untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play at the Young Vic

One autumn day in the 90s wonder | wander | women visited the US for the first time and saw Miss Saigon  on Broadway. It was a magnificent, stirring romance, but left us feeling betrayed. The white lover saw his Asian marriage as less real than his American one. The Americans were viewed as saviours and Kim's own people as pimps and murderers. And why did Kim have to die so her son could live a better life? How could his life be better knowing his father and "new" mother didn't see him as part of their own future together?

untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play, poster (2023)
Courtesy of Young Vic

That is one of the questions asked by untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play, a time-warping, trope-skewering riot of a play written by Kimber Lee and directed by Roy Alexander Weise. It first appeared at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester for the Manchester International Festival in summer 2023, and migrated to London's Young Vic Theatre in the autumn.

grace & gratitude

A great people traveled from the north and west. For many, many years they moved across the land, leaving settlements in rich river valleys as others moved on. Reaching the eastern edge of the country, some of these people settled on the river later renamed the Delaware. 

Others moved north and settled in the valley of a river where the waters, like those in their original homeland, were never still. They named this river Mahicannituck and called themselves the muh-he-con-neok, the people of the waters that are never still…

Henrik Hudson Entering New York Harbor by Edward Moran

Chronicled by late-1700s Mohican historian Hendrick Aupaumut, tells the story of the people who truly discovered America, including the river valley in which we now live. 

The names of the river and valley were usurped by a man named Hudson, whose people came from the east and nearly obliterated a history that stretches back perhaps 13,000 years.

love locks

On a recent visit to Evans, Georgia wonder | wander | women had the sweet privilege to visit one of its famous nature parks - the Augusta Canal. 

The Augusta Canal

The canal and industrial district were designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2018.

The Power of Water by Reginald D. Fraser, NHA

unicorns of Scotland

When wonder | wander | women went to see Heavenly Bodies in the Met Cloisters, we checked something else off the bucket list: seeing the original Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries. Little did we know that someone had recreated them and hung them in a real Renaissance castle in Scotland.

From our Heavenly Bodies blog post

lies & love

Does true democracy stand a chance when old-school authoritarianism is disco-fied to a beat we dance to? 

Here Lies Love - whose title comes from a quote of Imelda Marcos concerning the words she hopes appear on her tombstone - plays like a coked-up cartoon. This 2010 Marcos concept album is a collaboration between David Byrne and FatBoy Slim (AKA Norman Cook). 

the new Broadway production

Though it features cameos by legends such as Florence Welsh and Natalie Merchant, as well as regular contributions from Byrne himself, it feels more parody than actual pleasure-conveyor and plays through as overzealous mental masturbation.