Theater / When you stop and think about it, Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz is a musical based on a book (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) based on a movie (The Wizard of Oz) based on a book (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), yet for some reason, the play grossed more than $1.5 million at the Blaisdell during the final week of December alone. My question is: Why?
Waikiki has exploded since the summer of ’73, when Eric Yanagi, then a 22-year-old commercial photographer struggling to make rent, set off into its side streets with his camera and $500 of State money to document a city in transition. The state was rich with tourism, and government money could be spent on art, so he applied for a grant and was awarded.
Pat yourself on the back, because you just made it through yet another year filled with predictions of the end of days (See: Y2K, 2000; The Rapture, 2011). We’ve compiled a list of the best New Year’s Eve parties to usher in the triskaidekaphobe’s favorite year (and oh, are we ready for the mass hysteria).
Art / To cope with the commercial limitations of the Honolulu art market, most of our art galleries behave like shops, showcasing an array of merchandise created by their assorted artists, rather than exhibiting cohesive bodies of work prepared for specific shows. When the Andrew Rose Gallery opened on Bishop Street a year ago, art makers and appreciators were thrilled by the concept of a real art gallery in Honolulu presenting shows that feature artworks made by an individual and intended to be viewed together.
Culture / You may only have a few hours to read this article, depending on when you meet it, as this week’s Weekly hits the red boxes on a day that might be humans’ last ever, according to one 12/12/12 theory. Even so, when the final sentence in the Mayan long-count calendar reaches its last period on the 21st, some unknown event will apparently ruin our day: A giant invisible dwarf planet called Nibiru/Planet X/Eris–at this point, isn’t a name arbitrary?–will park itself somewhere between your house and mine and explode us, or our magnetic poles will trade spots and send us flying into space, or the Earth will shift from the current third dimension into the zero and then fourth dimensions, aligning with the sun and the rest of the planets and triggering a two-day total blackout (which wouldn’t kill us, but I would probably miss Nashville).
Theater / When I saw Cats two years ago at the Blaisdell Concert Hall, I realized why I don’t go to musicals: They don’t make any sense. How am I supposed to believe that singing cats immediately know the words to impromptu songs?
Book Reviews / Between 1862–63 King Kamehameha IV, born Alexander ‘Iolani Liholiho Keawenui, completed and published the first Hawaiian translation of The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. As part of the church’s 150th anniversary of its founding, the Episcopal Church in Hawaiʻi has reprinted the King’s translation.
Book Reviews / Rich in historic photographs, personal stories and the details derived from careful research, Lihue Mill offers an in-depth look at how 150 years of sugar cultivation turned Lihue into the political hub of Kauai, a distinction it still holds, though its mill is now shuttered. TenBruggencate, longtime Kauai correspondent for The Honolulu Advertiser, digs deep to uncover unfamiliar tidbits about the origins of sugar and its stuttering history on Kauai.
Our first annual Holiday Book is sure to have the best gift for that materialistic, passive-aggressive friend who guilts you into buying them something for Christmas when they already have everything. Cubsitting It’s more than a babysitting experience.
Get it out of your head that craft fairs only consist of wool sweaters hand-knit by grandmas–our local market has choke creative gifts that you won’t find anywhere else. Shop local this holiday season.
Theater / Kumu Kahua Theatre has a major hit on its hands with the new Edward Sakamoto play, Fishing for Wives. If you haven’t reserved tickets yet, you’d better burn some incense and pray that the show adds some performances before its Dec.
Art / It’s a rare moment in gallery culture when the viewer is allowed as equal access to the work on display as to the artist herself, but Harinani Orme and the ii Gallery crew have accomplished this with relative ease. Or, at least, it certainly feels like it.
Theater / Here’s the thing to remember as you watch Uncle Vanya and Zombies: It’s not Uncle Vanya. Definitely not Uncle Vanya.
Art / With a series of new oil paintings and pastels on display at the Gallery at Ward Center, Mark Norseth asserts himself as one of the finest landscape painters to have worked in Hawaii. Finding inspiration close to his home in Kailua, Norseth depicts Oahu’s rugged southeastern coast with a realistic shorthand reminiscent of the plein air paintings by John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sarolla.
At The ARTS at Marks Garage, filled with sunlight, hang Debra Drexler’s wall-sized abstract paintings in fiery yellows, reds and blues. A professor of art at UH Manoa who lives in Kailua and spends her summers painting in her Brooklyn studio, Drexler met with the Weekly shortly after Hurricane Sandy flooded the city, bringing to mind the dark undercurrents of her luminous work.
Arts / “The concept of a fringe festival is that it’s open to anyone and anybody can perform, whether you’re a new or emerging artist or a professional,” says Misa Tupou, the organizer of the second Oahu Fringe Festival (OFF), kicking off on Thursday at various venues in Chinatown. “Fringe Festival doesn’t judge you; they appreciate you giving your soul, creating your work.” Tupou came to Hawaii from New Zealand a few years ago and found what he saw was a strong arts community with a breadth of everything from visual to performing art, but without a format allowing artists to really shine together.
Q&A / John Cruz’s music bridges the Pacific divide. A Grammy winner and Jack Johnson collaborator, Cruz comes from Palolo and a family of musicians that includes the Kaau Crater Boys, and his hit, “Island Style,” has become a Hawaiian standard.
Community / The city of Honolulu has stepped into the fray of Chinatown’s ongoing nightlife dysfunction, and First Friday, the art movement that occurs between 5–9pm on the first Friday of each month to support local art and economy, is not without consequence. The City and County of Honolulu Department of Transportation (DOT) held a meeting at the Hawaii Theatre on Wed., Oct.
Halloween / The details are thin, but what we know so far is this: There is a lady from Laie named Nalani who, in some unknown freak accident, lost both her son, her lover, and so, too, her mind. Now she haunts the murky waters of the lagoon at the Polynesian Cultural Center with angry arms and huge, fried black hair, like the “before” picture in a Garnier Fructis commercial.
Let’s face it: In a worldwide zombie apocalypse, Hawaii is a goner. Just one infected person would wipe out Oahu in a matter of minutes.
For many Honolulu workaholics, Downtown@HISAM (the Hawaii State Art Museum) was an oasis for those of us who wanted fresh, delicious, local slow food for lunch. In a world without, what’s a working stiff to do?
Hula / How rare it is in 2012 to see hula outside of a competition or public performance–unless, of course, you are a hula student, in which case all you see is yourself in the mirrored wall, making mistakes, and kumu giving you The Look. But for students of aunties Leilani and Puanani Alama, Oct.
Entertainment / The moment it hits 5 o’clock on a Friday, you have a choice: Go home and relax after a long week of slavery to The Man, or go out and celebrate your temporary freedom. I chose option B the other week by hitting up Hang Ten at the Mai Tai Bar on the top level of Ala Moana Center.
Arts / As Hawaii celebrates the 110th year since Koreans first arrived in the Islands, the East-West Center (EWC) at UH Manoa presents a series of opportunities to experience this remarkable creative culture. “Dancing the Spirit: Korean Masks, Music, & Social Concerns”–a series that includes an arts exhibition, live performances, film screenings and talks–is a superb chance to discover traditional masks, dance, music and films, which remain far less known and appreciated outside the former Hermit Kingdom than, say, K-soaps and K-pop.
The show is called Off the Cuff, but the pieces to adorn this part-jewelry showcase, part-art exhibit are anything but offhand, unplanned creations. “Jewelry doesn’t have to be precious, and it doesn’t have to be just an accessory–it can be the focal point,” says Hifi co-founder Melissa White.
For as long as we can remember, Chinatown has been notorious for drugs, homelessness and filthy streets. Some claim nothing has changed–and that it never will.
Bicyclists have long been overlooked by four-wheel riders on Honolulu’s congested streets. In the gleaming, armored pecking order of the road, cyclists are too often dismissed as lane hogs, hand-signaling nuisances and unfortunates who can’t afford cars.
The fate of some 1,525 acres of land at Hoopili in ‘Ewa may have been decided last Wednesday in Hawaii’s First Circuit Court. The decision might have gone differently, but the appellant attorneys’ strategy seemed to collapse as Judge Rhonda Nishimura picked it apart based on technical errors.
Last Thursday, May 9, the Caldwell administration revealed its action plan for solving Honolulu’s homeless problem. But at the City Council’s budget meeting the same day, Budget chair Ann Kobayashi wanted to know where the money for “Housing First” (see Cover Story, pg.
The Mayor Wright Housing project has been slated for major redevelopment by the Hawaii State Housing Authority (HSHA); requests for qualifications will be going out to developers in three to six months. Nonprofit group Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE) wants to make sure the project’s tenants have a say in the redevelopment process, which could include major renovations or a total rebuild.
The Honolulu City Council held a special Committee on Transportation meeting on Tuesday, May 7, to go over its Complete Streets initiative with input from the department directors of Design and Construction (DDC), Planning and Permitting (DPP) and Transportation Services (DTS). At prior meetings, including the Moiliili workshop, community members pressed the idea of combining Complete Streets with Caldwell’s repaving projects, which Dan Burden of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute and some councilmembers have said makes sense.
Not much to agree with my friend Doc Berry (“Limits of Growth,” April 17). None of the scenarios he posits will ever materialize.
In your Diary of May 8 (“End of the 27th)” you reported on SB 1214, passed by the Legislature. In their nimble way, the Legislature tacked the wheel boot prohibition on a bill that was intended to abolish the Commission on Transportation.
On Friday, May 3, at 3:45 p.m., I was driving town bound through the Wilson tunnel on the Likelike. I was parallel to another car, and there were several other cars following closely behind me.
Congratulations Honolulu Weekly on the recent Pai award for investigative reporting (“Boss GMO,” Jan. 4, 2012).
When the biofuel guys say that costs are “confidential” (“Big-foot Biofuel,” May 8), I reply that since I am the one who is going to end up paying the cost, I have a right to know. Frankly, when everybody tries to hide the costs, I smell rat …
The Foster Botanical Garden never ceases to inspire for an urban setting it is like a step back in time (“See the Flora,” May 8). If Koko Crater Botanical Garden contains the world’s largest plumeria collection as suggested, it may be thanks in part to the Prussian born Dr.
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