I wrote the introduction for this piece in English, but decided to switch to Vietnamese simply because I haven’t written anything in Vietnamese for a while. Besides, I had briefly mentioned the album a few years ago in English and called it a quintessential Vietnamese music. After pouring my heart out on the page, I shared it with Dana. Her immediate question was, “Did you use Google Translate?” She had to edit it to make my Vietnamese sounds more like a human than a software. Mad props go out to her.

Mỗi lúc lái xe giữa đêm khuya trên xa lộ, tôi thường lắng nghe Giọt Lệ Cho Ngàn Sau – Tình Khúc Từ Công Phụng, một tác phẩm để đời của Tuấn Ngọc. Từ chất giọng trầm ấm của Tuấn Ngọc đến lời nhạc gần gũi và sâu lắng của nhạc sĩ Từ Công Phụng, cùng lối hòa âm mềm mại nhưng không thiếu sự lối cuốn của Duy Cường, tôi luôn như ở trong một khoảng không gian khác, bình yên và sảng khoái, như chưa từng có những muộn phiền trong tôi.

Trên đường về thăm ngoại, khi hai mẹ con đã chìm sâu trong giấc ngủ, chỉ còn lại một mình, tôi lại đến với Giọt Lệ Cho Ngàn Sau. Trong bóng tối của màn đêm, tôi trải lòng mình cùng từng lời ca, nốt nhạc. “Giọt nước mắt xót xa/ Nhỏ xuống trái tim khô/ Một đời tôi tê tái,” tôi như cảm nhận được sự cô đơn, hiu quạnh của một người lang thang trong tiết thu lạnh lẽo. Giọng ca Tuấn Ngọc hay. Hay không chỉ ở chỗ anh có thể hát những nốt cao, mà cái hay của giọng ca này còn được tăng lên gấp bội khi anh điêu luyện nối tiếp qua câu kế, “Lắng nghe muôn cung sầu hắt xuống đời,” mà không dừng lại ở “tê tái”. Cách hát nối tiếp này nghe qua thì cho là dể dàng nhưng thể hiện được thì lại rất khó.

Một trong những lối trình bày ca khúc rất riêng của Tuấn Ngọc là hát nửa hay một tông cao hơn bài nhạc đã viết. Trong “Trên Tháng Ngày Đã Qua,” anh hát bốn câu đầu thấp trong tiếng đệm dương cầm êm dịu, nhưng khi lối hòa âm chuyển sang theo kiểu Latin, anh đã hát cao hơn một tông. Đồng thời anh ca chậm hơn nhịp một chút, để mang lại nét lạ cho bài hát. Như trong “Mắt Lệ Cho Người,” một bài hát mà có nhiều ca sĩ đã hát qua, Tuấn Ngọc với nét riêng của mình đã làm bài hát trở nên khác lạ hơn, nổi bật hơn. Khi anh hát “Em thấy không cõi đời vô vọng,” ta như cảm nhận được nỗi muộn phiền như tuyệt vọng của một cuộc tình dang dở. Lối hòa âm bán cổ điển của Duy Cường tạo thêm cảm xúc sâu sắc, nhưng sẽ hoàn hảo hơn nếu đoạn cuối của “Mắt Lệ Cho Người” được kết thúc dứt khoát vào cuối nhịp thay vì là tiếng nhạc nhỏ dần đi đến hết.

Với ca từ lãng mạn cùng với cách diễn tả tự nhiên rất nam tính của Tuấn Ngọc, “Tình Tự Mùa Xuân” trở nên giản dị, ấp ủ yêu thương. “Em, lại đây với anh/ngồi đây với anh/ trong cuộc đời này,” chỉ cần bấy nhiêu thôi cũng đủ diễn tả trọn vẹn một tình yêu sâu đậm. Có lúc hạnh phúc thì cũng có lúc đau thương. Trong “Lời Cuối”, Tuấn Ngọc đã diễn tả trọn vẹn sự nuối tiếc, xót xa cho những kỷ niệm đã qua, “Kỷ niệm nào như muốn khóc…/Nên tôi, xin một lần được trao hết cho nhau.” Anh đã khéo léo khi chọn bài hát này làm bài cuối cùng trong đĩa nhạc, như thể anh đang bùi ngùi gởi đến người nghe lời chia tay tạm biệt, “Đường vào ngày mai sỏi đá/ Thôi em về quên hết đi ngày xưa.”

Nếu tôi có thể lựa chọn 100 dĩa nhạc xuất sắc nhất trong làng âm nhạc Việt Nam, tôi nhất định sẽ chọn Giọt Lệ Cho Ngàn Sau. Trong suốt mười ca khúc, từ lời ca, lối hòa âm cho đến cách thể hiện và diễn tả, mỗi ca khúc là một tác phẩm riêng đặc sắc không bị lập lại hay mờ nhạt. Với tôi đây là một dĩa nhạc vượt thời gian, vì hơn mười năm qua, tôi luôn tìm đến nó mỗi lúc muốn trải mình cùng âm nhạc.

My Le has a gorgeous high pitch and a touch of coarseness in her timbre, which has built up over the years. With the right tunes, she could soar. Unfortunately, she wastes too much time chasing that “Van Trang Dem Troi.” With her new release, Tinh, she takes on some standards that suit her voice.

My Le had an interesting interpretation of Trinh Cong Son’s music. Her version of “Ru Em Tung Ngon Xuan Nong” back in My Nhan Ngu stood out from the rest of sugary, forgettable pop tunes. On Tinh, two excellent numbers also came from Trinh’s repertoire. Her take on “Xin Cho Toi” is spellbinding thanks to the smokiness in her voice. She sounds rough on the surface, but sweet and emotional in the core. “Dau Chan Dia Dang” possesses the same sentimental rawness she brings to Trinh’s lyricism.

On Truong Sa’s “Mot Mai Em Di,” she sounds soulful but breathy. Weakest tracks are the cha-cha rendition of Nguyen Anh 9’s “Tinh Yeu Den Trong Gia Tu” and pop-ballad “Tinh.” The mechanical productions make her boring. Pham Duy’s “Tieng Dan Toi” would have been hypnotic if the arrangement is scaled down to just a simple acoustic guitar. The glossy beat reduces the emotion of the vocals.

iLoveNgocLan.com launched seven years ago and it has been the place for people to share their love for Ngoc Lan, one of the most beloved Vietnamese female singers. Visitors come and go, but the site has never been vacant. Fans have continued to visit and share their thoughts everyday.

I am ashamed to say that I haven’t spent as much time as I should in maintaining the site. We started off with four admins, but now we’re just down to two. My parter has been doing a great job of overseeing the site all these years. If it wasn’t for him, I would have given up on the site. At times I have thought of bowing out as well, but I owe it to the people who have been to the site all these years. So I decided to rework the site up to keep it up to date.

While the previous design was still attractive, the codes were getting out of shape. Seven-year-old code for a web site is ancient and I have been wanting to redesign the site for quite a while, but the massive contents and the the lack of time have been pulling me back. The site couldn’t escape my mind and every time I need to update the site I frowned so I decided to tear down the site and simplify it. The folks will miss the theme-switching feature, but the site is now in a much better structure. The design also allows the space for promotion.

The site is upgraded to HTML5 and the entire contents, not just the homepage, are now powered by WordPress.

Sade, the queen of understatement, and her minimalist musicians stir up some more quiet storms on Soldier of Love, their sixth studio release. The power of simplicity is strongest on the haunting beauty of “Morning Bird.” Accompanied by the spare piano chords and crisp tambourine rhythms, Sade sounds like a voluntarily trapped bird: “If you set me free, I will not run.” On the title track, Sade skillfully allows the sharp snare drums cuts through her smoky, soulful contralto like a soldier of love who has been torn up inside. “The Safest Place,” in which she sings with heartaches along the simple strumming guitar, quietly but unforgettably closes out the spellbinding album. As a mature artist with twenty-five year career under her belt, Sade knows how to do more with less and I am down with that.

Before moving to Cali last year, our friends passed down to us their Playtex Diaper Genie, which still looks new because it has been sitting in their garage the whole time. I left it the shed and didn’t get to use it until last weekend. I decided to give it a try since our master bathroom is getting some odor with Duke’s dirty diapers. I took it out, cleaned it up with disinfecting wipes, but couldn’t get the parts to assemble correctly. If I had to waste half an hour and can’t get the damn thing to work, it’s a design problem. I went online to search for the manual and could only find one for something similar. The instructions were so poorly written that I didn’t get it at all. I gave up and handed over to Dana, the instructional engineer and she couldn’t put the pieces together either. The glass cutter doesn’t seem to sit right with the filter. The product must be so bad that Playtex had discontinued the product and created something else like Diaper Genie II and Diaper Genie Twistaway Pail. Whoever designed this product obviously didn’t think about usability.

The Sassy Seat Doorway Jumper on the other hand is a great product design with progressive enhancement. The Sassy Seat could be adaptable for growth. At four months, Duke bounced and laughed it it every day for 15-30 minutes. Now at 10 months, Dana raised the rope higher and use it at a swing. Everyday I come home from work, I let him swing for 10-20 minutes and he totally loves it. I can see the joy in his face as I pushed him on the swing. He bounces up and down and twirls around in the air and enjoyed every moment of it. We love this jumper and highly recommended it. Thanks Jerry for this wonderful gift.

After paying our respect to our man, Larry Layne, at church yesterday, one of our colleagues who grew up around the neighborhood showed us the real Southern home style cooking at Saints Paradise, which located at 601-A M Street, NW, Washington, DC.

Set in cafeteria style, you take out the tray and order the food you see in front of you including beef short ribs, salisbury steak, pork chops. Between the fried crispy chicken wings and mouthwatering bar-b-que ribs, I had to make a hard choice and I went for the latter. With the tangy sauce marinated inside the juicy ribs, I made the right the decision. On top of that, I also had sweet corn and mash potato with gravy. I cleaned up everything except for the cornbread, which I could only finished half. Although it was tasty, I had no room left. I felt like I just finished a Thanksgiving dinner and ready to take a nap.

The folks behind the counter and the cashier were so friendly. One of the bus ladies is eight-seven years old. She was still working and smiling at that age. God bless her. I will have to take Dana to this place again pretty soon. We felt in love sharing fried chicken wings so I can’t wait to try them with her at Saints Paradise.

An intriguing piece in the New York Times magazine on Human-flesh search engines in China:

Human-flesh search engines — renrou sousuo yinqing — have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which Internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It’s crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online — with offline results.

Xuan Khoi sounds so much like Tuan Ngoc, only sleepier. In fact, Tuan Ngoc is all over his new album, Chieu Mot Minh Qua Pho. As soon as Xuan Khoi begins to sing the first bar on the opening track, Tu Cong Phung’s “Tren Thang Ngay Da Qua,” you can immediately recognize the phrasing. Even the music is arranged in Duy Cuong’s Latin flavor.

Like many of Tuan Ngoc’s followers, Xuan Khoi isn’t capable of reaching the upper register with ease, a skill that sets Tuan Ngoc apart from his imitators. Tuan Ngoc’s influence is even more transparent on Tu Cong Phung’s “Tinh Tu Mua Xuan.” Not only his phrasing, but his flow and his vibrato come straight from Tuan Ngoc’s classic rendition. The difference is that Xuan Khoi gets shaky on the long notes and he lacks the romance and authority Tuan Ngoc brought to the tune. Obviously Duy Cuong’s semi-classical orchestration is unmatchable.

The whole time I am listening to Xuan Khoi, yet all I could think about is Tuan Ngoc. From Pham Duy’s “Tinh Cam” to Ngo Thuy Mien’s “Ao Lua Ha Dong” to Nguyen Trung Cang’s “Bang Khuan Chieu Noi Chu,” Xuan Khoi simply can’t escape Tuan Ngoc’s shadow. Both Xuan Khoi and I have one thing in common: we spend way too much time with the musician’s musician. My suggestion to Xuan Khoi is to stop listening to Tuan Ngoc, stay away from Tuan Ngoc’s repertoire, and don’t even think about covering Ngo Thuy Mien’s “Rieng Mot Goc Troi.”

What have you been up to these days? I just realize that the last time we met each other was almost a decade ago. Isn’t that crazy? We have a lot of catching up to do and I don’t even know where to start. Well, I got married and blessed with a very cute boy. His name is Duke. I named him after Duke Ellington. I always wanted you to meet him one of these days, but I can’t find you.

Last week I called your office, but an operator at Millersville answered instead. He told me that the Upward Bound program is no longer with the University and he didn’t know where you had moved to or if the program has been closed. I went to the main Upward Bound site, but I couldn’t find any information on you. I looked up the phonebook and saw your name listed in Lancaster area. I dialed the numbers immediately hoping to hear your voice. The phone rang four times then someone picked up but slammed right back down. At that moment, I realized that I have lost contact to the person that played an important role in my life.

I don’t know if you knew it or not, but you were someone that got me to where I am today. If it was not for the extraordinary program you ran, I don’t know where or how I would end up. Right from seventh grade, Upward Bound was already prepared me for my future. Those summertime living and studying on Millersville campus were some of the fondest memories of my life.

Your program landed me on all the colleges I have applied and I picked my first choice. After my first semester at La Salle University, I was struggling and wanted to drop out. I came to you asking if I could transfer back to Millersville. You picked up the phone and just like that I got in, but then you also encouraged me to give La Salle one more semester. If I still feel the same, I could always come to Millersville. It was the best advice you had given me. I went back to La Salle and I found what I wanted to do.

In the summer of my sophomore year, I went back to Lancaster and needed a temporary job. I called you up and you put me in charge of the Upward Bound web site. My task was to update the content, but I surprised you with a whole new redesign. You were thrilled and I had my first site for my portfolio. You put me in contact with other departments in Millersville and I began to build up my resume.

I still remember your reaction when I showed you “Vietnam In Memoriam,” my latest motion work at the time. Although you didn’t understand the words, you could feel the emotion from the vocalists accompanying the war-related photos. A couple weeks later, you took me to a conference, which filled with professors, about digital storytelling. The piece moved them and they asked me to explain my intention behind it. It was nerve-wrecking, but at the same time rewarding.

Until this day, I have never once forget the guidance and encouragement you had given me. I have always looked up to you as a role model. What I respect you the most is that as a successful African-American woman, you always embraced diversity. Ms. Cross, if you read this open letter by any chance, please contact me.

Sincerely yours,

Donny

After Duke’s doctor appointment, Dana and I hit The Burger Joint on Washington Street in Alexandria before heading to work. We split The Burger, The Cuban and some fries. Because Dana can’t eat raw meat (for the baby’s sake), we ordered our patties to be medium cooked. It turned out to be quite dried. I wasn’t feeling the prime beef on The Burger. The Cuba was a bit over the top with an addition of roasted pork. The crispy fries were banging though.