Kudos to my web team at Vassar for the following links:

Marian Bantjes (simply amazing)
Reza Abedini (wicked typographic posters)
Iranian Typography Now (fantastic typographic works)
Dutch Uncle Agency (sweet illustrations)
PlainSimple Design (plain and simple)
Garrett Murray (clean and simple)
Pen & Think (simple and clean)

This is the reason I love working with these guys.

A fair comment from “a fair person” on my bitching of Asia 51:

Donny, how old are you? The voices you criticise Asia are so acid and angry [emphasis is mine], your sound like a man who is bitter after lost all your money at the casino and your old wife also left you for another man. You should go to learn the fine arts of criticise others to make your life lighter. What did you do for the VN music industry, except these reckless criticisms! If you have ability then, organise a CHEAP music show like Asia, that is the best way to prove your ability. If you can only criticise others irresponsibly like what you did now, it prove you are untalented ho ho.

As a reader of this site, you can see that I have no further interests in reviewing Vietnamese DVDs, which includes Asia, Thuy Nga, and Van Son. Not because of people’s comments, like the one from “a fair person” (which I find entertaining), but I am tired of writing the same old things like the videos doing the same old things. Yet, I am flattered that some readers still interested in my view by requesting and willing to loan me the DVDs so I can write about the latest Paris By Night.

Not that there aren’t any interesting things to say about these shows, but there simply aren’t anything new and exciting. To be fair, Paris By Night could be enjoyable if you don’t give a flying fuck about lip-sync, recycle of songs, mechanical productions, and Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen. Minh Tuyet’s ghetto ass still there; Truc Linh’s solid abs still there; and mad props to Ho Le Thu. She’s carrying the whole Silicon Valley on her chest. All the “Orange” County female singers should join Ho Le Thu in Silicon land. Paris By Night will be hotter than hell. Who wants to hear Khanh Ly with Tran Thu Ha (who looks a bit retarded while sitting there waiting for her verse) and Bang Kieu with Tuan Ngoc singing those old songs in the same old boring way? Just give me Ho Le Thu and more of that crazy bitch Kieu Oanh. That broad is way too damn hilarious, and she has been able to top herself from one act to the next. She was so good that by the time Hoai Linh came on screen (that doesn’t sound right), my jaws were too hurt to laugh.

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.