The Descendants is a stunning movie, full of surprises, its visual sweep and rhythm tied to Hawaiian music, its pacing as changeable as the weather and tragicomic adventures of our days. She knew it would be true to Hawaii, author Kaui Hart Hemmings told the Weekly, when they were filming on Kauai and it rained.
In this week’s issue, the Weekly celebrates the Made in Hawaii label, one that nearly disappeared just a few decades ago. On the cover, you’ll find the Primo Brewing & Malting Company, a 1913 image of workers who once believed that their beer would make Milwaukee jealous.
In the old-timey section of Kalihi, tucked between auto repair shops and boarded-up storefronts, Maza Attari, a Marshall Islander, lived with four family members in a one-bedroom apartment barely bigger than a ping-pong table. When visited by this reporter last summer, Attari had been unable to find steady work since being flown to Honolulu 12 years ago for back surgery that had left him with a severe limp and weakened muscles.
A book is a book is a book When APEC, the economy or the holidays bring your life to a grinding halt, hey, be happy for the chance to curl up with a book, be it in digital or–brace yourselves–paper form. Even the big new bio of the late father of Apple has come out in print, leading Stephen Colbert to repeatedly swipe at the cover photo of Steve Jobs to no avail.
Halloween / Since it’s not an election year, we decided to present you with the thirteen scariest people on the island. (Usually election-year Halloweens are scary enough without any help from us.) Granted, some of these people aren’t scary-looking, but the activities they engage in are kinda spooky.
In the 1990s, during a canoe race, Nancy Gove unthinkingly licked her arm, where an unusual amount of salt spray had dried. “It tasted better than any salt I’d ever tasted, so I decided to investigate why,” she says.
Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa, Ko Olina, Hawaii, opened its doors to guests on Aug. 29, signalling a new, synergistic relationship between two of the biggest brands in the tourism industry: Disney and Hawaii.
In this year’s bar guide, we’re celebrating some perennial faves, bars that are new, some that have changed and others too often overlooked. Having wet their beaks in a selection of Oahu neighborhoods, our bar-hopping writers provide a modern tour of the Island’s ever-changing, ever-fading revelry.
“Do you like things bitter?” ourbartender asks. My friend crosses her legs tighter, removes a wild strand of something uncouth like dog hair from the sleeve of my sweater, and hisses, “Yes.” We first overheard the news on Facebook.
Amidst the usual suspects of hipper-than-thou clubs and bars, the Facebook status-ed blogged and tweeted–there’s an undercovered place: BambuTwo. BambuTwo is the Rick’s Cafe of Chinatown.
I owe the roof over my head to one long-vanished Honolulu bar I’ve never seen, except in pictures. It was opened on Liliha Street during the war, and it was one of the first integrated bars, where black and white servicemen were equally welcome.
It’s dusk. North Shore surfers catch last waves, and beach bums turn in the towel.
With their big, glistening eyes and round heads, whiskered smiles and hand-like flippers, Hawaiian monk seals–on the federal endangered species list since 1976–make for a winsome poster child. Since the early 1990s, when sightings of the rare creatures became a regular appearance throughout the inhabited Hawaiian Islands, tourists have flocked to take their pictures.
When you think of Honolulu’s art and design scene, do you think arthropod excrement, superimposed portraits of twentysomethings, confined spaces, APEC, coffee houses and home furnishings? We do too.
This fall, from the indie cred-heavy Hallowbaloo to the big stage at the Blaisdell, mark your calendars for acts to fit any of your musical moods. Don’t forget to keep your eyes on the Weekly in the upcoming months as well.
A good potpourri blends perfumes and petals, spices and…musk. Smell informs taste, and this theatre season’s offerings range from the redolent with sentiment like Phantom (this season’s big bouquet); a cool neo-classic like House of Blue Leaves; something primal and complex like Oedipus the King; or funky like a monkey on late nights at the Kennedy Theatre.
Yes, we’re totally dying to see Daniel Craig and that chick with the mean tat. We’re also breathless with anticipation for Leo doing J.
On Aug. 31, the Justice Department sued to stop AT&T’s acquisition of rival T-Mobile, USA on grounds that the merger would result in higher prices and fewer consumer choices.
After the Aug. 3 Midweek cover story featuring the next generation of chefs, all nine of them male, some were left asking: where are the female chefs?
Dope Hits the Fan Following the legalization of pot cultivation for medical purposes in California in 1996, Humboldt County saw a 25 percent rise in per-capita residential electricity use in comparison to the rest of California, according to data compiled by Humboldt State University. Perhaps even bigger than Humboldt’s newfound thirst for grid power was its “diesel dope” scene: thousands of plants, sometimes grown in buried shipping containers and fed by diesel-fired generators, the kind used for hospitals in emergencies.
Ever since their installment in 2000, medical marijuana laws in Hawaii were made to be broken–literally. Patients who acquire a license (“blue card”) for medicinal use will find that dispensaries are illegal in Hawaii, due to the federal Controlled Substance Act (CSA) enacted in 1970.
Addiction is a slippery downward spiral that transforms substances we once enjoyed in moderation to something we can’t seem to live without. Think cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.
Best of Honolulu / We gather every year to toast the things we love about Honolulu–the best foods, bars, entertainers and artists and the best things around this island that keep us honest. The Best Of Honolulu issue is our way of bringing the island together–by having you tell us what you think, and responding with a few thoughts of our own.
David Cheever started his decades-long marketing career in Hawaii as VP of Marketing for a local bank. Eight years later, he launched his own marketing business, serving banks, food companies, retailers, lawyers, architects, contractors, resorts, tech companies and non-profits.
Wilco will probably never amass the mainstream star power contained in a single strand of Justin Bieber’s golden locks, but it’s not something the group’s ring leader, Jeff Tweedy, is lamenting over. The aging, grizzled dad, who resides in Chicago with his two sons and his wife Sue, feels fortunate and grateful for the more-than-comfortable success he’s enjoyed since his humble beginnings.
Given the city’s crumbling infrastructure and rail controversy, it’s hard to believe anyone would want to be the next mayor of Honolulu. But a few do want the job, including the incumbent, Mayor Peter Carlisle, the former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney who won a 2010 special election to fill the remainder of Mufi Hannemann’s term.
I’d never been to a Honolulu City Council meeting until a few weeks ago. Features, not politics, was my beat.
Victoria Holt Takamine is a kumu hula, a cultural activist and a teacher and has an impeccable pedigree to back up all these titles. Born of an alii family whose kuleana was in Moanalua, she graduated as a hula teacher under the legendary Auntie Maiki Aiu Lake and taught hundreds of students in her own halau (Pua Alii ‘Ilima) and at the University of Hawaii.
On April 25, a state judge dismissed trespassing charges against a Kauai man after finding that he had been exercising traditional native Hawaiian rights hunting wild pigs on private land. Kui Palama, 28, was arrested on Jan.
The city plans to dish out $3.5 million from its Affordable Housing Fund and either purchase or renovate a structure to provide transitional housing for Honolulu’s special needs homeless population. “Our community has invested considerable effort and resources in addressing homelessness,” Mayor Peter Carlisle said in a statement, “but there remains a population whose disabilities or chronic conditions make it difficult for them to participate in traditional shelter programs.” Carlisle is referring to those homeless with mental illnesses, addictions and physical disabilities.
Makaweli Poi faces an uncertain future after its owner, a corporate subsidiary of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) ordered the West Kauai mill to suspend operations May 23. Mona Bernardino, chief operating officer of the corporation, Hiipoi LLC, says the move to shut down Makaweli Poi was prompted mainly by financial concerns.
A resolution adopted by the City Council will solidify an agreement between the City and County of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii Water Resources Research Center (UH-WRRC) to conduct an analysis of impacts from ocean sewer outfalls on the marine environments off of Oahu. The city will pay UH-WRRC as much as $2.5 million for biological and sediment studies in portions between now and June 30, 2017 .
Along with the deep, verdant growth of spring sprouts an unyielding desire to spend more time in the open air. That’s why it should come as no surprise that National Bike Month falls in the sun-drenched time of May.
Of the many letters you publish against rail, how many offer an alternative that won’t send us into further economic demise? Billions of gallons of oil are imported for us from every oil-producing nation on this planet so that we can buy billions of gallons of gasoline.
TheBus is taking a back seat to rail. At the May 3 Downtown Neighborhood Board meeting, an audience member asked city Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka when we could expect the bus route cancellations and changes to be reversed.
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