I’ve been receiving automated messages from my host every six hours stating: “The domain visualgui.com has reached 80% of its bandwidth limit. Please contact the system admin as soon as possible.” 80% of 400 gigabytes data transfer in less than a month is overwhelming. Didn’t realize that I am packing more traffic than the streets of Sai Gon. To reduce the congestion, I have to temporarily move all the Motion pieces to the school server, delete the miscellaneous folder (Flash music files and images), and disable all the food photos in the Eatery section. Hopefully, the site can survive until the end of the month without exceeding 400 gigs of bandwidth. In case Visualgui.com does go offline, please come back on May 1st. Keep the faith in me. Only technology can disconnect me from you.

Knowing that I am a scat freak, a colleague of mine handed me Jazz for Kids: Sing, Clap, Wiggle, and Shake—an album he bought for his daughters—so that I could listen to Clark Terry “Mumbles” over Oscar Peterson’s glibness of piano technique. It turns out that I already have this masterpiece (of course I should have it because I am a jazz piano freak also, and Peterson was my man), but the whole record blows me away. It is such a fantastic compilation for kids to jam with.

Ella Fitzgerald has me swinging to “Old McDonald” with her playful rendition. By applying her melodic embellishments and child-like sensibility, she makes one of the most annoying songs of all time sounds superior. The arrangement is hypnotizing—particularly the way the trumpet imitates the chicken sound. In contrast, Slim Gaillard uses his vocals to imitate the chicken voice in “Chicken Rhythm” and his scat sounds exactly like a trumpet. The result is amazing. I am having a blast grooving to the “Chicken Rhythm” like a little kid in the roller-skating ring (I am sure you all remember those chicken dances).

From Lionel Hampton’s “Rag Mop” to Carmen McRae’s “When The Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob, Bobbin’ Along” to Blossom Dearie’s “Doop-Doo-De-Doop (A Doodlin’ Song),” Jazz for Kids is a perfect collection for both the parents and kids to enjoy. If you love jazz and would like to introduce her to your kids, this album is highly recommended. But make sure you let them know that Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” is not true jazz. Not sure why it was included in a jazz album when Pops had tons of classic scat songs in his early Hot-Five-and-Hot-Seven days. Other than that, I have been rocking this kiddy joints again and again just so I can feel young all over again. Now let me go train my two-year-old nephew, who doesn’t want to talk yet, to mumble along with Clark Terry and show my six-year-old niece to do the chicken dance, or the other way around.

Is it just me or the album cover of Tran Thai Hoa’s Tinh Khuc Le Uyen Phuong is a rip-off of Michael Bublé’s It’s Time? Other than the ugly typography on Tran Thai Hoa’s CD, the black suit and the loose tie are dead-on identical. Disgraceful is on Thuy Nga’s graphic designer as well as fashion artist. Why do I always disdain Thuy Nga’s products? Because they have been making desecrated music continuously, and Le Uyen Phuong’s songbook is another instance.

Except for the blues-inflected “Vung Lay Cua Chung Ta” and the bossa nova-flavored “Noi Buon Dang Nho,” the twelve remaining tracks are wimped-out, noodling, and vulgar efforts to revamp old tunes. The arrangements are drowsy, especially the overexploitation of the fuzak saxophone (“Buon Den Bao Gio”) and trumpet (“Cho Lan Cuoi”), yet Tran Hoai Hoa’s snoring voice is drowsier. His rendition of “Da Khuc Cho Tinh Nhan” is being crushed like black peppers by Nguyen Khang’s powerful and savory version. His cheesy phrasing (especially his enunciation of “hoa”) in “Tinh Khuc Cho Em” is so gay and lame.

Since Thuy Nga productions have not been able to release any new music, they have to find a way to pull listeners’ cash out of their pockets (thanks to the Internet, or I’ll be damn broke by now with piles of junks). And they do so by polishing up old songs and assigning to someone who is least expected from the audiences to be able to pull them off. The tactic of Tran Thai Hoa sings Le Uyen Phuong is not much difference from Minh Tuyet collaborates with Bang Kieu. What is the end result? Both albums flop, but people will buy them to find out how bad they sound. I, too, take great pleasure in listening to mundane music in order to appreciate higher arts.

Working at Vassar is hard not to learn new skills or not to be inspired when we’re always indulged with design-related resources. Lawrence Zeegen’s Digital Illustration: A Master Class in Creative Image-making is the latest book being passed around the Vassar’s Web-design crew. Although the heart and soul of the book is the jaw-dropping illustrations, the history of image-making is no less interesting, especially with the influences of pop culture such as punk rock, hip-hop, and pornography. With digital tools—Mac computer, digital camera, scanner—being affordable and easy to access, the process of integrating media and techniques is much smoother and faster. An artist can move freely from paper-sketching to digital-crafting or vice versa. Digital Illustration is a wonderful source of inspiration.

With a collection of essays written by music scholars, Bad Music: The Music We Love To Hate edited by Christopher Washburne and Maiken Derno is both refreshing and informing to read. The book delves into various genres—country, pop, world music, smooth jazz, folk, and punk rock—that are often ignored by the academic’s gatekeepers. Discussions such as “Camp vs. Cheese,” “Why Smooth Jazz is Not Part of Historical Narratives,” and “Badness as ‘Aesthetically Unbearable Style'” help readers understand the “musical badness” without being disdainful. As someone whose interests include music writing, I find Bad Music to be helpful and insightful.

Chosen One got the flow and delivery, which are cool for club joints and clowning on Asia’s videos. When it comes to serious hip-hop, however, he is only half way there. He’s lacking the personal expression and the lyrical wit to make a distinctive voice as a rapper. His political statement in “World News” is weak and his technique is stilted. Both “Lyte It Up,” and “Still the Same” are lost in the gangsta shit with the same damn weed-puffing, women-dissing, and amateur-beefing contents, nothing new. Despite the saccharine lyrics, I am feeling that west coast funk in “L.A. Underground Part 2” and Chosen’s dope flow. Still, homeboy has a long way to go in term of lyricism. Keep listening to your mentors (Pac, Nas, Jigga, and AZ) and find your own voice, C.

O Kia, look who’s back? The young, witty, and eccentric Ngoc Khue, whose debut Ben Bo Ao Nha Minh remains a rare work of art, strikes again. After writing a highly favorable review of her first album, I wanted to test the water by playing it at a family-gathering dinner, which included about twenty people. The reactions were what I had expected to be: “What the heck is this music?,” “She can’t even sing,” and “She sounds like ‘len dong’ (calling the spirit).” The last comment is not so far off, but I would prefer to call her style as running-the-voodoo-down. And that is exactly what she has accomplished in volume two, her newest release, by weaving Vietnamese traditional folk into western flavors including jazz, funk, pop, rock, and semi-classical.

Like her previous album, O Kia marks another imaginative collaboration with fusion master Le Minh Son who penned six out of seven tracks and produced the entire album. In the lead-off title track, slinky songbird Khue paints a gorgeous rice-padding scene with white butterfly on the flower, a laughing bee, and a singing bird. The cha-cha beat gives the song a nice, mid-tempo rhythm, but it is her unusual phrasings that take the track to the anomalistic level. Her superb, bizarre technique is best observed on “Bo Song.” Sporting an unorthodox delivery, Khue floats her big, deep, slightly graveled voice in and out of the savory jazz-funk groove. What makes “Bo Song” a masterpiece is the way she swaggers from soulful to playful phrasings with effortless verve, and she has the requisite chops to maneuver her way into the blend of folk, funk, and jazz. Khue switches her flow in the semi-classical “Toc Tha Thuyen” soaring her strident timbre into the soul-soothing sounds of violin and keyboard accompaniment. “Tinh Tang” and Nguyen Cuong’s “Em Khong Vao Chua” are her rock-folk experimentations, and she rocks them both with her prevailing delivery and prodigious techniques.

Once again, Khue offers out-of-the-trend freshness to the Vietnamese musical scene. She also brought her own distinctive style to Le Minh Son’s music. I am so glad that she continues to excel in the avant-garde path she has chosen. Her execution is a tremendous improvement: more confidence, less breathy, and unafraid of vibrato. Her performances can make the mass listeners feel uncomfortable because they are ill-prepared for something that is way too far out there. Khue’s work is not the type of art form that speaks for itself. If we don’t get it, the commiseration is on us.

Bang Kieu and Minh Tuyet on the same album? What was on Bang Kieu’s mind? Moving from Khanh Ha to Minh Tuyet is like trading in a Lexus for a Corolla. But most people love economical car and Thuy Nga is a business-oriented production; therefore, the collaboration is understandable. Pairing up an idiosyncratic combination to provoke curious listeners has always been Thuy Nga’s marketing strategy even though they know damn well that these two voices don’t go together. In their integrated-effort Boi Vi Anh Yeu Em, we can tell right away that they don’t harmonize on the opening duet, Thai Thinh’s “Phut Giay Minh Chia Tay,” with the way they trade lines. Bang Kieu sings high notes while Minh Tuyet stays in the middle register. When they join forces, he has to switch to a lower range to mesh with her weaker vocals.

Although Bang Kieu has a striking countertenor of a voice, I still can’t get over his feminine quality. He needs to smoke some cracks, weeds, and cokes or do whatever it takes to deteriorate his gay-ass timbre or roughen it up. I actually started to accept him when he performed with Thanh Ha and Khanh Ha on Paris By Night videos, but now he takes me back to when I first described his singing as a hen-esque voice (giong ga mai). Crooning bubblegum pop tunes only makes him sounds campier, especially on the Chinese-inflected “Boi Vi Anh Yeu Em” when he caramelizes the words “hoi em” and “cho quen” on the second verse. Why he chose to sing Phan Dinh Tung’s composition is beyond me. I suspect Minh Tuyet puts him up to it.

As for princess Minh Tuyet, whom is she trying to seduce by flaunting out her chest on the album cover? Even Bang Kieu has to close his eyes to avoid staring at her breasts. He knows better not to mess with Trizzy Phuong Trinh. She would beat the shit out of him if she caught him peeping at a younger girl’s cleavage. Minh Tuyet may look sexy (depends on the angle of the viewer) but she can’t make Phuong Quynh’s “Anh Da Ra Di” sounds as sexy as Ho Ngoc Ha could. From the raucousness of her voice to the voluptuousness of her groove, Ho Ngoc Ha epitomizes sexiness. Even her rap delivery is more sensuous than Minh Tuyet’s stilted flow. I heard Cam Ly’s version of Minh Vy’s “Ke Dung Sau Tinh Yeu” not so long ago, and now her sister covers it. Which one do I like better? Neither. I can’t eat too many sweet candies. They make my bad teeth more pejorative. But I am sure young people who have good teeth will chew on this album like a bar of chocolate, especially fans of Minh Tuyet and Thuy Nga, but Bang Kieu’s followers may be disappointed.

Never-seen-before footages of Ngoc Lan’s live performances in “Da Vu Don Xuan” at Ottawa, Canada back in 1991 when new wave was hot in the Vietnamese community. “Comment Ça Va” and “Black is Black” are the first two (out of sixteen) exclusive clips provided by the Viva band to be published on iLoveNgocLan.com. She got the groove, didn’t she? Mad props to Hung Vu, Viva’s keyboardist, for these priceless treasures.

Vassar’s Department of Dance is reinvigorated with the power of minimalism. After assigned with the project, I went through the photo collection and awed by the dancers’ motion. I selected a few striking shots, knocked out the background, and laid out the homepage in an hour. The director of web development (my boss) once asked me, “How do you design so fast and still churn out quality works?” My reply was, “I know when to stop.” Through my experience, I find that the more I refine a design, the worse it gets. And in my refinement process, I tend to throw in more unnecessary elements; therefore, I just stop and trust my instincts when I feel I have accomplished my goal.

On the homepage, I wanted to showcase the strength and liveliness of the dance program. Flash was used to pull up random images and for the transitions to give a sense of rhythm. The dark grey background was chosen to increase the dramatic of the body movements. In the interior pages, I wanted to maintain the strong visual by incorporate images with type in the header but also allowing readability by turning the background to white.

I took a different approach on this project by coming up with the design before knowing what the clients (department’s represented faculties) have in mind. So in our initial meeting, I presented my design and their jaws dropped. They were pleased with the design as much as I do; therefore, the project flew through smoothly. The only section I haven’t been able to touch on is VRDT because other urgent priorities took over. Still, I am happy with the outcome.