Honolulu Weekly

Anna Bannana’s is like a walk-in curio cabinet of loss. The wagon-wheel mirror on the dimly lit wall, the vintage beer trays, the yellowed posters on the ceiling, flyers for concerts that took place decades ago, license plates from cars long since converted into scrap metal and the initials of those who left Honolulu for good carved into the thick wooden slabs of its tabletops. This beloved Moiliili bar itself, and all of its dated treasures, may soon be a thing of the past. Anna Bannana’s sublease expires this year, and it’s unclear whether Bishop Estate, which owns the property and expressed a desire to tear it down in 2000, will opt to renew it.

Brain cells are always getting zapped away. Smoke a cigarette? Lose brain cells. Watch TV? Lose brain cells. Binge drink? Lose brain cells. And while it doesn’t always work quite that way, these and plenty of other activities do rewire our brain function, making the brain slower (not to mention additional health complications that come from dangerous behaviors). Oh, and once we reach adulthood, our brains start shrinking. It’s said that the brain loses up to 10 percent of its weight between ages 20 and 90. So if you ever feel like you’re losing your mind, in a sense, you are.

Childhood is slippery in our remembrances of it, and the myth of childhood as idyllic is surprisingly prevalent given that even those of us who are guided through youth by loving parents and dedicated teachers don’t tend to appreciate these blessings until we reach adulthood. As children, the world is scary, confusing, exclusionary and filled with boring rules, mean little boys and girls and punch lines we’re promised we’ll understand when we’re old enough to have forgotten them. It’s a time for tantrums, tumult and unexpected vomiting. In a way, though, it should be. Childhood is a time for the most important of human realizations: You can’t always get things just because you want them, there are places and times for certain kinds of behavior and–the biggie–life’s not fair. Of course, some of these tough but essential lessons are being glossed over for today’s children at their expense. An elementary school teacher recently told us that when a child acts out, she’s instructed not to use the child’s name in reprimanding him, lest she might embarrass his fragile ego. The coddling of the contemporary American child only reinforces unrealistic ideas about entitlement, and ultimately makes it more difficult for kids to navigate their way through an already difficult and challenging life experience. We say cut the cord and let those kiddos scrape their knees, face their fears, accept punishment (and embarrassment) when they screw up and, through it all, learn how to brush themselves off and stand tall. Resilience is learned through experience, not its absence. And that’s certainly not something we want future generations to lose.

Dropsy sounds so much cuter than what it once referred to. Our ancestors who had dropsy weren’t just flopping down on the couch for a nap; they were swelling up with excess fluids. And plenty of times, it killed them. There are all kinds of ways in which the discussion of medical conditions were colloquially softened in the 19th century. Tuberculosis was called consumption, seizures were fits, syphilis was known as French pox and childbirth was “lying in.” A lot of this had to do with the social stigmas associated with diseases, and a culture that favored the literary over the matter-of-fact academic.

Everything is on its way out. Really, everything. You, me, the universe, all of it. Even the things that aren’t around yet–they’ll go, too. And if this makes you sad, there’s nothing you can do about it. We hope you’ll keep reading anyway.

Fishing floats, it turned out, were not a means by which to smuggle opium from the East. But that’s what one Honolulu daily newspaper speculated some four decades ago when a solid glass bubble the color of a Coca-Cola bottle was found riding the crest of a wave. It took a letter to the editor from a reader to straighten things out. After that, the floats washed up on Oahu beaches regularly. Now, they’re mostly found in antique stores–priced anywhere from $5 to $300 and higher, depending on the size and hue. Many people are once again unaware of their onetime function. We found them and understood them for a tiny blip of time, and are beginning to forget them once again.

Grief used to be different. Not different from the hollow, mind-racing, volatile way it has always been. That remains the same. But the way we understand grief, collectively and socially, has vastly changed in America. These days, sadness is mistaken for weakness. In an era of anti-depressants, everyone’s expected to defy emotion and put on a happy face. Long gone are the days when Americans fashioned black armbands around their biceps to signify mourning. The saying about wearing one’s heart on his or her sleeve, rumored to have been born of that tradition, is now reduced to an expression–and one that’s used to deprecate, even if playfully, more often than not.

Heliconia, that flora so uncannily like birds of paradise that they earned the nickname “false birds of paradise,” would make a sneaky departure into nonexistence if given the chance. With its natural, Brazilian habitat severely depleted due to clear-cutting of wide forest swaths, the vivid plant is among the more rare flowers that grow at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just outside of Hilo.