With a hoarse, scratchy, guttural contralto and an astounding rhythmic sense, Cassandra Wilson is a fine jazz singer who could maneuver her vocals naturally between word and wordless performances. Accompanied by Mulgrew Miller on piano, Lonnie Plaxico on bass, and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, Wilson reinvigorates standards—including “Shall We Dance,” “Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to You,” and “My One and Only Love—in her Blue Skies, an album I have been jamming to again and again for her exotic scat-singings. I just can’t get enough of those sultry, horn-like, wordless improvisations.

Duy Manh is incorrigible. His vol. 3, Kiep Ban Do, is another distasteful, disdainful piece of crap. He needs to leave the saxophone alone because he’s using it wrong. He desecrates the instrument and rapes the culture. Manh, if this is a sickness, get some help pulling your shit together.

I have heard quite a few negative comments about song-writer/song-lifter Quoc Bao. To be honest, I only know his music (not that impressive) and not his personality. Not that I am interested in getting to know him, but when I came across his interview, I am more than shock to read his view on women. The sucker said that he’s afraid of women who have confidence in their talent. If women only talk about their “talent,” they will miss many things they wouldn’t know. He suggests that women should only be confidence in their beauty instead of talent. What a sexist bastard!

Every Vietnamese magazine I flip through these days, there’s coverage of Ngoc Lien. Yes, she’s the one that makes The Son looks like her dad in their duet on Paris By Night. No disrespect to The Son because I would look like a grandpa next to her even though I am much younger than The Son. That’s how good and fresh she looks. In a broadcast she did with Truong Ky, she told him that she is influenced by Khanh Ha, Tuan Ngoc, and Ngoc Lan, but she won’t perform music of Trinh Cong Son, Ngo Thuy Mien, and Tu Cong Phung because their music only attracts a small chunk of listeners. So she decided to go for more popular music for the mass audience. You want to slap her, but you sympathize her. Her voice isn’t strong enough to carry out those tunes, and she knows damn well that she can’t express these songs to their fullest potential. Basically, what she saying is that she has a good taste, but her listeners are idiot so she has to dumb down her music for them. Well, good luck. When people get tired of looking at your face, they won’t listen to your voice either.

Who Do You Love is a compilation of Jean Thompson’s marvelous short stories that appeared on major publications including The New Yorker, Mid-American Review, and Ontario Review. The book featured fifteen skillfully-crafted fictions ranging from shocking to reminiscing to disturbing to shattering to enlightening experiences. Thompson’s ingenious pen created engaging characters, amusing moments as well as heart-touching narrations. Each of her pieces—“The Widower” in particular—strikes like lightening: sharp, powerful, and unpredictable. A second reading is required for further appreciation of the splendid details.

Out of nowhere—no hint, no buzz, no hype—No, a Tran Viet Tan’s songbook with Thanh Lam and Hong Nhung locking down the vocals, quietly drops into our lap, like some kind of treasure just happened to fall off from the sky. Actually, an album that could pull two of the top female voices together doesn’t need the whole marketing campaign to sell. The work of art speaks for itself. Is this a project in which Thanh Lam and Hong Nhung appear side-by-side to throw their fans a bone? That was my immediate skepticism when I first spotted the album, but after careful listenings, I am convinced that No is a real quality product, and both have invested their soul into it.

Over the years, Hong Nhung and Thanh Lam have defined their distinctive path by continuously refining and modernizing their crafts. Hong Nhung appreciates peacefulness in her Khu Vuon Yen Tinh while Thanh Lam brings the ruckus in her Nang Len. In No, however, they are not pushing Tran Viet Tan’s compositions into any direction, but simply pour their hearts into his works.

Hong Nhung is indelible in “Am Nong.” We can hear the cry in her voice, but she is so good at hiding it, like she is withholding her tears and only gives us a touch of her pain deep down inside—some psychological therapy for our mind. “Em Hong Nhung Rat La” is a tune I have personally requested Tran Viet Tan to pen for me to express my feelings for my Velvet Rose. I particularly insisted on using these two bars, “Ben chieu xua than tho / Giong hat nhe khoi bay.” (Yeah, I wish!) In any rate, the soothing melody is perfect for Hong Nhung’s relaxing vocals. Her lithe phrasings and effortless flows complement both “Ha Noi Em” and “A Oi Tay Me” like oil and vinegar.

Unlike Hong Nhung, Thanh Lam has a huge, husky, and tangy voice filled with deep emotion. In “Dem Ha Noi Nho,” she sports a prodigious technique of holding on to her vibrato to warm up the notes, and then releasing them into the empty air, leaving the piano to fill in the space. The way she hoarsens up her vocals sounds so damn hypnotizing. And of course, her energetic power always promises pain and glory in her delivery. In the title track, “Bat Chot,” and “Em Khong Nho Anh Dau,” she sings gentler, and takes her time to express the lyrics as if she has situated herself into the songs. She caresses the harmonies, massages the words, and efficiently breaks down her virtuoso flows.

Besides the juicy musical content, the album cover design is a clever one too. It provides a hint of both Thanh Lam’s and Hong Nhung ‘s style through their facial expression. The cracked smile on Hong Nhung’s face suggests youthfulness while Thanh Lam’s straight look insinuates genuineness. The direct, frosty gaze in Thanh Lam’s eyes (irresistibly gorgeous) illustrates the fearlessness in her attitude. I have met neither of them in person yet, but the raison d’être in Thanh Lam’s singing and the simplicity (yet filled with sentimentality) in Hong Nhung’s performance have always seduced me. These two women bang my world.

I haven’t seen an album dedicated to ballroom dancing for years, especially not from a young face in Viet Nam like Doan Trang. Her latest Da Vu Socodance (sounds like a M&M commercial to me), which featured Latin rhythms such as paso, tango, chacha, valse, and rumba, is another effort to make her music stands apart from her pop peers. What makes Doan Trang stands out for me is not her sweet, transparent voice, but my wonder of how such a powerful tone could come from so flimsy a body.

Like any Vietnamese dance tradition, Socodance kicks off with Hoang Trong’s “Dung Buoc Giang Ho,” a lively paso doble arranged by Nguyen Quang who is responsible for most of the productions on the album. Doan Trang just rides the beat and gives a straightforward delivery, which is fine for this particular up-tempo piece and Nguyen Anh 9’s translated “Ngan Khuc Tango.” In slower tempos like the rumba “Tinh Yeu Den Trong Gia Tu” (another Nguyen Anh 9’s composition) and Pham Manh Cuong’s “Thu Ca” (tango), however, she lacks the souls and the emotions that are so essential in expressing the lyrics. As a result, her renditions on these two tracks are juiceless and colorless. In addition, her breathiness brings down her delivery.

Socodance strangely closes out with Xuan Nghia’s “Rock ‘n Roll Cho Em.” Not sure why a rock track is included in a ballroom dance album. Other than banging our heads, what else could we do with rock? Fortunately “Rock ‘n Roll Cho Em” has more of a twist flavor to it than rock. So we could swivel our feet to the beat and break our necks to the guitar riff after the ecstasies kicked in.

Although Socodance is a nice attempt to get all the lazy behinds, including mine, off the couch and away from the computer, it isn’t anything outstanding. Doan Trang is like a lost child in the Vietnamese-entertainment world. (Come to daddy, I’ll give you a style to run with, baby.) She has tried everything to reinvent herself, from pop to ballads to r & b to hip-hop to Latin dance, but nothing seems to work to her fullest potential. Maybe it is time to focus on her technical skills and to inject some souls into her performances.

I sure do appreciate this:

In my opinion, Donny is a born communicator. Moving to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was eleven radically altered his ability to communicate in his new environment. He spent his playground time in those early years trying to learn English. He learned quickly, and even prior to the time I’ve known him, he has been publishing an online blog, or journal, where he reviews music, books, film, and software, and keeps up conversations about life in general with others who read his writing. This past year, he became a rather high-profile figure among the population of the international Vietnamese diaspora, and others interested in Vietnamese culture, for his Flash pieces combining music with images of Vietnam. As a result of his public voice on his own website, he has corresponded with people from all parts of society in different countries. Donny is clearly not a person who needs perfect English to be a communicator, yet he sets as a goal for himself working to perfect it. He has my respect and admiration for that.

With the negative comments about me pouring in lately, I decided to keep the author’s name off the site. I don’t mind being criticized at all since Visualgui.com welcomes unobstructed, honest opinions. Like I always say, you can attack me but not the folks I respect.

Bounce, Bush, bounce…

Red, why and how the color was created.

Anh Bang’s “Noi Long Nguoi Di,” a blues-inflected rendition performed by Tuan Ngoc.

Ngoc Tu Anh’s “Hay Giu Lay Hon Day,” an intoxicating presentation by Nguyen Khang.

I was planning on writing a review for Paul Greengrass’s United 93, but I didn’t get to watch the entire film. I had to walk out of the theater halfway into the movie or else I would have thrown up. The jerky camera work was torturing. The subject matter alone is sensitive, and the unprofessional, homegrown filming style makes it impossible to bear. Do we really need a poor-quality motion picture to remind us the darkest day of America? Here is what Manohla Dargris, film critic of the New York Times, has to say:

Sept. 11 has shaped our political discourse and even infiltrated our popular culture, though as usual Hollywood has been awfully late to that table. Yet five years after the fact and all the books, newspaper and magazine articles, committees and scandals later, I think we need something more from our film artists than another thrill ride and an emotional pummeling. “United 93” inspires pity and terror, no doubt. But catharsis? I’m still waiting for that.

Two dope Chinese boys infront of a webcam. I must have been repeating it for the last 10 times.

Waterboy, a well-executed animation for Evian Mineral Water.

Get a Mac, Apple’s ads. Check out the new digital camera from Japan. She’s cute!

Lien Khuc Ru, a Trinh Cong Son’s medley performed by Tran Thu Ha, Thanh Lam, Hong Nhung, and My Linh.

Like I haven’t have enough hate on my own site. Now I am getting my balls cut off by Minh Tuyet’s fans over at Thuy Nga’s forum after someone posted my review of Boi Vi Anh Yeu Em. Yes, I did expect it to happen so I am not going to sweat it, but I find some of the comments to be amusing. So let me repost some of them with my short responses to entertain myself. Believe it or not, I also am too embarrassed to step into strip clubs. The college days and fraternity’s Rush weeks are over. So here are some of the comments about me that I find entertaining:

that dude is always harsh! I admire his honesty but god geeze, he’s so bias! he trashes on every single pretty singer (male or female!) – puppyLo16

Voice has no appearance, puppy. But keep on barking!

That visualgui dude is into Dam Vinh Hung….I rest my case! – 411

For the 411, let me quote myself: “Mr. Dam is done. It’s time to drop the mic and pick up the clipper.” So do some damn research before opening up your mouth, or as Jay-Z is saying, “Dickface, get your shit straight.”

Seriously… it’s WRONG, guys dont like DVH… lol !!!! no kidding… that’s probably why he doesnt think Minh Tuyet is hot… he’s into guys, not girls !!!! lol :] – t_ninjia

Brilliant concept but not so convincing. You should say something like this: “He’s into guys, not girls. Girls can’t handle him because he has a PhD… Pretty Huge Dick, that is.” Now that makes more sense than arguing that if a guy doesn’t think a girl is hot, he’s into guys.

Cynicism attracts readers – a cheap tactic employed by irresponsible reviewers. This is nothing but typical of such rubbish… – Le_Chi

Maybe my writing is rubbish, at least my piece isn’t filled with ass-kissing shit like, “Overall I’m delighted to have this album. Good music, best vocals, outstanding arrangement with a healthy mix of metals, strings, and a touch of sax. The song selection is meticulous considering the variety, the layout, and the quality of each and every song. Great job!”