In his latest special for Netflix, C.K. explores the uncharted angles on controversial and uncomfortable territories including abortion, suicide, transgender, life, death, and dick. His uncompromising approach is shameful yet joyful to watch. He has mastered the art of embarrassment.
This summer I will co-present an academic paper with my cousin on hybrid web app design and development at the InSITE 2017 conference in Vietnam. In addition to attending the conference, I wanted to take the opportunity to reconnect with my old man. This is something I have wanted to do for years. In fact, I wrote this seven years ago:
What if I just take two or three weeks off go back to Viet Nam and just lock myself in with him 24/7. We’ll just hang out and travel together as father and son, something we had never done. Will that help reconnect our relationship?
I am still feeling anxious about it because we have been apart for so long, but I need to do this. He is in his 80s and time is running out on us. I wanted to take our entire family back, but the thought of having to take care of three kids on a long flight and in Vietnam had frightened me.
I am grateful that my wife is not only willing to take care of the boys for two weeks, but she has also been very encouraging. She understands how I feel about my relationship with my dad. I still don’t know how he feels about me, but I am his son after all. Time and distance have not changed that. All I know is that if I don’t do this, I will regret it for the rest of my life. I really wish we could be closer, but if I don’t make the move, it won’t happen.
Except for three days at the conference, my only plan is to be with him 24/7 for ten days and I am looking forward to it.
Nghe bài phân tích của Vĩnh Lạc Đoàn Thế Ngữ về bài “Như Ngọn Buồn Rơi” của Từ Công Phụng khá thú vị. Ông đưa ra một khía cạnh nói lên cảnh đẹp lãng mạng của đôi tình nhân vừa mới trao thân cho nhau:
Ôi nỗi dịu dàng nào đã ngời sáng
trên môi người
trên từng cơn lốc xoay đời
thuyền tình đã đắm trong vòng tay u mê
Schwalbe not just loves reading books, he draws lessons for living from them. In the 26 books, I have not read a single one, and yet I still find each book to be fascinating through his brief, honest, and easygoing analysis. I probably won’t read every book mentioned in his essays, but the ones on my reading list will include Lin Yutang’s The Importance of Living, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery, and George Orwell’s 1984.
Throughout the book Schwalbe makes a convincing case for reading. In the introduction, he writes (p.15):
The technology of a book is genius: the order of the words is fixed, whether on the page or on-screen, but the speed at which you read them is entirely up to you. Sure, this allows you to skip ahead and jump around. But it also allows you to slow down, savor, and ponder.
To Schwalbe, reading is not just a pleasure, but a right. He argues (p.275):
The right to read whatever you want whenever you want is one of the fundamental rights that helps preserve all other rights. It’s a right we need to guard with unwavering diligence. But it’s also a right we can guard with pleasure. Reading isn’t just a strike against narrowness, mind control, and domination: It’s one of the world’s great joys.
A love letter to readers everywhere.
A few years ago I met up with a lady for dinner. We got to know each other through iLoveNgocLan.com. She obviously knew that I was married with a kid through this blog. We had a nice conversation about Ngọc Lan, being Vietnamese-American, and politics. After our initial meetup, I was hoping that we could become friends so I could introduce her to my wife and kid. Unfortunately it was a one-time thing. We never kept in touch after that. Of course my wife knew about the meetup and she even approved it. I see nothing wrong with it. I would do the same if she wanted to dine with a male friend. I completely trust her just like she has trusted me.
The trust between us is something that I take very seriously. Trust doesn’t come easy and we had to build it from the beginning. If one of us breaks that trust, our marriage would suffer. I would never jeopardize that trust. I worked very hard to earn it.
I am also fortunate to have a strong, independent, confident, and understanding woman. She doesn’t post any restriction on me because she trusts me. I can hang out and drink with friends as long as I don’t violate her trust. Some guy can’t even hang an Áo Trắng calendar on his wall. If she has done that to me, I don’t think we can be on the same page.
My wife and I both come to the same conclusion that if we want to cheat nothing can stop us. We also know that there’s no turning back once the trust is lost. All I ask of her is that she keeps it real with me. If we can no longer be together, we can walk away without breaking our trust.
Trust trumps everything. The notion that a married person can’t dine alone with another opposite sex is fucking religious.
For this year’s conference, I wanted to hit as many different tracks as I could. The conference has five different tracks; therefore, choosing the one I wanted is a bit of a challenge. I also wanted to avoid any topic that is related to web technologies. I am so tired of hearing about Drupal, WordPress, Bootstrap, and so on.
It turned out that I had a better time listening to other topics. For instance, a presentation on how school libraries are using Minecraft as a learning tool for kids was fascinating. It is reassuring that the game my kids, Đạo in particular, are obsessed with is not a bad thing. In fact, I should encourage them to play and learn.
In addition, the conference gives me a guilty-free pleasure to be away from the office. I still answer work emails on occasions, but it is nice to just relax for a few days listening to people shared what they are doing. Today is my last day so I need to take advantage of it.
As I am reaching the end of my 30s, my body has switched the maintenance mode. My hair is not growing back; my gut is not getting smaller; my teeth are not getting any whiter until I get complete dentures; and my keloids are not fading away. Everything goes downhill from here.
The good thing is that my wife accepts me for who I am. Not that I have a low self-esteem, but who wants to be with this piece of shit unless they want something else? I am almost forty now and I might be a piece of shit, but I am not a fucking dumbass. I have a strong, independent, and beautiful wife who had chosen me for who the fuck I am. I have three wonderful kids that will always be a part of my life. The chance of me fucking all that up is nonexistence.
Will Schwalbe, Books for Living, (p.14):
We over schedule our days and complain constantly about being too busy; we shop endlessly for stuff we don’t need and then feel oppressed by the clutter that surrounds us; we rarely sleep well or enough; we compare our bodies to the artificial ones we see on television; we watch cooking shows and then eat fast food; we worry ourselves sick and join gyms we don’t visit; we keep up with hundreds of acquaintances but rarely see our best friends; we bombard ourselves with video clips and emails and instant messages; we even interrupt our interruptions.
When it comes time for us to decide what we should buy and how we should spend our free time, we expect ever more choice. And in order to try to make our way through all of the options we’ve created for ourselves, we’ve turned the whole world into an endless catalog of “picks and pans,” in which anything that isn’t deemed to be mind-blowing is regarded as useless. We no longer damn things with faint praise—we damn them with any praise that is less than ecstatic. Loving or loathing are the defaults—five stars or one.
And at the heart of it, for so many, is fear—fear that we are missing out on something. Wherever we are, there’s someone somewhere doing or seeing or eating or listening to something better.
This week I will be attending Computer in Libraries 2017, a three-day conference, and my damn gout flared up. I suspect saké is the culprit. I had been drinking soy milk as well, but I am not sure if it caused the flare up. My diet has been terrible. I ate pretty what I wanted except for beef. I haven’t been walking or jogging for a while. I need to get back to exercise and eating right. I am not good at self-disciplined.
Life is good, but stressful as usual, particularly work, which has an effect on me. The good side is that I no longer have the time to give a fuck about the incompetent president. That puppet motherfucker is going down. The healthcare bill is the first major sign of failure. I still can’t believe that son of a bitch is our president.
I haven’t blog much because I have ran out of shit to say. I want to get back to just writing without thinking or editing. Lately I have come to realize that I am so damn awkward in socializing. I hardly have anything to say to people because I don’t want to get into their space. I also fear of sounding stupid. I have been observing my kids to see how they do it and I think I can learn from them. With Xuân, he just smiles and touches people. He could get away with it because he is so damn adorable. It would be too creepy for for and I might even get in trouble. Đạo is very natural when approach others, especially his peers. He could easily make friends. I don’t have that friendliness in me. Đán is fascinating to watch. He can talk to anyone about the things that he is into. He doesn’t care who he’s talking to or if that person has any interest in what he’s talking about. He would talk about a video game that he played and than that person would be interested in his subject. Imagine if I come up to someone and talk about web typography. They would look at me and be like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” That’s what I think anyway.
What if I don’t give a fuck what people think? Just say whatever the fuck I think just like what I do on this blog? If I just have half of the courage I have for my blog in real life, I would not be so social awkward.
Last Saturday evening, I had the pleasure of attending Jim Van Meer’s exhibition for his MFA in graphic design. In his final project and thesis, he uses graphic design to send a powerful message on gun violence, a serious issue that we are still facing today in America. He writes:
My final project and thesis are an attempt to allow people to see the cold-hard facts of gun violence in America and let them ponder the effects that guns have on this country. Through the use of interpretive graphics, storytelling, and experiential methods, it is my intent to further the dialogue about guns and gun violence through a thoughtful perspective.
Based on the success of the exhibition and the book he has written, Jim will have my full support if he ever decided to run for office. We need more people like Jim to tackle this issue. If you want to read his thesis, download the PDF copy.