Coi takes it back to the old school with a new twist. “My Body” is Leray’s reinterpretation of Lesley Gore’ “It’s My Party” with the chorus changed to: “It’s my body, I could fuck who I want to.” “Players” is a rejuvenating sample of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s “The Message.” Leray has filthy-ass lyrics to go with her dope-ass flow: “If you ain’t gettin’ money, I ain’t fuckin’ with you / Go and grab your calculator / Go and pop that pussy like a percolator.” I can bop with that.

My biggest summer worry is that the boys will spend the whole day on their devices, especially Đạo and Đán. Xuân is on a swim team and he goes to practice every day. He competes almost every Saturday. He likes to go to the skatepark with me. He also wants to join soccer camp; therefore, my wife signed him and his older brothers up as well.

Đạo and Đán protested so I made them a deal. Instead of playing soccer, they have to write everyday. Đán has to write at least 300 words. Đạo has to write 500 words. They can write whatever they like. They can write whatever on their mind. They can curse. They can talk shit about their dad. If they quit writing, they will be banned from their devices for the rest of the summer. They took the deal.

I am looking forward to reading Đạo’s and Đán’s daily blogging this summer. Of course, I am writing too to keep up with them.

How lucky we are
That you can’t sell
A poem, that it has
No value. Might
As well
Give it away.

That poem you love,
That saved your life,
Wasn’t it given to you?

Gregory Orr

Reading Hua Hsu’s memoir gives me nostalgia. Hsu is 45, my age; therefore, we listened to the same hip-hop songs from the early 90s. We were raised by Asian-immigrant parents. We had similar experiences growing up. Hsu had Ken and I had Đức.

When I first met Đức in high school, he embarrassed me. His jokes, his accents, and his hustlings somewhat irritated me. He bought stolen TI calculators from the Black kids for $10 or $20 a pop and resold it for $50. He sold me one for $30 so I was part of the problem. He was known for copying pre-calculus homeworks from our Vietnamese group. I often wondered how he would survive college if we were around to let him copy our homeworks. I would never find out.

Despite all of his flaws, Đức was a charming guy. Outside of the school, he was street smart. Our friendship grew. I welcomed him into our crew, which included my two Vietnamese friends I had known since middle school. To keep the story short, Đức drowned in a boating accident. He, his girlfriend, and I were in the same canoe. I can’t remember if there was a fourth person on it. The canoe flipped over when we stood up and clowning around. I was not a good swimmer; therefore, I grabbed a hold of the canoe. With the help of other friends from another canoe, we flipped the canoe over. His girlfriend and I got back on, but Đức was nowhere to be found. We thought he was pulling a prank at first. Two, three, four, five minutes later, we started to worry.

Like Hsu, I felt guilty about Đức’s death. It was also the first loss of someone so close to me. The incident haunted me many years later. Ken, Hsu’s friend, was tortured and brutally murdered. It is such a heartbreaking story.

Hsu won a Pulitzer Prize for this memoir. It’s a concise, heartfelt, page-turning read.

Her eyes are narrow, her hips jut out:
a replica of every girl we’ve ever known.
He kisses her mouth hard with tongue & spit.
I hated the way she bossed me, the way
she was a woman & i was still a girl.
Raw tobacco swayed in the barn.
You just a baby, she tells me
her voice sounding like pity
her hand flapping in the wind like her mother’s.

Crystal Wilkinson

Donny Trương, my professional portfolio site, has been re-typeset in Case, designed by Erik Spiekermann, Anja Meiners, and Ralph du Carrois. Case is a sans serif superfamily that supports Vietnamese, in which I played a small role. Taking advantage of its variable fonts, I set Case in big headers, Case Text for body copy, and Case Micro for user interface. I also revised the intro to load different text every time someone visits the the homepage. I am just trying to keep it fresh. Take a look.

What’s hard is deciding what we need to spell out,
and what would trip you up, where can’t you cope.
There is a kind of urban legend, or myth,

that we never say what we mean, or even try,
but those are fighting words. Besides the hype
it’s mostly dishonesty we can’t stand;

that, and people who have so much self-doubt
that they never say what they want.
Most of us are older than you think.

We definitely do not all have the same type.
Each of us fears isolation, but cherishes solitude,
along with our ability to count,

divide, and let our complex math include
all relevant variables: the x, the y,
and anything else that matters to all of us, with
the important exception of the kitchen
table, or else the kitchen sink.

Stephanie Burt

Cả tuần nay trời mưa. Hôm nay cũng vẫn mưa nhưng dù sao đi nữa cuối tuần đã đến và công việc tạm gác lại. Thời gian gần đây một ngày làm việc trôi qua là khỏe rồi. Tôi không cần biết đến ngày mai công việc sẽ ra sao. Tôi không còn coi nặng việc làm nữa thì đau đầu óc cũng nhẹ nhàng hơn.

Ở nhà tôi còn có người vợ và đàn con thơ. Tôi chú tâm đến gia đình nhiều hơn. Công việc này mất tôi sẽ tìm công việc khác. Thời gian với vợ con qua đi không thể nào tìm lại được. Mấy đứa nhỏ càng ngày càng chống lớn. Mình thì càng ngày càng già không biết được ngày mai sẽ ra sau.

Cha mẹ lần lượt ra đi. Rồi sẽ đến lứa tuổi các anh chị. Hai tuần trước được tin người anh họ bị đột quỵ trầm trọng ở tuổi 63. Bác sĩ cho biết 70 phần trăm anh có thể mất trong vòng 30 ngày. Mấy mươi năm qua anh lo cày kiếm tiền nuôi vợ con. Hai đứa con cũng đã tốt nghiệp đại học. Anh gần đến tuổi về hưu thì chuyện không may xảy ra.

Nhìn thấy hoàn cảnh của anh, tôi càng cảm thấy chán nản cuộc đời này. Mấy mươi năm làm việc rồi mà không kịp hưởng thụ gì cả. Chẳng lẽ mình phải chịu sự sắp xếp của xã hội này? Lúc nào cũng phải kiếm tiền để kiếm sống? Chẳng lẽ không còn lựa chọn nào khác? Tôi không biết thương mại cũng chả biết đầu tư. Chắc là như vậy rồi. Thôi thì đến đâu hay đến đó lo ngại gì ngày mai.

The downbeats give Gunna the space to rhyme. His deliveries are laid back—even when he flows fast—and his lyrics are personal. He had many issues he needed to address, especially to his haters. On “Go Crazy,” he declares: “It’s deeper than rap and this life can get crazy.” Without any guest spots, Gunna takes control of his narrative throughout the album.

Binary thinking leaves out so much. For example,
Reading only left to right, or up and down,

Ignores all our wishes for comfort, for circular motion,
All the ways that the happier letterforms seek the option

Not to stand alone. Their living space is ample,
Hot in June, cold in March, with pencil lines of frost

Along the stems and twigs in all their dewy, new-built
Nests. Some warblers build more than one.

Each feels tiny compared to thunderstorms, construction
Cranes, plate tectonics and how the past

Harms the present with its slush-avalanches of guilt,
And yet it made us—us. How little we know. How much

Knowing isn’t the point. We love how the letters can touch.

Stephanie Burt