Ming Chen

Cliff Ming Si-Chen, better known as Ming Chen is an actor, podcaster, reality television personality, and webmaster associated with Kevin Smith. He co-hosts the I Sell Comics! podcast with Mike Zapcic and also stars in the AMC reality series Comic Book Men.

Early life

Ming Chen was born in Ohio to parents born in China, but raised in Taiwan. The family frequently moved due his father being an upstart engineer. Chen attended the University of Michigan, and he at one point also worked at a video shop.

Career

Ming Chen became involved with Kevin Smith after making a fansite dedicated to the movie Clerks in 1996. Smith asked Chen to build the View Askew Productions website. Chen served as an extra in the movie Dogma. After working around the Washington, D.C. area, and LivePlanet for two years, he joined Kevin Smith's company in 2002. Chen became the full time webmaster of View Askew after moving to New Jersey. One of the oddest requests from Kevin Smith has been to drive eight hours and deliver a copy of Red State to a critic from the Los Angeles Times in Maine.

Mingə

Coordinates: 40°42′31″N 48°19′36″E / 40.70861°N 48.32667°E / 40.70861; 48.32667

Mingə is a village in the Ismailli Rayon of Azerbaijan. The village forms part of the municipality of Keyvəndi. The area is renowned for excessive bush and dryness, due to being situated on one of the two highest peaks of Azerbaijan.

References

Ming dynasty

The Ming dynasty (Chinese: 明朝; pinyin: Míng Cháo), or the Great Ming (Chinese: 大明; pinyin: Dà Míng), also called the Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China for 276 years (1368–1644) following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history," was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic Han Chinese. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the Shun dynasty, soon replaced by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty), regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1662.

The Hongwu Emperor (ruled 1368–98) attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang Ming Zu Xun, a set of published dynastic instructions. This failed spectacularly when his teenage successor, the Jianwen Emperor, attempted to curtail his uncles' power, prompting the Jingnan Campaign, an uprising that placed the Prince of Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a secondary capital and renamed it Beijing, constructed the Forbidden City, and restored the Grand Canal and the primacy of the imperial examinations in official appointments. He rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia and the eastern coasts of Africa.

Ming (album)

Ming is the third album by David Murray to be released on the Italian Black Saint label and the first to feature his Octet. It was released in 1980 and features performances by Murray, Henry Threadgill, Olu Dara, Lawrence "Butch" Morris, George Lewis, Anthony Davis, Wilber Morris and Steve McCall.

Reception

The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide said "both Ming and Home display an excellent balance between written material and solos by a distinguished group of sidemen".

The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected this album as part of its suggested Core Collection.

The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 5 stars stating "His octet was always the perfect setting for tenor saxophonist David Murray, large enough to generate power but not as out of control as many of his big-band performances. Murray contributed all five originals (including "Ming" and "Dewey's Circle") and arrangements, and is in superior form on both tenor and bass clarinet. The "backup crew" is also quite notable: altoist Henry Threadgill, trumpeter Olu Dara, cornetist Butch Morris, trombonist George Lewis, pianist Anthony Davis, bassist Wilbur Morris, and drummer Steve McCall. These avant-garde performances (reissued on CD) are often rhythmic enough to reach a slightly larger audience than usual, and the individuality shown by each of these major players is quite impressive. Recommended.".