Monaleo’s debut kicks off with “Sober Mind” showing her motivational lyrics: “Life is like a book, you gotta read through it / And if at first you don’t succeed then you can re-do it.” Then she went hard on “Beating Down Yo Block,” “Ass Kickin,” and “Return of the P.” She has nice flows and she can ride big beats. Then she softened up with ballad singing, including “Miss Understood,” “Cologne Song,” and “Cosmic Love.” The album lost its cohesiveness in between the two opposite directions.

   Honestly astonishing
the first time you see them unless you grew up with them,
   they look prickly enough
        to cling to your clothing. Instead

   they are a soft
unsettlement, their promise
   of sweetness more than justified
        inside, like the way

    you told me you once
got to pet a porcupine, nibs
    relaxed and folded back for better
        nuzzling, or the first

    time (after waiting and
waiting) you let me hold
    your hand. Cliché
        means clench, clutch and

    predictable, but also
sometimes true. Sometimes I feel tenderly
    opened up, wet and revealed as if cut
        in two. I want to spend
            today with you.

Stephanie Burt

I have been spending some time researching and searching for new sports equipments. I would like Đạo and Đán to switch over to aggressive skates instead of rollerblades so they can do more tricks at the skateparks. I also would like a new pair of aggressive skates because the coping on my Flying Eagle is way too small. Stalling on it is way too hard. Aggressive skates are way too expensive. I couldn’t find anything decent for under $250.

I am also looking to get Đán a snowboard, a pair of bindings, and a pair of boots. The entire packet would cost at least $500. We’ll do rental for him again next year since he’s still growing and he’s quite picky about the board. I have a two really old boards. The shorter one I am using in the basement to train during off season. The longer one I will use for the winter, but it is not too great. I bought a new pair of bindings last season. I would like to get a new board, but I couldn’t find anything under $250.

If I want to get some new gears (three pair of aggressive skates and a snowboard), I have to spend at least $1,000. I am less concerned about the money, but more concerned about Đạo and Đán not using them. They are becoming less interested in skating. Yesterday evening, when I asked Đán to go to the skatepark, he threw a tantrum. He just wanted to play video games instead. I was infuriated. I wanted them to be active instead of just sitting on their behinds playing on their digital devices all day, especially in the summer.

In Design for a Better World, Don Norman writes about work issues:

Except for scholars who study and trace the path of history, the rest of us are often unaware of its impact. We are born into the world, and our early experiences and belief systems seem so natural and obvious that it is difficult to imagine any other possibility. People take for granted the basics of their everyday life: living in a family, going to school, learning the topics taught in a certain way there, getting a job, and so on. In many countries, jobs take one away from family for most of the daytime hours and oftentimes into the night. All of this is taken for granted.

Why must the demands of work separate families, though? Why must some cultures demand long hours of work, often from dawn to dusk, six days a week from its citizens, leaving partners and children to struggle throughout the day on their own? The need for a large number of workers at one site started early in history-for example, in the massing of people by the Egyptian pharaohs to build the pyramids. In part, it was a natural result of the rise of cities and nations, where people were concentrated. Providing food for large numbers of people required workers to congregate, whether in Baghdad’s cooking competitions in the ninth century or in Venice’s building of ships in the early twelfth century. The standardization of work in factories took place at the start of the Industrial Revolution in the early 1700s for the weaving and spinning of silk and cotton as well as for the manufacturing of household goods in Great Britain.

The path taken by Western countries of the world and exported globally controlled the lives of the workers, treating them as if they were machines to be used until they wore out and then replaced. Time dominated the lives of the workers, with bells and whistles telling them when to start and end the day, when breaks were permitted, and when they could eat lunch. Time dominated the work, and work dominated wellness, satisfaction, and family. Did it have to be this way? No.

Norman writes about family separation:

Families were separated, with those employed rushing off to their jobs, often not to return home until late at night. I have seen the workers in South Korea and Japan work long hours every day and attend the quasi-obligatory drinking sessions after work. These sessions end so late that the workers do not have time to make the long commuting trip back home, so they stay overnight at the many hotels that catered to this need. Workers often do not return to their families for days. Their work habits are slaves to both the clock and the perception of doing work. In fact, the long hours mean that the workers are sleep deprived, often falling asleep at conferences and meetings and on the commuter trains. Studies have shown that long hours produce less work than the shorter, more focused hours used in some countries.

What if you really had never heard it before?
The throaty voice, the credibility
And strength of a man who could always pick you up
And bring you to that one place and keep you there
And never abandon you, who would move only slowly
And never in circles, a man who would hold your hand

Gently and yet unrelentingly, whose very
Hairline crept up to a heart-shaped peak
Whose gentle curves matched black-tea-colored eyes
And as-if-penciled brows, so that those farewell-free,
As-long-as-you-need-me tones of reassurance
In him and him alone could be believed. There is so little

On this Earth you can trust, so little that comes around
And never goes away, but we will always
Have this gem, this constant
Companion, this life preserver whose love is a promise
You should have seen coming: he is, indeed, never
Gonna give you up, never gonna let
You down, never gonna run
Around and desert you.

Stephanie Burt

The title track opens the album with a delightful duet from Thomas Fonnesbæk and Justin Kauflin. Fonnesbæk’s thumping bass serves as the rhythm of the falling rain to accompany Kauflin’s virtuosic piano improvisation. Together they intimately interpret “Imagine.” Fonnesbæk’s plucking bass sings John Lennon’s lyrics while Kauflin’s comping piano supports his partner and vice versa. The entire album gives jazz listeners an hour of relaxing down time.

When the wind picked up, the field dried.
The window. The sound
of apples blowing from a tree.

Sex was the first thing
someone else took away from me.

Taneum Bambrick

The other day when I took Xuân out of school early for his dental appointment, he told me that his classmates laughed at his last name when his teacher called him for dismissal. Xuân is sensitive and emotional. He worries what others think of him, which
makes him an easy target.

At home Đạo and Đán often exposed Xuân’s vulnerability. They made him screamed in tears. Đạo’s and Đán’s behavior toward his younger brother infuriate me. No matter how many times I had told them that they were supposed to protect his younger brother, they had done the opposite. They accused me of favoring Xuân because he’s my golden child. I love all of my boys, but I sympathize with Xuân who is a sweet boy.

When Xuân was younger, he fought back hard and defended himself when someone attacked him. I am not sure when he stops hitting back when other kids hit him first. Even his little brother, Vương, is hitting him now and getting away with it because Xuân doesn’t defend himself or striking back.

Xuân is physically strong and he’s a tough kid. He is competitive in sports trying to keep up with his older brothers. I learned ice skating with ease after seeing his brothers zooming around the rink. He picked up biking to keep up the pace with his older brothers. He’s joining the swim team. He skis from the bunny to double-black slopes all on his own. He scooters hard at the skateparks. He busted his chin twice—one from falling off the ramp at the skatepark—and got stitches both times. I thought he would quit scooter after that accident, but he went back at it.

My main worry is that he can easily get manipulated if he wants to please others, especially his peers. He got himself into trouble a couple of times at school because he followed other kids breaking the rules. Several months ago we were at the skatepark and he told me that other kids told him to lie down on the ramp so they could jump over him with their scooters. I was horrified imagining if they landed on top of him with their scooters. I had to explain to him that he didn’t have to listen to them and he didn’t have to put himself at risk. Xuân and I bond because we always go to the skatepark together. Even when he was playing video games, he would turn it off and head to the park. His brothers had to be forced to get off and get out.

At the beginning of this school year, we did Let’s Read together and he was struggling to sound out the words. We stopped reading for a while because I lost patience. Midway through the school year, he was still struggling. I raised my concern with his English teacher and she told me that she would work with him. This is their last week of school and I asked him to do Let’s Read again. I was so happy that he could read fluently.

Xuân’s reading progress proved that I should back off and trust my kids to learn on their own.

Fontwerk expands its superfamily, Case, designed by Erik Spiekermann, Anja Meiners, and Ralph du Carrois, from 32 to 72 fonts. Case also supports Vietnamese. It was my pleasure advising the designers on Vietnamese diacritics. Read about Case.

The album has a few groovy funk-jazz joints including “A Day in the Life,” “Red Beans & Rice,” and “Bumpin’ on Sunset.” Auger’s electric keyboard is eletrying. Unfortunately, his singing is just passable and it brings down the album. The title track is an extraordinary jungle fusion with energy drums, thumbing bass, and wild flute. Wish it was just an instrumental album.