The king of pop had left the building. May his soul sets free.

My humanized alarm clock rang an hour earlier than usual this morning. Around 5:30, Duke started to whine and caused his mom who had been restless with him all night to be grouchy. I picked him up and went downstairs to let his mom catch some sleep before work.

Changed Duke’s heavy and poop-filled diaper. Poked our head out the door and felt the cool morning wind. We took a long stroll around the block before Duke eyes almost closed. Went back into the house, cleaned up the kitchen and took out the trash for today’s pickup. Went back upstairs and get ready for work.

Half an hour later, Duke woke up and all curled up in his grandma’s lap. They looked at each other and smiled. Duke mouth was wide opened and occasionally stuck his tongue out. The bonding between Duke and grandma grows stronger the day his mom went back to work. We are very grateful and thankful that Duke is under his grandma’s care while we are away.

A very interesting take on Ngoc Lan and Trinh music (in Vietnamese):

Đúng rằng hát nhạc Trịnh, cảm nhận nhạc trịnh không cần phải gò bó, phải phá cách, phải gồng mình tìm cái gì đó cho riêng ai – như ai đó đã nói… tôi thích cái bình thường giản dị này lắm, không cần phải lên tới cao vút vẫn tới ngọt ngào, thiết tha trong Hạ Trắng, vẫn nhẹ nhàng mà nồng nàn trong Chiều Một Mình Qua Phố, vẫn da diết và day dứt trong Tình Nhớ , rồi bỡ ngỡ tiếc nuối trong Ru Ta Ngậm Ngùi …một Ngọc Lan trong trẻo ấm áp mà mê hoặc tới lạ thường!!

I am working with an incredible writer, Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, to promote her debut novel, Thirsty, which will be released in October. A web site and a Flash trailer will come soon so keep an eye out for them. In the meantime, go pre-order Thristy.

Kristin lives with her husband and her Vietnamese-adopted daughter in China. Kristin came to me after a friend sent her “Bonjour Vietnam.”

Bjork’s new release, Voltaic, could be heard at NPR in its entirety. Bob Boilen writes:

Bjork’s music is complex, mysterious and full of unpredictable sonic textures. The brilliant performances on Voltaic make it clear that Bjork isn’t just a visionary, but also an artist who inspires those around her to create equal parts music and magic, in an effort to bring her vision to life.

It’s like listening to Bjork’s greatest hits, which is perfect for working and designing. What are you waiting for? Hop over and delve in.

Five renditions of “Strange Fruit” ranging from Billie Holiday to Labor Camp Orchestra. Each one “feels like a period piece — more of a memorial than a protest song, a symbol of less enlightened times. ” Listen at NPR.

If we were to show up an hour late at Madeleine Peyroux’s performance on Saturday at Lisner Auditorium, we still didn’t miss a damn thing. At 8:00, a white dude in flannel shirt and jeans opens the show for her. He strummed his guitar and sang about something that left me clueless for forty-five minutes. Peyroux and her band didn’t show up until 9:00.

With a guitar on her hands and a quartet made up of electric guitar, drums, bass (mostly electric) and piano (sometimes organ), she performed her original works from her latest album, Bare Bones, along with some previous hits including “Dance Me to the End of Love.” Vocally, Peyroux has proved that she is no longer in Billie Holiday’s shadow. Her phrasing marked more intricate. She toyed around with notes and abandoned the melody altogether at times. On slow tunes, she eases back to the point of sleepiness and the bad sound engineering, which cut in and out of her vocals and caused feedback, brought down her delivery.

On Serge Gainsbourg’s “La Javanaise,” Peyroux put on her hat and along with her band members scattered around her, she took us back to the street of Paris. Her French singing was sensational and the accordion solo from her pianist was exotic, yet the best part was her drummer doing his brushwork on an empty HP cardboard box.

Peyroux closed out the show with the cheerful “Instead” and she cleverly introduced her band members. The last bar of the song went, “Get happy / She’s waitin’ for you by the telephone / So get back home!” She would then pointed to the bassist and declared, “Let’s walk home.” The bassist would give a walking bass solo. The guitarist was gliding home and the pianist was simply skipping home. Peyroux returned for an encore with an Obama-inspired “Somethin’ Grand,” a perfect tune to leave the audience with.

American University:

The study, published June 11 in the Journal of Human Capital, looked at the academic achievement of siblings—one of whom was breastfed as an infant and one of whom was not—and discovered that an additional month of breastfeeding was associated with an increase in high school GPA of 0.019 points and an increase in the probability of college attendance of 0.014.

Keep breastfeeding your baby, mommies!

The new web site for Department of Strategic Management and Public Policy has launched. This is a collaborative effort with the department. My role was to provide the guidelines and to keep the site as part of the School of Business brand.

Kurt Elling and Al Jarreau give Dave Brubeck’s infamous “Take Five” a scat duo. You might also want to check out Al Jarreau’s solo rendition and his collaboration with Brubeck.