@tbrown. NP Sam Bowie 🙂

In his excellent article, “Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trinh Cong Son” (PDF format), John C. Schafer, an English professor at Humboldt State University, explores the Buddhist themes and “philosophy of life” in Trinh Cong Son’s lyrics. Shafer writes:

By refusing to announce simple meanings Trinh Cong Son lets listeners interpret his songs for themselves and thereby become partners with him in the creation of meaning. This willful incoherence also reflects a modernistic tendency to defamiliarize language in order to make one’s art appear fresh and new. But Trinh Cong Son’s intentional obscurity is also, I believe, a way to convey the Buddhist idea that one cannot reason one’s way to mental peace, a way to suggest that enlightenment lies beyond language and logic…

By studying Trinh Cong Son’s obsession with death, his fascination with Western philosophy and his admiration for Buddhism, Shafer concludes:

Perhaps Trinh Cong Son’s greatest contribution is that he has given Vietnamese a way to express this inner experience. Listening to many of his songs is for Vietnamese like visiting a pagoda and listening to the monks chanting prayers. Like these prayers, Trinh Cong Son’s songs are hard to understand, but they have the same power to soothe troubled minds.

The article is written in English with translation of the lyrics, but you could also read the Vietnamese version, “Cái chết, Phật giáo và chủ nghĩa hiện sinh trong nhạc Trịnh Công Sơn” (PDF), translated by Vy Huyen.

The name speaks for its site.

From Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Hip-hop’s Down Beat“:

Hip-hop now faces a generation that takes gangsta rap as just another mundane marker in the cultural scenery. “It’s collapsing because they can no longer fool the white kids,” says Nickels. “There’s only so much redundancy anyone can take.”

It takes them that long to realize that gangster rap is just music? Here is some more gangsta shit from Snoop Dogg and The Game.

Since I only skimmed through Miss Vietnam Global 2007 (even the bikini part), I don’t remember much about the contestants. One in particular, however, stood out to me not because of her beauty (she didn’t even make it to the top 25), but her flowery name: Daisy Lan Huong Lieu. Didn’t remember what she looked like but the name sure stuck.

The music part gets skimmed even quicker. I couldn’t even get through Tran Thu Ha’s performance even with my eyes closed. (I have heard repeatedly from people that she is the type that you listen to and not watch.) Her snoozing, jazzlite cover of Ngo Thuy Mien’s “Dau Tinh Sau” is exactly what she once commented: “Nhạc jazz VN tới nay thường là ‘râu ông nọ cắm cằm bà kia’ hoặc đu đưa cho có vẻ jazz một tí.” And sadly the entertainers get worse from Dam Vinh Hung to Hong Ngoc to Nguyen Thang. Still the most disturbing performance is from Angelina Cat Tien who is an adorable, innocent, little girl dressed up as Barbie and singing “Barbie Girl” backing up by a dozens of dancers around her age (no older than 12). Obviously she is too young to understand the lyrics, but it is quite unsettling when hearing she sings lines like: “Life in plastic, it’s fantastic! / You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere / … / kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky… / You can touch, you can play, if you say: “I’m always yours.” / … / Make me walk, make me talk, do whatever you please / I can act like a star, I can beg on my knees.” I just can’t believe the parents who allowed their daughter to portrait such a horror image.

Speaking of image makes me wonder what is the value to a show that competes for external beauty. Nothing wrong with that really except when one of the show’s sponsors, Bich Ngoc Cosmetic Surgery Center, gives away a certificate worth $10,000 to a lucky winner who wishes to change her image if she wasn’t born with a beautiful one. I must hand it to Ms. Bich Ngoc and Dr. Vu Ban for their business mentality. That’s a $10,000 worth of free advertisement for them. If you were that lucky winner, would you come to their clinic after looking at her? I doubt it.

R. Kelly’s “multipart R&B soap opera cum sex farce” keeps getting buzz even though I have been too lazy too watch them. I guess I won’t need to watch them anymore after reading the spoiler from Kelefa Sanneh:

At least until near the end. No one likes a spoiler, but suffice it to say that Mr. Kelly finds a clever way to bring the story back to its sex-and-deception roots, culminating in a mesmerizing song composed of phone-call fragments. It’s eerie and funny, a reminder that Mr. Kelly can make great music more or less whenever he feels like it. And, just when you thought this was all an elaborate joke, the ending is surprisingly sad. Surely Chapter 23, whenever it comes, will bring — well, it would be foolish to guess. But here’s hoping Mr. Kelly’s dramatic phase isn’t over yet.

“World’s 10 Stories You Don’t (MayBe) Know”

For instance: “Worldwide, tuberculosis — a bacterial lung disease spread mainly by coughing — kills one person every 18 seconds.”

Bonnie Ruberg’s “Work Those Pink Panties“:

Cybersex often gets slammed as the poor man’s substitute for the real thing—but for cyberers like Leg Lover it offers something totally different: the chance to explore fetishes.

Drove around the city in the heavy rain and ended up at Wonjo restaurant for some Korean BBQ. Not too bad for a Friday evening. Drove three hours the next day to Turning Stone Resort & Casino to get some gambling fix. Didn’t get any luck with Pai Gow this time while a Caucasian guy, who played the game for the first time, sat next to me made a couple hundreds with just fifteen bucks to begin with. I helped him win while I lost my own hand. Beginner’s luck, I guess. Also met another Vietnamese guy who started out lecturing me how not to press my luck, yet he’s the one that ended up losing much more than I did. Had a lot of fun though.

Simon Aughton’s “Chinese Couple Name Child ‘@’:”

While the “@” simple is familiar to Chinese email users, they often use the English word “at” to sound it out – which with a drawn out “T” sounds something like “ai ta”, or “love him”, to Mandarin speakers.

I still like “Cu” (Vietnamese’s common nickname) better than “@.” Imagine trying to find out where he’s at. “Hey @, where are you at?”