Spirit of Aloha | Articles | Aloha Shorts | July/August 2005

Aloha Shorts

News and Notes from Around our World

Honolulu Hits a Century

Much has been made of the 100th anniversary of Las Vegas—a major hoopla now under way with all the firepower of an electrifying and vigorous event—but one of the best-kept secrets of the year, which quietly kicked off with a free concert at Waikïkī Shell on July 1, is the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the City and County of Honolulu. Certainly a more modest event than the Vegas to-do, Honolulu’s centennial will be celebrated through July 1, 2006, with many events still to be announced, all of them celebrating, in the words of the Honolulu Centennial Celebration Commission, “the accomplishments of the City and County … and its citizens over the last 100 years through festival events and community activities that showcase and highlight the pride and aloha that we all have for our Honolulu.” According to the commission, the overriding theme “is to celebrate 100 events and honor 100 citizens that have made a significant contribution to Honolulu.” Stay tuned.





Love on the Beach

Our friends at the Snorkel Bob’s stores in Hawai‘i reminded us recently that the Old Hawaiian system of land management had no state agencies, but instead, depended on love and consequence. From the summit of the mountain down to the beach and the reef, daily life connected all species with nature. This system of ahapua‘a ensured balance through the vigilance of the community, and even today, beachcombers, swimmers and snorkelers still soak up the mana and today must rejoin other species with vigilance and love.

This little prelude was a way to get your attention for a DVD, now made available in different versions by Snorkel Bob’s shops, titled Hawksbill Babies at Mākena Beach, which shows a rare daytime hatching of the most endangered t urtles in the Pacific, filmed by chance in Maui in September 2004 by two naturalists who happened to be visiting a nesting area to ensure its welfare. Behold the miracle of turtle life and a habitat dependent, as always, on human love for survival. A 30-minute teacher’s edition of the DVD is available to educators free by The Snorkel Bob Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to reef defense, with a special introduction by Snorkel Bob on the importance of natural connection, plus an original ‘ukulele score by Wayne Perry. The absorbing hatching footage is also available to the general public as part of Snorkel Bob’s Compleat Reef Video for $15. Make your pick at all Snorkel Bob’s shops and online at www.snorkelbob.com




Heart of the Old Culture

The release of the DVD format of art-historian Herb Kawainui Kane’s legendary 1991 documentary Children of the Long Canoes allows a whole new audience to share the incredible story of the first Hawaiians, told by one of the state’s “Living Treasures.” How did the canoe prove the Hawaiians’ capability to navigate by the stars? What are the laws of kapu (taboo)? How did the first Polynesians to arrive in Hawai‘i live in harmony with nature in this isolated paradise? Good questions, carefully answered, in one of the most unusual tales ever told of the ancient Hawaiians. Available at local music and video stores, or from the Mountain Apple Co. at www.mountainapplecompany.com















Beach Doodads

Imagine a new beach shoe made of what is happily called Proprietary Closed Cell Resin, which comes with an orthotic heel, built-in arch support and tarsal bar positioning for ultimate foot comfort and health, comes in 13-different colors, costs less than $30 and is loved by Ben Affleck and Drew Barrymore. Then imagine wearing these Crocs Beach shoes down to your favorite beach in Hawai‘i carrying an appropriately pre-chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label champagne fashionably adorned in its own tight-fitting, yellow Ice Jacket, with secure side zipper and handsome neck strap. Now you’ve got the right ideas for a happy, memorable day at the beach, tonics for the sun gods, as well as how advanced product placement can work in a travel magazine. For more info, visit: www.crocs.com for the shoes; www.veuve-clicquot.com for the dolled-up champagne.









How to Sleep on Airplane

According to statistics, somehow, someway compiled by a frequent flyer who, while working for multinational companies, used to dash around the country hoping for a few winks inflight, in 2004 in the United States, a fleet of 7,000 planes made 8 million scheduled commercial flights and carried more than 600 million passengers. Many of them were trying to sleep, but, according to John Stallcup, they couldn’t. Stallcup then co-authored a book called How to Sleep on Airplanes, which sold quite a number of copies. Now he has launched a Web site, www.sleeptravel.com, which, he claims, provides everything passengers need to sleep while traveling.

Not only does the site answer specific questions about sleeping on airplanes, it, of course, also has an online store that sells complete sleep kits for short-haul, transcontinental and long-haul flights, with eyeshades, earplugs and inflatable pillows. Snore on.










Leatherman’s Best Beaches

Since 1991, the director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University, a man named Stephen Leatherman, has been carefully studying 650 major public beaches along the U.S. coast, weighing 50 major criteria, then compiling a top-10 list. Over the years, the press has dubbed him Mr. Beach. This year, his list includes three beaches from Hawai‘i, including Hanalei Bay on Kaua‘i, Fleming Beach and Hāmoa Beach, both on Maui. His absolute best beach this year was North Beach at Fort De Soto Park, located southwest of St. Petersburg, Fla.

Criteria for Leatherman’s list range from the coarseness of sand to sewage and algae content in the water, as well as how a beach is managed and balanced between the environment and recreation.

Through the years, Hawai‘i has fared exceptionally well on the list, with different beaches on different islands winning the Leatherman top award 10 times since 1991.





MUSIC: Listen Up

Brickwood Galuteria, Hawaiian 105 KINE’s “Aloha Morning Show” radio host, chooses this list of recommended music from the Islands, with all selections widely available at Island record stores:

• Ohta-San—Ohta-San’s Pacific Potpourri: Indisputable master of the Portuguese-inspired instrument, Herb Ohta delivers a potpourri of ‘ukulele favorites, with a touch of romance, a splash of happiness and a dash of the bittersweet. The musical mix includes Hawaiian, Japanese and Chinese melodies. Joining the master are veteran Hawai‘i performers, including Paul Mark, Jimmy Funai, Danny Otholt and Barney Isaacs.

• Bryan Tolentino—Ka ‘Ukulele Lele: According to legendary entertainer Karen Kaleolani Keawehawai‘i, this solo debut album was conceived at a baby lū‘au in Kāne‘ohe. Later, friends who performed at that gathering came together to do this collection, an entertaining mix of vocals and instrumentals that celebrates life’s simplest pleasures.

• Lyle Ritz and Herb Ohta—A Night of ‘Ukulele Jazz, Live at McCabes: Recorded on Sept. 16, 2000, at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, Calif., this album brings together two of the world’s finest ‘ukulele virtuosos, Lyle Ritz and Herb Ohta, along with acoustic bass player Richard Simon. Many long-time favorites, including Jobim’s “Triste,” Benny Goodman’s “Stompin’ at the Savoy” and Toots Thieleman’s “Bluesette.”



Books

Surf Cindy, Here We Come
Two guides to the woman’s surfing life have simultaneously appeared in bookstores—both, apparently, “told-to books” written by men. Surfer Girl, by Sanoe Lake, with Steven Jarrett (Little, Brown and Co., New York), features the Cali- fornia surfer who starred in the movie Blue Crush (filmed mainly in Hawai ‘i), with a plot described by Lake as “chix teach dix new trix.” The more elaborate Sister Surfer, by Mary Osborne and Kia Afcari (The Lyons Press, Guilford, Conn.) is described as “a woman’s guide to surfing with bliss and courage.” Lots of good oceangoing advice, profusely illustrated.



Beachcombing
John Clark, whose “Hawai‘i’s Best Family Beaches” appears on page 54 in this issue, has recently revised and updated his definitive book Beaches of O‘ahu (A Latitude 20 book from the University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu), which was first compiled and published in 1977. Clark, deputy fire chief for the City and County of Honolulu, has also published books on the beaches of Maui, the Big Island, Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau. Nobody we know in the entire state can write with greater authority on known and relatively unknown beaches. Photos by Mike Waggoner, a water safety section and 22 new maps describing 130 O‘ahu beaches enhance this beach lovers book.

One of the places described in Clark’s book, Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve is given an exhaustive treatment in Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi’s Hanauma Bay: Hawai‘i’s Coastal Treasure (Island Heritage Publishing, Honolulu). Named in 2004 by Dr. Stephen Leatherman as the best beach in the United States. With history, anecdotes, informative sections on marine life, birds and plant life in the bay, plus essential how-to-get-there and what-to-take sections.


More Bark Than Bite
No beachcomber in the widespread Pacific islands can go far without encountering the distinctive products and ancient craft of tapa, made from the inner bark of special trees and turned into cloth or art and artifacts. In Pacific Tapa, by esteemed New Zealand ethnologists Roger Neich and Mick Pendergrast, with photography by Krzysztof Pfeiffer (University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu), the variety and refinement of this art is abundantly and beautifully displayed, and its history, from Papua New Guinea to Hawai‘i, is carefully described. Look for the freehand painted Samoan tapa on the cover of this oversize paperback.                                                                                                                                    

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