I finally paid the orthopedic doctor yesterday about my left wrist, in which I started to feel the pain in May this year. In my recollection, I was rollerblading down the sidewalk. When I speed picked up, I grabbed on to the steel gate trying to stop myself, which was a huge mistake. Even though I had my wrist guard, I banged my wrist against the squared steel post. It was painful, but it went away.

I didn’t think much of it or tried to protect it. I played volleyball. Every time, I returned a shot with both of my hands, my wrist was in pain. I knew I needed to stop and let it heal. It had been almost four months and I still hadn’t recovered. When my kids pulled my left hand, it hurt. When I pulled the weeds, it hurt. It was just annoying.

I went to OrthoVirginia and took an x-ray. Thanks goodness, nothing was fractured or broken. I had de Quervain’s tenosynovitis. I had no idea what that was. I had to ask the doctor to give me some info:

De Quervain’s tenosynovitis usually occurs from overusing your thumb or wrist, especially in activities that move your thumb directly away from your wrist such as skiing or hammering.

Could it be skiing? I doubt it. The treatment was to inject cortisone or take physical therapy. I immediately rejected the injection. I don’t know about physical therapy either. I’ll just wait it out.

In “Đi đường thật chậm” (Walking Slowly), Nguyễn Quỳnh Hương reminds us to take our time and to pay attention to our surroundings instead of rushing through our days. When we slow down, we will encounter the beauty of nature such as the rainbow after the rain or the cluster of wildflowers growing along the roadside. I enjoyed reading her prose and message; therefore, I wanted to create a sample page to showcase the story and the typography. The sample is typeset in ACE, designed by the Anh Chị Em community, and Yrsa, designed by Anna Giedryś and David Březina.

I checked out Noah Rothbaum’s The Whiskey Bible just in case I ran out of books I wanted to read. A couple of weeks went by and I didn’t crack it open. As I was about to return it to the library, I flipped through some pages and found some facts such as bottled in bond, single malt, and whiskey vs. whisky to be fascinating. I went back to read about the history, particularly the American bourbon, and I was intrigued. I like Rothbaum’s breakdown of the whiskey family trees. I had no idea that Four Roses is owned by the Japanese Kirin beer distillery. I read fast and skipped around a bit, but I learned quite a bit about whiskey. Cheers!

The kids will be heading back to school tomorrow. Here are some memories of our vacate at Wildwood. I can’t wait for the winter to come. We’re ready for you, El Niño.

I brought my longboard and big-wheel rollerblades with me to ride on the boardwalk with my family. My kids switched to biking and left rollerblading and scootering behind. I am the only one left who still rollerblades.

I tried my longboard on the boardwalk, but it didn’t work too well on the flat surface. I had to skate on one foot a lot and it took forever. I switched to rollerblades. The 125-mm wheels worked better. At first, I hesitated because the big wheels would go too fast. Then again, the big wheels allowed me to keep up with my kids on bikes.

I enjoyed rollerblading on the boardwalk quite a bit. I looked forward to each morning so I could blade on the boardwalk. I woke up early and bladed myself first then came back for breakfast. The kids and my wife were not ready until 11:00 am. I would join them again.

I’ll definitely blade again next year if we go back to Wildwood. Packing a pair of rollerblades was much more convenient than racking up the bikes. Besides, our bike rack could only carry four bikes. We have six family members. Đán was not biking; therefore, he walked with his grandma to make sure she didn’t get lost.

Jon Batiste and Thelonious Monk have completely opposite styles. Batiste is a classically trained virtuoso. Monk was a modern jazz pianist. Batiste plays with finesse and dexterity. Monk played with chopped-up chords and eccentricity all his own. When Monk played by himself, he took his time to work out his compositions and the results were modern and unmistakably Monk.

In taking on Monk’s compositions, Batiste cuts two separate albums: Monk Movement and Monk Mediations. In Movements, Batiste reimagines Monk’s tunes in fast tempo. Even though Batiste attempts to play chopped-up sections to pay tribute to Monk, his fast fingers often take over. Right off “In Walked Bud,” a tune for Bud Powell, Batiste’s classical skills are impressive, but they just don’t fit Monk’s style. In the opening of “Blue Monk,” Batiste plays Monk’s melody beautifully, but it is too smooth like skiing down a groomed terrain. In contrast, Monk’s original was filled with moguls. He had to navigate around the bumps.

With Meditations, Batiste plays Monk’s tunes in slow tempo. In “Crepuscule with Nellie,” Batiste stays close to Monk’s original, but his timing is still consistent. In Monk’s version, he paused for a while and just left empty spaces for listeners’ to soak in before he played on. His timing was unpredictable. In “Midnight Movement,” Batiste starts off with an ostinato on the left hand and then plays the melody on his right hand. He plays in the lower register than Monk’s original; therefore, his sounds aren’t as clear and crisp as Monk’s.

When it comes to Monk’s music, no one plays like Monk himself. I spent so much time listening to Monk plays solo and I kept coming back to those albums.

All my friends have their gods & their heavens
& their plans on how to get there. They forfeit sex
for Lent, pork for life, they light incense, they light
candles, they offer fruit to the dead.
Is this the right time to confess that once I bit a boy
for calling me a Buddhist? Never mind I was six
& did not know what Buddhist meant,
never mind we were inside a Buddhist temple.
For so long, I thought god was played by a rotating cast
of my dead. For so long, god was a boy with a ring of keys
on his belt loop. I never had as much faith as I did then,
but I never talked to god as much as I do now—now
that my want is just the want of birds. At some point,
someone invited me to Easter, then to Seder, then to Eid
& for a night I talked to Andrew’s god, & for a night I
talked to Sam’s god. I talked to Saf’s god. I was a wick lit
by any god that wandered by—an appetite primed
for the miracles of others. & then Paul got sick
& then got better, & I said thank you thank you.
Paul & I are from a city first named after a bootlegger
& then renamed after a saint & when he died,
I caught a flight to a city only he knew, where the humidity
flattened the pleats I’d ironed into my pants.
All my life, I’ve bibled my humiliations, made saints of boys
in bad lighting, never considered heaven, only good weather.
But since all my dead have been called home by different gods,
I know they’re not, like I imagined, all waiting in the same place
for me. For so long, I thought I could get through by throwing
my faith in the general direction of any pulpit.
Thank you friends for showing me your gods,
& thank you gods for showing me my friends,
but the heaven I choose is a heaven I can leave.

Nguyễn Minh Hiếu

Cứ tưởng Ann Lee, tên tác giả, là người nước ngoài nên không đọc sách của cô. Té ra Ann Lee là bút danh của nhà báo Lê Lan Anh, người Việt 100%. Mấy hôm nay đọc thử Vẫn yêu, những bài tản văn của cô viết về tình yêu.

Cô mở đầu bằng những câu hỏi và đáp:

Đàn ông có tàn nhẫn không?
Có.

Đàn ông có tham lam không?
Có.

Phần lớn Đàn ông có dễ sa ngã không?
Có.

Vậy thì tại sao phụ nữ vẫn yêu? Câu trả lời của tác giả không phải vì “Phụ nữ rất dại” mà là vì “Đàn ông thế nào, cũng vẫn đáng yêu”. Không biết phái nữ cảm thấy sao, nhưng cá nhân tôi thì thấy rất có lý.

Cho dù đàn ông có gia trưởng cũng đáng yêu nếu người đàn ông đó là trụ cột của gia đình. Tuy nhiên, nếu người đàn ông thụ động giậm chân tại chỗ thì đừng nên tiến tới (cô khuyên em gái mình thế). Bài viết thú vị nhất trong “Vẫn yêu” là “Trăng hoa đến đâu thì được bao dung”? Cô khuyên các ông:

[N]ếu khi đã trót “ăn vụng”, đàn ông cũng nên tự biết mức độ lỗi lầm và vợ cũng nên sáng suốt mà nhìn nhận. Để quay lại, sửa giảm tính trăng hoa cũng dĩ nhiên là khó hơn rất nhiều so với chuyện đi luôn cho đỡ oan!

Hội phụ nữ chúng tôi thống nhất với nhau rằng, với đàn ông thì chỉ nên phân biệt: trăng hoa lộ liễu (có ý coi trời bằng vung), và trăng hoa kín đáo (có chút lịch sự). Vậy thôi!

Phụ nữ thật dễ dãi như thế? Tôi không tin nhưng không dám thử và sẽ không bao giờ thử. Tôi đã bỏ công hơn 18 năm nay để xây dựng niềm tin vì tôi cho rằng trong hôn nhân tin tưởng nhau vẫn là trên hết. Dù phái nam hay phái nữ một khi đã “ăn vụng” rồi thì mọi thứ sẽ không còn trọn vẹn nữa. Cho dù được tha thứ nhưng sẽ không bao giờ lãng quên.

Đọc Vẫn yêu cho vui dễ không quên chữ Việt thôi chứ áp dụng trong đời sống thì phải cẩn thận. Trăng hoa bảo đảm sẽ đổ vỡ chén cơm gia đình. Thử hỏi mấy ông chồng về Việt Nam một mình là biết ngay.

In Black Mozart, Jon Batiste reimagines classical music with the sound of Blackness. On “Alla Blues,” he keeps Mozart’s core melody, but invigorates it with the distinctive twelve-bar blues. He takes it even further on “Alla Turc Movement” with his jazz improvisation. On “Twinkle,” Batiste rejuvenates Mozart’s elementary melody in “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman” with the fascinating stride accompaniment. Batiste turns “Molto” into a blue-jazz standard, but he also turns it up a notch on “Molto in Cayo Hueso” with hypnotizing Spanish rhythms and stomps. Black Mozart might be too sacrilegious for pure classical heads, but the Batiste gives Mozart a fresh vibe. Keep doing your thang, B.

“Không Phải Em” là Flash thứ nhì thiết kế cho Đàm Vĩnh Hưng hơn 20 năm trước (có thể là năm 2004). Hôm nay được chuyển sang video và tải lên YouTube để lưu trữ. Mời cả nhà xem lại.