Book / I am listening to Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. You know the main theme: flutes, drums, chants and war cries, and then the mariachi-surf guitar comes in.
Music / No one enjoys interrupting a musician’s Skype chat with his one- and five-year-old daughters. However, deadlines approach, and this interview must go on.
Culture / The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (known to many of us as the “Sylmar Quake”) struck the Valley just as the sun was rising. It caused 10 miles of discontinuous surface ruptures and aftershocks that induced four more quakes.
Games / With its recent price drop to $169.99, if you can spare the change, now is as good a time as any to upgrade your Nintendo unit to a 3DS. As if you need to be told, the Nintendo 3DS’s top screen is, you got it, in 3D; the effect is there without the need for cumbersome, uncomfortable glasses.
Literature / “We were tourists in France,” writes Juliana Spahr in her new book, Well Then There Now, “There were long lines. My mother waited in them.
Art / Remember that Apocalypse-themed dance party you went to this summer in your wicked, brand new, season-ready Christopher Kane bruiser accessorized with a tired low-hanging pewter-owl-wearing-a-silver-monocle-in-a-copper-birdcage necklace that you throw on lazily every evening? Yawn.
Art / This may sound harsh, but if you haven’t attended this year’s Artists of Hawaii exhibition at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, you’re basically indirectly suggesting that Hawaii doesn’t need a visual arts community. You’re passively buying into a theory that suggests we, as community citizens, don’t have an obligation to prove to the rest of the world that art in Hawaii exists far beyond hyper colored palm trees and geckos wearing hats.
Short a casting disaster or a fire burning the place down, Diamond Head Theatre (DHT) simply couldn’t miss by adding Hairspray to its season. Based on the 1988 film by John Waters, the musical is a crowd-pleasing shot of toe-tapping energy that only an enemy of fun would hate.
Music / Stretched out on the searing pavement, just out of earshot from (what’s considered in punk-years) a very old cover band at Anna’s, sits the proud and vaguely tipsy group of local heroes orchestrating the third annual DIY punk show, No Suck Fest 2011. A few drinks and games of pool later, and the NSF organizers Dana Paresa, Jayme Shimomura, Elle Granger, Kevin Feagins, Shawn Andrews and Nic Ramos (minus Harry Michaelson) are ready to discuss the forthcoming festival destined to not suck.
Julio Cesar Miranda / July 5: Rest and relaxation may have been on many people’s post Fourth of July agenda, but Waipahu’s own Brian Viloria was up at 4:30 in the morning ready to partake in a 7-mile jog. Following a workout and spar session, in preparation for his title fight against WBO Flyweight Champion, Julio Cesar Miranda, the “Hawaiian Punch” spoke with the Weekly from Los Angeles about why he doesn’t talk trash before a fight, what it’s like to play the underdog role and what it will take for the two-time world champion to get title number three.
Hawai‘i Symphony / Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 was his last complete symphony, an ominous choice for the final concert by the Honolulu Symphony on Dec.
Wrath, Darren Waterston / After circling his 22-foot sculpture Wrath at The Contemporary Museum, it’s safe to say the Hawaiian goddess Pele’s notorious mood swings left quite the impression on Darren Waterston. As part of the Contemporary’s artist-in-residence program, the New York artist spent a year traveling in Hawaii, hiking Volcanoes National Park and researching writings and existing images of Pele.
Stephen Gong, Center for Asian American Media / In this day and age, if you want to find out the details to a friend’s party or see the latest conflict going on in the Middle East, you’re probably going to check Facebook or go on YouTube, since snail mail and newspapers are no longer our primary forms of communication. Stephen Gong, executive director of the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) in San Francisco, is aware of the technological shifts that have occurred in the last decade.
Ernesto Pujol / Internationally known conceptual artist Ernesto Pujol hates talking about himself. “I am not important,” he says, “I’m only a sign by the road, pointing in a certain direction.
Lehua honey The white truffle of the honey world, lehua honey is creamy like butterscotch pudding, opaque and delicately floral and utterly perfect scooped from the jar or spread thickly on toast. Available from multiple producers, including Royal Hawaiian Honey, Volcano Island Honey, Big Island Bees.
From the Bay to Hawaii nei, Corey Scoffern aka The Grouch, of the Living Legends hip-hop collective, has always been synonymous with well-thought out lyrics that always hit home. Since the West Coast MC moved to Maui a few years ago, his new home has helped inspire him to put greater good into the universe, this time with Oakland compatriots Zumbi and AmpLive of Zion-I on their new album Heroes in the Healing of the Nation, the follow up to 2006’s highly acclaimed Heroes in the City of Dope project.
Music / It’s been a couple of years since the Weekly last chatted with Wahiawa-raised Danny Seim of Menomena (“The menomenalist,” Nov. 26, 2008).
What do Michelle Obama, Mikhail Baryshnikov and the Queen of Spain have in common? Anastasios Konstantinos Haidemenakis Hondrakis, otherwise known as Taso, jewelry designer and co-owner of Artlines at Ala Moana Shopping Center.
Walk into the Art Gallery at Hawaii Pacific University on the Windward side and meet Chaucer’s pilgrims on the left. They are sitting in the Pilgrim Gallery feasting, according to artist Laura Ruby’s interpretation and sharing tales during their pilgrimage to Canterbury.
Is all you know of the French lanuguage “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” (Merci, Patti LaBelle.) On the flip side of the euro, perhaps all you know of French film is pretentious people snottily smoking Gitanes in their sunglasses. Here to expand your cinematic noggin is Cinematheque Francaise New + Classic French Film, a festival devoted to the movies of France.
Hawaiian Music / Let’s face it: Hawai’i is no New York. We can see how that sentiment might manifest into a sense of yearning, longing or even regret.
Blue Room / Stumble into the Blue Room on South King St. when local noise-rock band Jumbo Black is recording new material and, even as you stand in place to listen, still feel like you’re stumbling.
Free the Robots / After Nosaj Thing, both Teebs and Flying Lotus have graced Chinatown venues within the past couple of years, and now fans of the LA beat scene have another entry from this emerging and evolving genre to enjoy. Free the Robots (or Chris Alfaro) comes to Nextdoor this weekend, courtesy of art and music collective Space & Sound.
It Gets Better Project / Billy Lucas was 15 when he hung himself from the rafters of his grandmother’s barn. Just a few weeks into the school year, he was bullied for being a “fag” and told that “he should go kill himself” by a fellow student.
Green / We are who we are, because of what we do, what we make and what we transform in the world. Yet today, our dominant system of production is wreaking havoc on our ecological systems, depleting rather than renewing or sustaining the world’s natural resources.
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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