Cách đây vài năm trong một lần trò chuyện với anh Trần Viết Tân, tôi góp ý, “Sao anh không đầu tư vào một ca sĩ cho một album.” Ngoài đĩa Quang Minh, các sản phẩm anh đã phát hành có sự góp mặt của nhiều ca sĩ vì theo anh, “Mỗi giọng hát đem đến mỗi sắc màu khác nhau.” Tôi hiểu ý anh nhưng nhiều tiếng hát làm ngắt đi sự xuyên suốt trong một album.

Nghe Góc em (phát hành năm ngoái), tôi rất vui khi thấy anh tập trung vào giọng hát trẻ Hoàng Quyên. Càng thích thú hơn nữa là anh đã giao phó toàn bộ phần hòa âm phối khí cho nhạc sĩ Trần Mạnh Hùng. Kết quả của sự hợp tác chặt chẽ giữa một ca sĩ và một nhạc sĩ tạo ra một concept album tình ca Trần Viết Tân thật trọn vẹn. Dường như cả ba đã thở chung một bầu không khí âm nhạc.

Với bảy tác phẩm mới, anh Tân không viết lời mà chỉ đóng vai trò phổ thơ. Và anh rất khéo léo trong công việc chọn lọc những lời thơ. Chắc anh phần nào phải rơi lệ khi soạn bài “Viết cho em,” thơ của Nguyễn Thanh Tâm. Được Trần Mạnh Hùng phối khí theo phong cách new age hiện đại, bài hát mở đầu với tiếng đàn guitar quyện vào tiếng kéo da diết của đàn violin. Với chất giọng trầm buồn, Hoàng Quyên cất tiếng hát, “Em có nghe không / Ẩn sâu dưới lòng đất / Có hạt mầm đang cựa quậy / Và trong cơ thể anh / Tất cả cũng cựa quậy.” Tâm trạng của một người ở lại còn đau đớn hơn người đã ra đi. Hoàng Quyên truyền đạt được nổi lòng mất mát đó.

So với bài hát nặng nề trên thì bài chủ đề, “Góc em” (thơ của Thy Nguyên), nhẹ nhàng hơn. Qua giai điệu slow rock lai láng, Hoàng Quyên tâm sự, “Đọc trên Facebook biết anh có thêm một người đàn bà / Biết anh có thêm một đứa trẻ / Biết anh cộng hạnh phúc bằng mắt / Biết anh nâng hạnh phúc bằng tay… em vui.” Hoàng Quyên nhả chữ “em vui” với tâm trạng ngậm ngùi cho thân phận dù rằng vui cho anh khi có một cuộc sống hạnh phúc. Và “Không phải em” (thơ của Đinh Lê Vũ), Hoàng Quyên cũng buông những lời trách móc nhẹ, “Những câu chuyện vu vơ không đầu không đuôi anh nói… là với một người khác… không phải em…” Thắm thía hơn khi “… nụ hôn của anh vào lúc nửa đêm… dành cho một người khác… không phải em!”

Bài cuối “Mùa âu lo” (thơ Nguyễn Thanh Tâm) nói lên nổi băn khoăn của con người: “Có người hạnh phúc cũng phải nén lại… thành bong bóng thả lên bầu trời / Khi khổ đau cũng phải nén lại… thành viên đá cuội thả xuống biển khơi.” Câu này mượn lời của cố nhạc sĩ Trịnh Công Sơn để nhắn nhủ chúng ta nên sống thảnh thơi với chính mình và đừng âu lo trôi mãi không thấy bờ.

Với bảy ca khúc được kết lại với nhau theo ý tưởng hài hoà, Góc em là một đĩa nhạc nên được thưởng thức liền mạch từ đầu đến cuối. Tuy đến với âm nhạc bằng sở thích, anh Tân rất nghiêm túc trong giá trị nghệ thuật. Tôi kính trọng cách chơi chuyên nghiệp của anh và mong đợi nghe những sản phẩm mới của anh trong tương lai.

Wrote a new chapter for Professional Web Typography on “Styling OpenType Fonts.” This chapter unlocks the hidden power in OpenType features. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it. I also would like to thank readers who paid for the book. You allow me to continue to make updates on this book.

Cross’s latest special, Making America Great Again!, is controversial, thoughtful, and of course, hilarious. From Trump to gun to religions, Cross holds nothing back. Not only I enjoyed his dark comic style, but also have tremendous respect for his provocative position on politics.

Brushed up my Flash chops to create a short slideshow for Việt Xuân. Like Đạo and Đán, Xuân now has a special clip to celebrate his birth. Because he was born on Tết (Lunar New Year), I wanted to sample a song about Xuân, which means spring but also refers to Vietnamese New Year. After going through my music collection, I decided to use “Xuân Ca” by Phạm Duy. There are countless covers of this song, but I selected last year’s rendition from Đoan Trang, which has a tuneful swing arrangement. The only line I used from the song is the hook: “Xuân Xuân ơi, Xuân ơi, Xuân ơi.” Every time he cried or fussed, I sang to him that line and he would crack a smile; therefore, I knew I have to use this song.

Đạo (my seven-year-old): Daddy, is God dead or alive?
Me: Hmmm… I don’t know.
Đán (my four-year-old): Only in your brain.
Me: That’s it. Great answer.

It appears that Đán has an answer for everything. At times he is way off, and at times he managed to hit it straight on. I am not even sure where he gets his information from. He still has yet to be able to recognize the alphabet, but he could name any dinosaur I point to him. He picked up the word “stupid” on YouTube and has been using it ever since. When we try to stop him from using it, he finds ways around it. He would say something like, “You are stup.” or “You are S.T.” It is so hard to get him to stop using the word now. True “stupid” is not a nice word, but it is not a word to ban either.

I am having a hard time striking the right balance. Why should I stop him from using a word? One time we were listening to Fresh Air and one of the guests used the word “stupid” and Đạo pointed out, “Oh, that lady is using the S.T. word.” I couldn’t figure out why adult can use it, but children can’t. Eventually they’ll expose to it. Should I focus on teaching them using the word in the right context instead?

The kids are now addicted to the iPad even though we restricted them to weekend only. Đán asked me, “Why do adults get to use the iPhone all the time, but the kids only get to use it on the weekend?” My reason is that I use it for work. I try to illuminate using my iPhone in front of them, but then other adults are gluing to their iPhone or iPad as well.

The boys are now into military play. One time I told Đạo about an unfortunate incident that a boy got shot playing with a toy gun when the police thought he was playing with a real gun. His respond was, “Everyone knows a Nerf gun is a toy. Do you see a real gun with that many colors?” He has his point. Am I too paranoid?

I don’t want to spoil them and at the same time I don’t want to be too strict. I find striking the balance is so hard. It’s a guilt that I always carry on myself. I want to give them as much freedom as they want as long as they won’t fuck up.

Lizzie Widdicombe on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump:

To publicly break with one’s father—or father-in-law—isn’t easy. And for Ivanka and Jared it would be more than just awkward. It would be intolerable: viewed as a betrayal, grounds for banishment and reprisal. They would lose their position and their fortunes. Doing so would require acting against their own self-interest, as well as the interest of their families. And that’s not something that they tend to do.

Can’t blame them even when Trump destructs himself.

Being screwed by your own family is excruciatingly painful. I had suspected it for a long time, but I didn’t want to find out. I could not handle the truth. Now the wound is cut open, the betrayal is real, and the lie is exposed, what more can I do? Not a damn thing.

When it comes to family, all that I ask for is honesty and fairness. When you owe someone something, you are responsible for paying back. You should not take advantage of your own family simply because they care about you. Helping out your family is a must, but taking advantage of your own people is a damn shame.

I wish I never had to find out, but the truth can’t be hidden forever. I cannot live knowing that I cheated others, especially to my own family. How can you live with yourself knowing damn well what you’re doing is not right? We should love and protect the people we love, not cheat, lie, and take advantage of them.

Please stop now. It is never too late to turn around, especially in your own family. Don’t set a bad example for your children. Be truthful to yourself and the people who care deeply about you. I hate to have to walk down this path, but I can’t stand still watching you screwing the person that loved you the most.

With a bit of cheating, I completed my Typographically Trịnh in 77 instead of 100 days. My patience has ran out, but I do not like leaving a project incomplete. As a result, I just wanted to get it done and out of my system.

In retrospect, it was much more challenging than I had expected. The biggest hurdle is the lack of typefaces for the Vietnamese language. I ended up reusing lots of typefaces and with different combinations. There is 21 usable typefaces in Typekit directory. Because Google Fonts has display issue in Safari, I had to abandon it. As much as I did not want to self-host the fonts, I had to in order to use some of the types in Google Fonts.

As for the content, I still have tremendous love for Trịnh’s lyrics. I am sure I could do 100 more if I wanted to. I intentionally left out all of his anti-war songs. Although he was such a great ballad songwriter, I only chose a handful of his romantic lyricism. My main interest were lyrics that has to do with life and death. I’ll definitely use this site again and again to read his words.

I need to take a break from the site, but I will come back again to tweak some of the designs. I might add in more quotes or change out quotes if I come across something inspiring. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I had creating them. Now that the project is complete. I am now turning my attention back to this blog. It will be politic as usual.

A letter from Đán’s swimming instructor:

I’m emailing you today to let you know that Dan is advancing his swim skills and we would like to invite him to join the Starfish Advance swim level in the fall. The Starfish classes are offered on Mondays from 1:30-2:00pm, slots limited to 5 students… He is currently in the most advanced class and learns the stream line, freestyle with proper breathing, jumping off the wall and swimming to instructor without help for about 10-15 feet (almost always wants to go first) and little bit of back float. He is a fish.

So proud of our little dinofish.

The seven-day family gathering in Hatteras Island (The Outer Bank of North Carolina Beach) was filled with food, drinks, laughter, electronic devices, and a bit of drama. As usual, each family took turn to cook delicious dishes for 30 some people.

It was nice to spend to with the elder generation. Some are still in good health, but some had shown signs of weakness. Despite the difficulties, they had managed to come to each reunion. In contrast, our generation had all the opportunities and health, yet not many of us could put in the effort to attend the reunion.

The drinking group was still going strong. Despite having gout, I could not resist the temptation to drink. We killed four bottles of tequila and several bottles of wine. I did not touch any beer. My gout prevention medication was Naproxen, which also helped with the hangover. It’s like killing two birds with one stone. I am pretty sure my lung and kidney don’t appreciate it. I having been feeling a bit of a pain at the bottom of my feet. I am hoping not to get an attack, but it is still to early to tell. I have been drinking lots of tart cherry juice and getting back to my plant-based diet to help clearing out the uric acid. I did quite a bit of running in the morning, swimming in the pool and at the beach, as well as foot massage in the hot tub. At the end, I am still not sure if I want to put my body through this again even just for one week a year.

For the younger generation, Việt Xuân got lots of attention for his first reunion. His lovely smiles brought joy and laughter to lots of family members. Of all the kids, Việt Xuân was the only one not gluing himself to an electronic device. During the day, I took the kids out to the pool and the beach to get away from the iPads. I am proud to witness that Đạo and Đán had been able to swim in the deep side of the pool without a floating device. Unfortunately when they were not in the water, they glued themselves to the iPads. In our normal days, they could only get the use the iPad on the weekends. At vacation house, everyone else was on it and I wanted some quiet time for myself so I can relax, read, or work on my side project. I had mistakenly getting the beasts out. When they got tired from swimming and cranky from not napping, they whined and screamed when it was time to turn off the devices. There were a few humiliating on full display in front of everyone.

No one said anything, but I wanted to apologize for the kids’ behavior was well as my inability to prevent the embarrassment. I am working harder on getting them to behave better. If not, I will withdraw from the reunion to save us from humiliation.