot, where all of these characters that have been onstage before have been firing at each other constantly. Now suddenly, they have this new person who they can direct all of their anger and sadness and annoyance at. He's not going to beaten down that easily though!

This being a drama, with some comedic moments, you're the biggest moment of comic relief in the play. Is there pressure in that?

There's never any pressure going on because you've got to live in the reality of the moment- there are these very angry, posh men in front of you, who are trying their best to conceal their feelings for each other, especially with the information and power they hold over each other. So I've been caught up in this very awkward conversation and how do I talk my way out of it as quickly and effectively as possible? And of course they keep going in berating me. The comedy is really written into it already. So I just try to go into it as naturally as possible. Sometimes people laugh! At the end of the day you just have to be truthful to what you're playing and hopefully the writing and direction will help you out when you're not firing on all cylinders.

Were you intimidated at all at the beginning of the rehearsal process in London?

I had seen a lot of Jamie's work before. Three Days of Rain was such an incredible production and I had seen lots of the Pinter stuff as well. Obviously he is very big director who has done a lot of acclaimed work in London. Then the other guys, if you don't know who they are, you've been living with your head in the sand. At the end of the day I just wanted to nail the part as much as possible.

And luckily for someone like myself and others in this industry, between jobs, you serve at bars or restaurants. It's part of being a gigging actor. I made sure that I brought all of that experience- how many times I've bitten my lip at someone dropping their food and looking to me to pick it up... I thought, I can do this. I've done it before. It's actually a lot more pleasant this way because I can do it with lovely people and we can have a laugh about it in the end.

So intimidated wasn't it... more like honored. I'm so happy to have been allowed to perform and learn. You learn so much just from watching actors of this much talent and ability. Hopefully some of it will seep in and I'll be able to take it to my next job.

Have the four of you become close?

Oh yes, we've had a lovely time!

Your Halloween costumes were incredible.

Oh! They were great, weren't they? Captain America fit the bill for me. And I had to come out first as the leader of the Avengers. But we had so much fun dressed up like that. It was pure laughs backstage.

You've got a lot of time offstage throughout the course of the play. How do you occupy yourself?

I've read quite a few books! Right now I'm halfway through Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It is about 800 pages and people call it the most remarkable achievement of the modern era of novel-writing. Then I've got another called A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. That one is about 700 pages long! So I'm trying to eat my way through both of those.

Then Dylan [S. Wallach] and Jesmille [Darbouze] are right above me. We get to hang out and catch up, which is lovely. We watch the show and run lines once or twice a week. Then I get to chill in pants and wait for my turn to go on.

So you have your own dressing room?

Yes! I bought a couple of plants to zhuzh it up, but I'm going to be really sad to leave it. It's been home for the last five months and it feels very much a part of me. I have very quickly adapted to life here.

What have you enjoyed the most about being a New Yorker?

Everyone is so incredibly welcoming. Also, New York has the best Italian food ever- I love Italian food. I still haven't bee to the Bronx, where I'm told the proper, old-school Italian restaurants are. That is definitely on my list of things to do before we finish.

Also, there are all these sports that don't even exist in England, like basketball and American football, baseball, ice hockey. I've been to see the Knicks and the Mets! I'm really trying to soak up every but of this American lifestyle before it gets taken away from me. [Laughs]

Have you gotten to see any other shows?

Oh goodness, yes! We saw Sea Wall/A Life, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge. That was incredible. In the same way as our play, it felt so natural and timeless. It was so beautifully acted. I went to see Dear Evan Hansen as well. That was phenomenal. Tom and I went to see it and then we've been singing the songs ever since. We're backstage singing our hearts out! That kind of acting, where you come on and sing for two and a half hours... it seems like an alien thing to me. I cannot imagine ever being to do that. How do they do that?

So doing a musical is not on your bucket list?

It might be on my bucket list, but I don't think that anyone would come to see it! [Laughs]

With just a few weeks until the end of the show's run, what are you most looking forward to in the time you have left?

I want to eat as much American food as I can! [Laughs] No, it's about not taking anything for granted. Everything becomes so happy and easy until these last few weeks and now I have to start saying goodbye to people. I need to make sure I've said thank you to about 500 people who have made this experience what it is. I need to seek them out and tell them personally. Any of my free time will be spent hunting people down to show my appreciation.

#Eddie Arnold #Betrayal #interview #i hope Eddie gets lots of work out of this

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chiseler · 5 years

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The Crowd Doesn’t Just Roar, It Thinks: Warner Bros.’ All-Talking Revolution

“Iconic” is a gassy word for a masterwork of unquestioned approval. But it also describes compositions that actually resemble icons in their form and function, “stiff” by inviolate standards embodied in, say, Howard Hawks characters moving fluidly in and out of the frame. Whenever I watch William A. Wellman’s 1933 talkie Wild Boys of the Road, these standards—themselves rigid and unhelpful to understanding—fall away. An entire canonical order based on naturalism withers.

To summon reality vivid enough for the 1930s—during which 250,000 minors left home in hopeless pursuit of the job that wasn’t—Wellman inserts whispering quietude between explosions, cesuras that seem to last aeons. The film’s gestating silences dominate the rather intrusive New Deal evangelism imposed by executive order from the studio. Amid Warner Bros.’ ballyhooing of a freshly-minted American president, they were unconsciously embracing the wrecking-ball approach to a failed capitalist system. That is, when talkies dream, FDR don’t rate. However, Marxist revolution finds its American icon in Wild Boys’ sixteen-year-old actor Frankie Darro, whose cap becomes a rude little halo, a diminutive lad goaded into class war by a chance encounter with a homeless man.

“You got an army, ain’t ya?” In the split second before Darro’s “Tommy” realizes the import of these words, the Great Depression flashes before his eyes, and ours. No conspicuous montage—just a fixed image of pain. Until suddenly a collective lurch transmutes job-seeking kids into a polity that knows the enemy’s various guises: railroad detectives, police, galled citizens nosing out scapegoats. Wellman’s crowd scenes are, in effect, tableaux congealing into lucent versions of the real thing. The miracle he performs is a painterly one: he abstracts and pares down in order to create realism.

Wellman has a way of organizing people into palpable units, expressing one big emotional truth, then detonating all that potential energy. In his assured directorial hands, Wild Boys of the Road sustains powerful rhythmic flux. And yet, other abstractions, the kind life throws at us willy-nilly, only make sense if we trust our instinctive hunches (David Lynch says typically brilliant, and typically cryptic, things on this subject).

I’m thinking of iconography that invites associations beyond familiar theories, which, in one way or another, try to give movies syntax and rely too heavily on literary ideas like “authorship.” Nobody can corner the market on semantic icons and run up the price. My favorite hot second in Wild Boys of the Road is when young Sidney Miller spits “Chazzer!” (“Pig!”) at a cop. Even the industrial majesty of Warner Bros. will never monopolize chutzpah. The studio does, however, vaunt its own version of socialism, whether consciously or not, in concrete cinematic terms: here, the crowd becomes dramaturgy, a conscious and ethical mass pushing itself into the foreground of working-class poetics. The crowd doesn’t just roar, it thinks. Miller’s volcanic cri de coeur erupts from the collective understanding that capitalism’s gendarmes are out to get us.

Wellman’s Heroes for Sale, hitting screens the same year as Wild Boys, 1933, further advances an endless catalogue of meaning for which no words yet exist. We’re left (fumblingly and woefully after the fact) to describe a rupture. Has the studio system gone stark raving bananas?! Once again, the film’s ostensible agenda is to promote Roosevelt’s economic plan; and, once again, a radical alternative rears its head.

Wellman’s aesthetic constitutes a Dramaturgy of the Crowd. His compositions couldn’t be simpler. I’m reminded of the “grape cluster” method used by anonymous Medieval artists, in which the heads of individual figures seem to emerge from a single shared body, a highly simplified and spiritual mode of constructing space that Arnold Hauser attributes to less bourgeoise societies.

If the mythos of FDR, the man who transformed capitalism, is just that, a story we Americans tell ourselves, then Heroes for Sale represents another kind of storytelling: one firmly rooted to the soiled experience of the period. Amid portrayals of a nation on the skids—thuggish cops, corrupt bankers, and bone-weary war vets (slogging through more rain and mud than they’d ever encountered on the battlefield)—one rather pointed reference to America’s New Deal drags itself from out of the grime. “It’s just common horse sense,” claims a small voice. Will national leadership ever find another spokesman as convincing as the great Richard Barthelmess, that half-whispered deadpan amplified by a fledgling technology, the Vitaphone? After enduring shrapnel to the spine, dependency on morphine, plus a prison stretch, his character Tom Holmes channels the country’s pain; and his catalog of personal miseries—including the sudden death of his young wife—qualifies him as the voice of wisdom when he explains, “It takes more than one sock in the jaw to lick 120 million people.” How did Barthelmess—owner of the flattest murmur in Talking Pictures, a far distance from the gilded oratory of Franklin Roosevelt, manage to sell this shiny chunk of New Deal propaganda?

How did he take the film’s almost-crass reduction of America’s economic cataclysm, that metaphorical sock on the jaw, and make it sound reasonable? Barthelmess was 37 when he made Heroes for Sale; an aging juvenile who less than a decade earlier had been one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office titans. But no matter how smoothly he seemed to have survived the transition, his would always be a screen presence more redolent of the just-passed Silent-era than the strange new world of synchronized sound. And yet, through a delivery rich with nuance for generous listeners and a glum piquancy for everyone else, deeply informed by an awareness of his own fading stardom, his slightly unsettling air of a man jousting with ghosts lends tremendous force to the New Deal line. It echoes and resolves itself in the viewer’s consciousness precisely because it is so eerily plainspoken, as if by some half-grinning somnambulist ordering a ham on rye. Through it we are in the presence of a living compound myth, a crisp monotone that brims with vacillating waves of hope and despair.

Tom is “The Dirty Thirties.” A symbolic figure looming bigger than government promises, towering over Capitalism itself, he’s reduced to just another soldier-cum-hobo by the film’s final reel, having relinquished a small fortune to feed thousands before inevitably going “on the bum.” If he emits wretchedness and self-abnegation, it’s because Tom was originally intended to be an overt stand-in for Jesus Christ—a not-so-gentle savior who attends I.W.W. meetings and participates in the Bonus March, even hurling a riotous brick at the police. These strident scenes, along with “heretical” references to the Nazarene, were ultimately dropped; and yet the explosive political messages remain.

More than anything, these key works in the filmography of William A. Wellman present their viewers with competing visions of freedom; a choice, if you will. One can best be described as a fanciful, yet highly addictive dream of personal comfort — the American Century's corrupted fantasy of escape from toil, tranquility, and a material luxury handed down from the then-dying principalities of Western Europe — on gaudy, if still wondrous, display within the vast corpus of Hollywood's Great Depression wish-list movies. The other is rarely acknowledged, let alone essayed, in American Cinema. There are, as always, reasons for this. It is elusive and ever-inspiring; too primal to be called revolutionary. It is a vision of existential freedom made flesh; being unmoored without being alienated; the idea of personal liberation, not as license to indulge, but as a passport to enter the unending, collective struggle to remake human society into a society fit for human beings.

In one of the boldest examples of this period in American film, the latter vision would manifest itself as a morality play populated by kings and queens of the Commonweal— a creature of the Tammany wilderness, an anarchist nurse, and a gaggle of feral street punks (Dead End Kids before there was a 'Dead End'). Released on June 24, 1933, Archie L. Mayo's The Mayor of Hell stood, not as a standard entry in Warner Bros.’ Social Consciousness ledger, but as an untamed rejoinder to cratering national grief.

by Daniel Riccuito

Special thanks to R.J. Lambert

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accidentally-logince · 5 years

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Ceremony

I came up with this idea tonight while I was trying to calm myself down at an award night I went to :P (I’m doing good, so no worries)

Warnings: implied death

Word Count: 900

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Today was the day. The Ceremony. Hunter had turned 18 in April, so now they were in line, standing nervously in a room full of kids their age. Some who's birthday had happened just a week or two before, some from as late as last June, right after the last ceremony, and they'd even overheard that one kid turned 18 that morning. As in today. Hunter couldn't imagine that. How awful must it be, to have your birthday on the day of The Ceremony? There were roughly two thousand kids this year on the roster. How many kids would walk out of the building, no one knew. Well, other than the people who'd made the lists this year, of course. There were the usual kids who were standing silently, heads ducked down, anxious for the announcements later that night. Others stood in groups of friends and spoke confidently, as if they knew their results and weren't worried. Maybe they really weren't, Hunter couldn't tell. At one end of the large room there was a fold-up table full of food that hardly anyone had touched. The odd cookie or soda would disappear from the spread, but too many kids were too anxious to eat. Today was the beginning of their future, or the end. Only time would tell. Hunter checked their phone. Ten minutes until the ceremony started. They were lucky enough to be in the middle of the line, with the last name Maverick. They pocketed their phone, deciding against texting their friends. They would be watching anyways. They would know what happened to Hunter. Whether it be bad or good. Or, as close to good as you could get. Not Death was ideal. More than ideal, actually. Most of the population agreed that this wasn't the best way to fix the issue of over-population on Earth, but the bias towards the government would always suspiciously win out. So here they were, in line. Waiting to be sorted. A speaker above them crackled to life, and the room went quiet. They listened in silence for a moment before names were called out. "Elijah Abel, Benjamin Adams, Justice Alias and Fellow Arnolds, please make your way to the stage," the speaker announced, and the four kids whose names had been called out all stumbled over to the door. Everyone else in the room turned to the screen that displayed the stage, where the four were taking their places on, in alphabetical order. At least one of them wouldn't leave that stage. There was never a group where all four were Held. All of them watched the screen as two of the kids--the redhead Benjamin and the brunette Justice--were Passed. They walked off the screen, leaving only Fellow and Elijah on the stage. Fellow stood with her back straight, but her eyes gave away her panic. Elijah was not as put together as Fellow. Some of the kids in the room turned their eyes away as the stage below the two Held kids fell away. No one knew what they fell into--there had been theories that they actually are kept alive, as slaves to work for the government, some people say they're killed immediately. Whatever it was that happened, no one came back up. Held kids were as good as dead no matter what was under there. The speaker crackles again and everyone is knocked out of the trance they were in. "Gabriel Axelrod, Wednesday Beckon, Brianna Bellrose, and Amnesty Benson, please make your way to the stage." Again, the door opened to let the named children out, and everyone's eyes were stuck to the screen. Amnesty was Passed. The other three were Held. Hunter watched anxiously as the room began to empty slowly, the list making its way to the letter M. 3 kids were passed, then 1, then 3 again, then 2, then 1, and on and on and on... "Beth Lyric, Angela and David Masterson, and Hunter Maverick, please make your way to the stage." Here it was. Hunter walked on stiff legs to the stage out the door, glancing up at the back of the hall, past the thousands of seats of watching friends and family, to see the screen for the people too far from the stage to see. Very faintly they saw their small form standing next to Beth--who had been in Hunter's physics class--and the Masterson twins. Hunter was drastically short next to the three of them, and they heard words being said into the microphone of the official behind them through the sound of their blood pumping in their ears. "--being exemplars in the majority of their courses, Beth Lyric, as well as Angela and David Masterson, are from here Passed to the future, congratulations to their families." There was a round of applause, and Hunter's stomach dropped. They found themself looking down, noticing for the first time that the stage was glass in the spots that the kids were meant to stand, and it was pitch black underneath. "Hunter Maverick, due to lackluster performance during your time at the institute, you will be Held during this year's Ceremony. We thank you for your dedication and contribution to the Plan." The words were shallow in Hunter's ears as they saw the glass beneath them slowly shift away. They looked into the crowd and caught the eyes of their parents as the platform gave way, and then they were falling into darkness.

#my writing #me: *trying to calm myself down*#also me: *creates a dystopian universe where children are probably killed in the exact scenario I'm currently in*

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