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Spirit
of Aloha | Articles
| Aloha Shorts | July/August
2006
Aloha
Shorts
News
and Notes from Around our World
It’s a Bird,
It’s a Plane,
It’s a T-Shirt
Just in time to celebrate Aloha Airlines’ 60th anniversary is a bunch of vintage T-shirts that honor the glorious days of flying, when air
travel was still a romantic adventure and meals were not served in bags. Aloha Airlines employee Kyle Thompson has created a collection of retro shirts that feature many gone-but-not-forgotten carriers, including Pan Am, Braniff, Wien Alaska, TWA, Swissair, plus old standbys like Qantas, Aeroflot, United, Lufthansa and others. Right now, you can only order online at aerobluedesigns.com Check this site for different designs, sizes, colors and prices. Take to the skies in style.
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This Time, a Chamberlain is the King
All the elements of a royal production are in hand with the news that Richard Chamberlain will star in the Hawai‘i Opera’s 2006 Louis Vuitton Summer Season presentation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I. A long-time resident of Hawai‘i and heart-throb veteran of stage and screen, Chamberlain will share the stage with Jordan Segundo (American Idol sensation) and Kristian Lei (Miss Saigon), with music by 30 members of the Honolulu Symphony with guest artist Michael Ching, artistic director of the Opera Memphis, conducting, and stage direction by Broadway producer Martin Rabbett. Six performances of the musical (still a no-no in Thailand), based on the controversial story of Anna and the King of Siam, are scheduled: regular performances on July 21 and 28, Sunday matinees on July 23 and 30, a military/group night on July 22 and a children’s matinee on July 29. Ticket information at 596-7858 and at the Hawai‘i Opera Theatre box office. Shall we dance? |
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Celebration Time, Come On
Hawai‘i’s first sugar plantation got started in 1835 on the south shore of the island of Kaua‘i at Kōloa, where the work was hard and the workers had little time for pleasure. But when the many ethnic groups that had come to Hawai‘i for plantation work did celebrate, they really kicked up their heels. You can relive some of the area’s social history, natural history and diverse cultural traditions during the nine-day Kōloa Plantation Days 2006 festivities from July 22 through July 30, held on the site where the plantation was founded. The theme is “Immigration Celebration, Plantation Style.” The event celebrates the immigrants who came from Europe, the Azores, Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere—all of whom contributed to Hawai‘i’s luminescent melting pot. Events, many of which are free, include a rodeo, a women’s barrel race and the finish of a Hawaiian sailing-canoe race from O‘ahu. Call 822-0734 for more information or go online to www.koloaplantationdays.com |
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Music
in the (Clean) Air
One of Hawai‘i’s most heralded but least publicized classical music festivals begins its second season on the Big Island July 12 through 31 at Waimea’s Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy (HPA). Some 50 highly talented vocalists and instrumentalists from around the world participate in the 17-day study and performance program, which, to the delight of classical music lovers, also offers 14 unique concerts in six different venues, all open to the public. This year, a cabaret evening starring Angelina Reaux, who has been described as “a cross between Callas and Piaf,” kicks off the festivities on July 12 in Kainaliu. Then, on July 15, Jim Walker of the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles performs at the opening night concert at HPA on July 15. And much, much more. The complete schedule, with ticket information, can be downloaded at
www.hawaiiperformingartsfestival.org |
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One Way to Get to O‘ahu
The world championship of paddleboarding is not for the faint of heart. It spans a distance of 32 miles over ocean depths that reach 2,300 feet, from the treacherous Ka‘iwi (Moloka‘i) Channel to the shoreline of Maunalua Bay, O‘ahu. The course takes from five to eight hours, through changing tides, currents, swells and—Lord have mercy—sharks. The 10th anniversary race, featuring the finest long-distance paddlers in the world, will be held on Sunday, July 30. It is sponsored by Quiksilveredition. About 100 intrepid men and a few women will attempt the crossing on their long, narrow, streamlined craft, which measure up to 18 feet in length and may look like surfboards, but don’t always act like surfboards. The best time last year was recorded by an Australian: five hours, five minutes, nine seconds. Hang on. |
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A Drip-Dry Guide
to Reef Fish
Three Honolulu firefighters, seeking to supplement their income and share their ocean knowledge, started to give surf lessons in 1999. They called their company Hawaiian Fire. Today, they have 35 employees, give some 9,000 surf lessons a year, have a surf shop and an online presence. Almost all of the instructors are active Honolulu City firefighters, and each holds safety credentials, including CPR, EMT-B and open-water rescue certifications. To escape Waikīkī’s crowds, they operate from a secluded beach, 30 minutes west of the more famous beach. They pick you up, give you a two-hour surf lesson and drop you off after. Great for children and anybody else who wants to learn the rudiments of surfing. Check out www.hawaiianfire.com or call 737-3473. |
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Portuguese Sausage
and War Clubs
Everything made in Hawai‘i—well, almost everything—will be featured at the First Hawaiian Bank’s 11th Annual Made in Hawaii Festival booked into the Neal Blaisdell Center for August 18 through 20. Some 400 booths of products are the highlights: lauhala bracelets, crocheted purses, war clubs, home accessories, food, glorious food and cooking demonstrations. It costs $3 to get in. More info at www.madeinhawaiifestival.com |
MUSIC:
Now Hear This!
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:
• Brother Noland—Mystical Fish: On the heels of his big hit “Coconut,” this long-time Island favorite is back with distinctive rhythms that have been variously overhyped as a cross between Jamaican and Hawaiian, or even Jawaiian or cha-lypso, it’s your choice. Lyrics like “Aloha live inside my soul” set the stage for a gala, easy-listening performance, with happily distilled clarities filtered through muted emotional surges. Best tune is probably the get-up-and-boogie opener, “Backfire,” although every listener is sure to have a favorite on this sparkling album.
• Various Artists—Slack Key Guitar, Volume 2 : Ten solid, solo acoustic guitarists, among the many greats from the Islands, banded together in Waimea on the Big Island of Hawai‘i to record this album, which ultimately inhabited a world all its own when it won a Grammy Award last year. Many special slack key styles are featured, from traditional to contemporary, and if you’ve never heard the beauty and harmony of this instrument in its rarest form, this is, arguably, the album to fetch.
• Candes—A Change in Me: Miss Hawai‘i 1999’s second CD is a tribute to American musical history, with all but one tune identified with Broadway musicals. This isn’t Hawaiian music, but it’s nice to listen to, just the same, and for a good cause, since Candes, whose full name is Candes Meijide Gentry, donates a share of the proceeds to select nonprofit organizations |
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Books
Enjoy, Conserve, Protect.
How do we save the seas? Start with 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, by David Helvarg, founder of Blue Frontier, with foreword by Philippe Cousteau (Inner Ocean Publishing, Makawao, Maui, 2006). The brisk, practical, sometimes humorous guide tells us how to protect local water tables, when we should vacation, how to dive responsibly, what fish to eat and not to eat, how to restore a stream or river, and what to learn when we visit an aquarium, among many subjects. In his introduction, the author points out that “the United States owes much of its wealth, bounty and heritage to the blue in our red, white and blue.” Now it’s up to us to save the blue.
Fighting Art
Four nā ‘ōlohe lua masters, descendants of Hawaiian warrior priests, Maui chiefs or long-time practitioners of martial arts forms, have come together in Lua: Art of the Hawaiian Warrior (Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 2006), by Richard Kekumuikawaiokeola Paglinawan, Mitchell Eli, Moses Elwood Kalauokalani and Jerry Walker, to share the history, philosophy, techniques, weapons and training practices of this ancient fighting art. A beautiful and lovingly produced book, with many line-art drawings and photos of weapons, Lua shows and tells how this ferocious kind of hand-to-hand fighting broke bones and inflicted severe pain, and how Calvinist Christian missionaries, appalled at this skillful but vicious sight when they arrived in 1820, slowly, and quietly outlawed it to the point where its knowledge, as time passed, was known to only a few experts.
Fishing Art
Another volume in the Bishop Museum Native Hawaiian Culture and Arts Program, Ka ‘Oihana Lawai‘a: Hawaiian Fishing Traditions, by Daniel Kahā‘ulelio, with translation by Mary Kawena Pukui (Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 2006), is the most comprehensive study available of Hawaiian fishing customs, fish sources and methods of procurement. It is based on the knowledge and stories of Daniel Kahā‘ulelio, born on Maui in 1835, who learned the art of fishing from his father and grandfathers in Lahaina, and then went on to become a teacher, legislator and lawyer (he was the police justice of Lahaina for two decades). The style is simple, succinct and eminently readable: “An expert in fishing would let down the fish line as far as the kua or the manamana and when the stone weight is jerked loose, in
no time at all, the hand moves and a fish is caught. The man who caught the first fish boasted proudly, ‘That’s a bundle of thorny hala leaves from Wākiu.’ This is only to tease his fellow fishers.” |
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