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Cả ba loại độc này tôi đều bị nhiễm cả.

Nhạc thời nay khác với nhạc thời xưa là tác giả bây giờ đi ngay vào đề tài chứ không vòng vo tam quốc như ngày trước. Thí vụ như bài “Này em có nhớ,” cố nhạc sĩ Trịnh Công Sơn viết, “Chúa đã bỏ loài người / Phật đã bỏ loài người / Này em xin cứ phụ người.” Nghe thật táo bạo và phải suy nghĩ nát óc mới hiểu ý của nhạc sĩ muốn gửi gắm gì.

Hôm nay nghe bài “Lời đầu môi” của Thái Đinh mới hú hồn. Ca từ của Thái Đinh đi thẳng vào vấn đề, “Ngày xưa em nói ra bao điều mộng mơ / Mà giờ em khác chi đồ / Miệng Nam Mô / Bụng một bồ dao găm.” Qua tiếng saxo vang vọng và nhịp điệu rộn ràng, Thái Đinh dùng tiếng hát ấm áp lãng mạn của mình “chửi” thẳng vào mặt nàng, “thứ đồ mở miệng thì từ bi hiền lành mà trong thâm tâm thì nham hiểm vô cùng.” Có sao viết vậy người nghe khỏi phải đoán mò chi cho mệt óc.

Khi nghe nhạc phẩm tựa đề “Cafuné” tôi chả hiểu chữ đó nghĩa là gì nhưng lối hoà âm rất chill. Phải dùng Google mới biết cafuné nghĩa là “vuốt ve mái tóc.” Thì ra Thái Đinh vừa trình bài vừa giải thích luôn, “Hey baby, cafuné / Muốn khẽ đưa bàn tay nhẹ lay làn tóc dịu dàng hương đến thế.” Hôm nay học được chữ này thật là thú vị. Mai mốt gặp em nào có mái tóc đẹp tôi sẽ hỏi, “Hey baby, can I cafuné you?” Không biết có bị ăn bạt tay hay không?

Qua phần hoà âm r & b đầy quyến rũ dành cho ca khúc “Knock knock,” Thái Đinh gõ cửa nhà nàng, “Cho anh qua nhà em trú đêm nay / Nào mở cửa đi… / Knock knock / Baby, còn đợi chờ chi?” Chỉ có những chàng trai trẻ mới có tự tin dám làm chuyện đó thôi. Cỡ như tôi mà gõ cửa bảo em cho vào trú chắc chắn là vô khám gỡ lịch vì tội hiếm dâm.

Cứ tưởng đâu album này không dành cho những thích giả già như tôi thì Thái Đinh quăng cho một cục xương để gặm. “Xuân úa,” bài cuối trong album, được hoà âm theo phong cách blues buồn. Dùng giọng gió và giọng mềm, Thái Đinh tự sự:

Quên đi, quên đi, quên đi hết
Bao âu lo lòng chẳng cần biết
Cứ âm thầm níu xuân thì
Mà trái tim vẫn cứ câm lì

Quả thật rất đúng với tâm trạng của tôi. Một trái tim khô. Một trái tim quá câm lì. Mùa xuân trong tôi không chỉ úa mà đã héo bà nó rồi.

Đùa chút cho vui thôi. Đã lâu rồi không được nghe những nhạc phẩm mới trong làng âm nhạc Việt Nam nên cảm thấy album này có một chút thú vị. Dù sao gì cũng đỡ hơn nghe nhạc sầu thảm. Nghe đi nghe lại những nhạc phẩm bolero trước sau gì cũng tự tử như, “Em ơi nếu mộng không thành thì sao? Mua bao thuốc chuột uống vô rồi đời.” Bà con nào đam mê nhạc sến đừng ném đá tôi nhé.

It’s only March and my blog has gone through three iterations. I am making changes to my website once a month. I can’t help myself. Whenever I acquired a new typeface, I want to put it to use immediately and my personal website is the perfect place to do so.

Last week I purchased Every, designed by Anita Jürgeleit, not only because it is such a damn fine typeface, but it also supports Vietnamese. I am setting the body text for this blog with Every Micro and I am using its thin instead of regular weight. It is a risky choice for readability, but I am going for it.

For the blog titles, I am using Job Clarendon, designed by David Jonathan Ross in collaboration with Bethany Heck. Job Clarendon is also released in March for Font of the Month Club. I always loved Clarendon and this interpretation is striking, especially its Vietnamese diacritics.

For user interface and small text, I am keeping Name Sans, designed by Stephen Nixon, from the previous iteration. I also keep Recursive Mono, also by Nixon, for coding samples.

The layout stays the same. Black text on white background for light mode and white text on black background for dark mode. There’s no switching button between dark and light mode. It all depends on the visitors’ preference set on their device.

Lastly, the wordmark has a bit of motion. A red light moves through each letter letters. I am just having fun with the SVG.

My wife said that I have way too much time on my hand. Of course, she’s being sarcastic. I was working on my website late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. It’s my passion as well as profession to keep my skills sharp.

Last Monday, my sister-in-law clogged her kitchen sink. After her husband tried to snake it unsuccessfully, he called a local plumber. When I asked them about the price, I was stunned. The plumber charged them $600 (with $100 discount) to unclog it. The process probably took less than half an hour.

Last Friday, a long-time client’s website broke. They asked me for help. After checking out their site, I predicted something went wrong with the SSL certificate. The browsers kept throwing out the unsafe warning. It took me several hours to figure out what happened. It turned out that their hosting provider had changed the DNS. The host sent out a notification, but my client ignored it. They didn’t realize it would affect their site. The host also installed a SSL self certificate, which caused the browsers to freak out.

I updated the DNS and replaced the self certificate with a Cloudflare certificate (Cloudflare rocks). When I fixed the issues and notified them, they simply replied with “thank you” without mentioning any compensation. I sat on it for a day and decided to send them the bill for my work. If a plumber charged $700 to fix an urgent issue, I shouldn’t feel bad charging the client for the time I put in. If the issues could be fixed in half an hour or less, I wouldn’t charge my client, especially if the client is just an individual. This particular client, however, is a small business. They can easily pay for the time I had spent fixing their website. I sent them the bill and they had no issue paying for it.

I am suck at doing business. That’s why my freelance gig hadn’t gone too well. I thought of doing freelance full time, but I will definitely fail. I don’t have the business mentality in me. I take on freelance projects because I am passionate about web design. I just don’t like the business side of it. I hesitated to charge for my services. When people charged me for their services, on the other hand, they showed no mercy.

I need to step up my game. If I am going to provide the services, I might as well get the pay I deserve. I didn’t charge $700 even for the several hours I spent. My price was very reasonable. I often hesitated to call a technician to the house because they would charge a ridiculous fee. As a result, I tried to fix it myself first via YouTube. A couple of years ago, a plumber inspected my house and recommended I replace three toilets. They were going to charge me $600 to $700 to replace each. I couldn’t afford to pay two grants to replace them and they were still working fine. I replaced one myself because it kept clogging up and I got tired of plunging it. I did it for the first time and the process was easy. A decent toilet cost around $150 to $200 and they were going to charge me $500 to $550 for an hour to replace a toilet. That’s simply crazy. I do not want my clients to feel that way; therefore, I tried to make it as fair as possible so my clients do not feel they were being ripped off.

I wish I could make the amount of money that I don’t have to to worry about paying for these types of services. I recalled the founder of Slack talked about the levels of wealths. The first level is when you don’t have to worry about paying bills like student loans and credit cards. The second level is when you don’t have to worry about the price at the restaurants. The third level is when you don’t have to worry about the price when you take vacations and travels. I don’t know where home-fixing services fit in, but they give me anxiety. Imagine if you make $10 an hour and you have to pay $700 for half an hour to unclog your kitchen sink. How do you justify something like that? I would just order from McDonald’s dollar menu until the damn sink unclogs itself.

Qua Journey Khánh Linh được nhạc sĩ Võ Thiện Thanh dìu dắt trên một chặng đường khác trong âm nhạc. Khác với sở trường semiclassical hoặc những pop ballads chậm của Khánh Linh trước đây, Võ Thiện Thanh đưa cô vào thế giới âm nhạc (world music) với những giai điệu nhiều màu sắc và nhịp điệu tươi vui (upbeat) hơn.

Võ Thiện Thanh theo đuổi dòng đương đại đã khá lâu và những hòa âm phối khí của anh càng đa dạng hơn, nhất là những bài mang âm hưởng dân tộc hiện đại trong album này. Chẳng hạn như nhạc phẩm “Tôi quét lá đa,” anh dùng electronic beat với rock riff và nhạc cụ Việt Nam rất ăn khớp và tự nhiên. Giọng hát mạnh mẽ và cao vời vợi của Khánh Linh hòa quyện với bài phối khí rất tuyệt. Nhạc phẩm “Tiếng chuông” cũng thế. Cách arrangement giữa nhạc điện tử hiện đại và đàn cụ truyền thống rất khéo tay. Sự phối hợp giữa tây và ta tạo ra một thế giới âm nhạc du dương. Khánh Linh trình bày rất xuất sắc những tác phẩm này nhưng tôi nghĩ ngay đến Ngọc Khuê và hình dùng cách xử lý những câu “nhõng nhẽo” và “nghịch ngợm” của cô.

Nhạc phẩm “Bay trên những ngọn đồi” thích hợp với phong cách của Khánh Linh hơn. Có những đoạn rất cao để chim Họa Mi hót trong bầu không gian đầy huyền diệu. Với phần orchestration sôi nổi và phần bè sống động của nhóm Cadilac, Khánh Linh trình bày rất ấn tượng trong “Mưa đêm.”

Journey là một hành trình thí nghiệm rất thành công cho Khánh Linh. Sự đồng hành giữa cô và nhạc sĩ Võ Thiện Thanh rất thích hợp. Hy vọng rằng Khánh Ly sẽ tiếp tục đi những quãng đường mới lạ và thú vị trong âm nhạc của cô.

Katherine Standefer’s life had changed completely when she was diagnosed with a genetic arrhythmia. She went from climbing mountains and teaching skiing to being inactive and carrying a defibrillator. Her experience living with a titanium box inside her body is so hard to read. In addition to her own health, Standefer writes about the environmental impact and the exploitation of low-pay workers to create the ICD device. Standefer also delves into the issue of our healthcare system and how her life could have been in jeopardy without Obamacare. The ending is quite shocking and I do not want to give it away. This is an eye-opening, heart-braking, and soul-crushing medical memoir. I love it and highly recommend it.

Xuân and I started our first ice skating class last Tuesday. I enrolled Xuân in the second level for toddlers. He did really well even though he didn’t take the first level. He followed his coach’s instructions and he was able to do forward and backward swizzles. He enjoyed his first lesson with three other kids around his age. They looked so adorable and made ice skating look easy.

I began the Gamma level with the same instructor from the previous class. Two fellow classmates returned, but one lady didn’t. We had two new ladies join our group. On the first day, our instructor threw a lot at us. We had to skate on our edges (left and right, inside and outside, forward and backward). Then she launched into the 3-turn technique on one foot. I could barely turn 180-degree on two feet.

On Wednesday, I took Đạo and Đán to practice and spent an hour and fifteen minutes on just trying to do a left-180 turn with both feet. I didn’t get too far. I kept on tripping. I went home, searched up on YouTube, and found a video from coach Mary Dung Nguyễn. Her instructions were easy to follow and she demonstrated the 3-turn with effortlessness.

After a long day of work on Thursday, I went to the rink myself since the kids went over to their cousin’s house to play. I practiced turning 180-degree with just my right foot. After about half an hour, I found my groove and it just worked. What I have found fascinating about ice skating is that your body just goes with the flow once you get it. I also discovered that my left foot is even better than my right foot even though I always started out with my right foot. Once I have the right foot down, I can easily transfer over to my left.

I hardly walk or jog anymore. I am not the type that workout in the gym; therefore, skating is my form of exercise for the moment. I still have a lot to learn and I like the challenge. I am the oldest student in the group and probably even older than my coach. Like Art Blakey said, “I’m gonna stay with the youngsters. When these get too old I’ll get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active.”

Đán is doing better in virtual school. He participated more in class discussions. He just needed to be reminded to stay focused, but he has become more independent. He did well on a math test yesterday with his teacher’s help reading the questions to him. For language art, he wrote two poems yesterday. The first one was in an acrostic form. He wrote about sushi:

Sashimi
Uncooked
Salmon
Hot and spicy and
I love it.

He also wrote a Haiku about nature:

Trees come from nature
They are good for human beings
Please don’t chop them down.

Đạo is stepping up his poetic game as well. He wrote one yesterday about dragons:

Dragons are big, dragons are strong
Green, red, bronze, and grey
They always come to ruin the day
When you’re just having fun
They come and scorch
Until your home is gone
Then they make a home
With gold to show
Then frost sets in,
You turn your head
Blue, white, sapphire, silver
Ice and fire flies
They fight for silver
They fight for gold
One by one
The beasts fall
You hear static
Then you look
Amethyst, black, copper, and deep blue
Here comes the rarest of them all
Lightning lights up the night
Making the cool night, hot as day
Then they say, “Hey let’s stop”
“So we can catch some zs”.

I am impressed. Well done, boys!

While reading Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s The Mountain Sings, I highlighted all the tục ngữ (Vietnamese proverbs) she had incorporated throughout the novel. I loved her straightforward translations of these proverbs. For example, she translated “Có công mài sắt có ngày nên kim” as “Perseverance grinds iron into needles.” These are simple proverbs, but a translator has to know both languages well to make the translation accurate and relatable.

I have wanted to put together a project for these Vietnamese proverbs with English translations for while, but couldn’t find the time or the right typeface. Last week when Anita Jürgeleit released Every, I found a perfect match. For this project, I wanted to connect a talented Vietnamese author who had written a beautiful, poignant novel with a skillful German type designer who had created an elegant typeface.

Every typeface feels just right for typesetting everyday’s Vietnamese proverbs. I wanted to show the contrast between macro and micro sizes of Every. I also pulled the colors from the book cover for the background. Take a look. I hope you’ll find something inspirational.

Sunday evening I drove the kids home after spending two hours at the skatepark. The kids (Đạo, Đán, and Khôi) were talking about going back to school in person. As we passed the cemetery where my father-in-law’s buried, Đán said, “I missed my friends from school because of the pandemic. I also lost bà nội (grandma) from the pandemic.” I wept a little.

I try to remember my mother from all the wonderful memories we had together. From the sound of her voice to the beauty of her smile, I can still feel her close to me. Unfortunately, my mind automatically returns to the horrid images of her battling for her life. Her ballooned face and crooked mouth trapped on the ventilator have burnt into my brain.

The guilts, the regrets, the rages, the pains, and the sorrows are inescapable. They creep up on me any time of the day. This morning, I woke up and just missed her terribly. I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t read. I just wanted to pull out my phone and write about her.

With work and the kids, I try to stay busy, but I still can’t move on. I gave up on the words from Buddha. I was hoping they would help me, but I just couldn’t overcome the miseries inside of me. She had passed, but I still am struggling to accept the reality that COVID-19 killed her. Given the number of people all around the world who have died from COVID-19, it’s a selfish thought, but why my mother? Of course I know the reason. I just still can’t get over it.

There was nothing I could have done for her. It’s all over now. Why do I keep agonizing over it? I am just making myself suffer and depress. I fucking know that, but I can’t help it. The more I try to put the past behind me, the more it haunts me. I miss her too damn much.