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Spirit
of Aloha | Articles
| Aloha Shorts | September/October
2006
Aloha
Shorts
News
and Notes from Around our World
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Waikıkı Undervalued
Since 1935, more than 250 million copies of the game of Monopoly have been sold in 80 countries and 26 languages, and more than 250 different editions of the game have been published. Meanwhile, the real estate market has drastically changed, and so has the lifestyle of present-day America. Thus, the new Here & Now edition of Monopoly, based on the views of 3 million online voters, reflects a more modern version of the country. In this edition, gone are Boardwalk and Park Place, replaced by Times Square in New York and Fenway Park in Boston. Pacific Avenue is now Las Vegas Boulevard, and Tennessee Avenue is the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Indiana Avenue is now Hawai‘i’s own Waikk Beach, priced (we think, modestly) at $2,200,000. Hasbro Games, owner of the Monopoly rights, asked the question: What would the Monopoly game be like if it was invented today? With new tokens and icons like a New Balance Shoe, a Motorola RAZR mobile headset, and a laptop computer to move your way around the board, and a Toyota Prius to drive your way out of jail, now you know. |
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Someday My Prints
Will Come
The 50th anniversary of one of Hawai‘i’s most colorful, up-and-down companies has been cause for a variety of vivid celebrations this fall in and around Honolulu. Tori Richard started in 1956 in a small factory located on Pier 7 and later moved to the old Primo Brewery building in Kaka‘ako. Founders Mort Feldman, Janice Moody and Mistue Aka earned fame and a soaring reputation by designing bold and hotly nuanced women’s resort wear that, in the company’s own words, “utilized print as an art form.” In the ’80s, Tori Richard became known mainly as a men’s aloha wear company. In the ’90s, the company returned to its roots as a women’s resort wear trailblazer, and in 2003 opened its first retail shops. At a celebratory dinner and fashion show in October, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, wearing a suit and tie, proclaimed Tori Richard Day in the Islands, and he was the perfect man for the job: His Honor is well known for buying Tori Richard shirts “by the dozen.” |
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The Art of Dali
In his lifetime, Spanish artist Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was variously described as the greatest artist of the surrealist art movement, a master of 20th-century art and an eccentric paranoid. His work, much of it controversial, gave new meaning to the art term “photorealism,” and visitors to Maui will be able to glimpse some of it beginning in November at Vintage European Posters on Front Street in Lahaina. Alan Dickar, owner of this gallery and another at Whalers Village, in partnership with the Gala Foundation in Spain, has acquired 50 special-edition sets of rare, original Dali lithographs, which he will unveil to the general public in a grand opening, and then sell in boxed sets. The posters were created in 1974 to inaugurate the Theatro Museo Dali in Dali’s birthplace in Figueres, Spain, just before he gave up painting because of palsy. More information at 661-9788 and by e-mail at sara@europeanposters.com |
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No Bull
Or, we should say, a lot of bull, when the world’s toughest bull riders bring their derring do to the Blaisdell Center in Honolulu Nov. 17 and 18, competing for $80,000 in prize money. The event, a first for Hawai‘i, is called—hold on for this—the Cheeseburger Island Style PBR Hawai‘i All Star Challenge, presented by Amp’d Mobile, but it’s an extravaganza that features elite riders like two-time world champions Adriano Moraes of Brazil and Chris Shivers of Louisiana, and 2005 world champ Justin McBride of Oklahoma. The Honolulu event is one of 250 PBR-sanctioned competitions held yearly. More information at www.pbrnew.com |
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Moon Goddess
Under the Stars
On a recent evening under the stars, the famous pig god Kamapua‘a suddenly appeared, moving between the tables, grunting and showing off his long, curved, glistening tusks. He was in good company that night at the grand opening of the dinner show “Kamaha‘o” (“astonishing”), at the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort and Spa on the Kona Coast of the Big Island. Here was Hina, the moon goddess, twirling in the sky; here was Maui, the rascal boy-god teasing his brothers; here was a mermaid, a fire dancer, even a forest of walking trees. The show features a series of dramatized vignettes taken from Hawaiian myth and put to the rhythm of drums, chant, song and hula. In tone, the stories range from somber to slapstick. Kamaha‘o performances take place each Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, preceded by a sumptuous buffet dinner featuring Island specialties and an open bar. Reservations at 322-4747 |
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A Life-Saving Web Site
Sadly enough, Hawai‘i’s drowning rate is twice as high as anyplace else in the U.S., and the island of Kaua‘i has the most visitor drownings. This is a matter of growing concern for everyone in the state and a major call to action has now spawned an indispensable guide to Kaua‘i’s beaches, called the Kaua‘i Beach Explorer.
Utilizing the power and huge audience reach of the Internet, designers Winston Welborn and Justin Britt and their team at Wasabi Marketing Elements have created a highly useful, feature-packed Web site that gathers information from the reliable sources of the county of Kaua‘i, Kaua‘i Fire Department and Ocean Safety Bureau, Kaua‘i Visitors Bureau, Kaua‘i Water Safety Task Force, National Weather Service and other key agencies to provide essential up-to-the-minute beach safety facts.
This is information that a visitor can easily understand. It includes frequently updated daily reports from lifeguard stations around the island. It features 16 of the most popular Kaua‘i beaches, with activities, hazards and other important information. There is also visitor feedback, with many downloadable features.
Go to kauaiexplorer.com to use this important site. |
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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:
• Afatia—5:54: The multitalented son of local entertainment icons Jack Tihati and Cha Thompson, of Tihati Productions, Afatia is well versed in show business, and he has a depth of talent. A graduate of Punahou High School and the University of Hawai‘i, Afatia was the lead singer in a five-man group called Reign in 2000, and graduated to his first solo album naturally. He can do a beautiful ballad or a fire-knife dance song, with tracks like “All I Got” and “Paradise” blending urban hip-hop beats with Island
flavors. (Soulenesia Studios, Tihati Productions)
• Amy Ha¯naiali‘i—Generation Hawai‘i: The grammy-nominated local icon is at her very best with this new collection of 14 songs, many written by herself. The new album features mostly traditional Hawaiian music, along with a special Tahitian track, a jazzy nod to Hilo town and a bonus track written by Michael Ruff, the noted songwriter and musician, who also produced the album. New focus on tradition, culture and family, and already a big hit in Hawai‘i. (Mountain Apple Co.)
• Jeff Peterson—Slack Key Guitar: Peterson’s signature slack key style was dominant on the first Hawai‘i Grammy Award-winning CD (Slack Key Guitar Volume 2), and his diverse musical influences are well featured in his collection. “He’s a solo performer and a jazz performer, and he appeals to both groups,” says Brickwood. “On this CD he deals with a vast musical landscape, with some very good originals. It’s a nice mix of music, with slack key standards.” (Palm Records) |
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Books
How to Survive Hawai‘i
Writer Michael C. Perkins spent two years researching this book (Surviving Paradise, Quidnunc Press, 2006), interviewing lifeguards, park rangers, police, geologists and search-and-rescue personnel, to accumulate first-hand knowledge about the hazards and hidden dangers of Paradise, and concluded that visitors usually get into trouble in Hawai‘i “because they don’t have the right information.” (Also see kauaiexplorer.com on page 38). Perkins points out that most people who drown in Hawai‘i’s unpredictable waters were not behaving recklessly, but were simply unaware of unique wave patterns. He covers drownings, volcanoes, surfing, helicopters, flash floods, sharks, tsunamis and highway driving in Hawai‘i. While the book may seem unnecessarily alarming, the stories that he tells are essential to safety and a long life. Available online at www.lulu.com/content/370075
How to Survive Hawai‘i—Part II
Another, less serious take on Hawai‘i—stories about such dangers as crazy ants, wild missionaries, little neighbor girls armed with forks, box jellyfish, house geckos and Spam musubi—are the consistently funny fodder of local humorist Charles Memminger. This collection (Hey Waiter, There’s an Umbrella in My Drink, Watermark Publishing, Honolulu, 2006) of Memminger’s favorite columns from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, called “Honolulu Lite,” has an introduction by big-time cookie maker Wally Amos (a pretty good comic in his own right), and 73 examples of the kind of funny writing that got Memminger twice named as the top humor columnist in the U.S. for newspapers under 100,000 circulation.
Cowboy Country
Stories of Hawai‘i’s cowboys, the paniolo of all the Islands, have been well told for many years, since the cowboys became a significant presence in the Islands in 1793. This new, beautifully written and illustrated paperbound volume (Rough Riders: Hawai‘i’s Paniolo and Their Stories, Island Heritage Publishing, 2006) updates the legends, tells new stories, describes life on the ranch and how cattle get to market from very long distances. The author, Ilima Loomis, a Maui-based newspaper journalist, writes: “The true paniolo embodied the best of Hawaiian masculinity … The taming of a bucking horse and the roping of a wild bull became tests of manhood in a world where the ancient rites of passage were fading away.”
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