From the press release, “Hopeless Romantic recounts Kristine’s life, loves, betrayals, heartbreak and hopes…” Sounds pretty hopeless to me.

You read it right: Saigon MC, not city. I don’t think there’s any connection between the rapper and Vietnam’s former city, but his mixtape joint, The Return Of The Yardfather with DJ Kay Slay and Clinton Sparks, isn’t so bad—except when he attemps to sing the blues.

Uncle Murda’s “I Shot the sheriff.” I only have issues with the pigs that hide behind the bush, eat doughnuts, beat their dick in one hand while hold a speed gun with the other.

That shit ain’t funny, Rosie. It is as tasteless as Michael Richards‘s N-word.

Straight from D-O-double-G, “A Bitch I Knew” puts Snoop back in the pimp game. So “You better watch your girl, cause if she’s on the loose. It’s a 90 percent chance she’s gon’ get pimp juice.”

Nina Simone got “Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter” from Jazzeem’s All Styles Remix. Turn up your speaker and let the funk get in your soul.

Guan Zeju’s Timeless Series paintings. (I am speechless: so beautiful, so exquisite, so perfect, and so raw.)

Emmanuel Polanco’s graphic design portfolio. (The typographic works are spendid.)

Russell Peters on Viet Nam (Not offended at all since Russ has done many amusing cultural comics. This particular one on Vietnamese, however, isn’t as funny as the Indian shit: “Somebody going to get a hurt real bad.”)

Japanese Sex Slang (Not sure if it is an useful, but sure is interesting. For instance: Kusottare is literally “shit-drip.” So, you’re a shit-drip instead of an asshole. Nice!)

Wow! It sure is a Fantastic Machine.

“The Passion of the Maya” (I was impressed with the title as if A.O. Scott refers to the special effects in the film produced by Maya 3D program. After reading the review, however, he refers to the Maya empire instead. Still want to see the film, though.)

The N-word: Russell Peters got away with his, but Michael Richards (Seinfeld’s Kramer) didn’t. Ooops!

Have you ever tried to explain to your uncle what jazz is? Over Thanksgiving dinner, the subject somehow switched from my cousin’s hookup arrangement to music. My uncle said all that he knew about jazz was a bunch of noise. So there was no point of trying to sell him on Louis Armstrong or John Coltrane. Instead I picked out something that he was familiar with, and you just can’t go wrong with Khanh Ly and Trinh Cong Son. The challenge was to select a tune that had that jazz aesthetics in it. Khanh Ly’s 1973 rendition of “Dem Thay Ta La Thac Do” was perfect. As the song plays, I briefly walked him through it:

The intro kicked off with an exchange between the sax and trumpet like they were having a conversation with one another.

0:25: Khanh Ly’s raucous voice joined in as the plucking bass provided the rhythm. The blue note on the piano added an intoxicating tincture to her vocals.

1:30: The sax solo took over. Listen to how the horn expressed its tone like a human voice with its soars and screams.

2:00: The muted trumpet improvisation supplied a dark, mysterious, and sensuous mood to the break.

2:15: Both the sax and the trumpet interacted once again, but this time they brought back the original melody to introduce Khanh Ly’s second verse.

3:40: The sax and the keyboard gave a wonderful closing out, but it is the tinkering guitar that gave the ending a novelty.

After this little introduction, my uncle nodded his head. Not only that he didn’t think jazz was just noise anymore, he showed some interests. The only missing piece was that Khanh Ly didn’t scat, so I couldn’t show him the art of jazz’s wordless singing. Still this track was a great example for explaining jazz to a Vietnamese person.

It’s a damn shame that we don’t get this kind of “real” musical accompaniment with today’s Vietnamese music recordings. If you listen to Khanh Ly’s later rendition of “Dem Thay Ta La Thac Do,” you’ll feel the great lost immediately. The programmed drums are simply there to maintain the rhythm, and the bass sounds like my nephew’s fart. Too sad.

“Public Enemy #1” once again demonstrates Eminem’s rhyming, flowing, and producing skills. He spits forty plus bars straight, with an extraordinary breath control, giving a cinematic lyricism on how he’s about to go down in history the same way 2pac and John F. Kennedy did.

SimpleBits redesigned with new logo, zoomable layout, and simple organization.

Tanya Merone pulls off a striking one page design.

From Foccaland‘s portfolio: Sex Motion and Oooooouch.