Tying Up the Ox

Is it February already? 

Lately I've been keeping busy making a feather lei po'o (for my head); reading (of course) The Devil and Mr Casement which at first glance is a kind of Leopold's Ghost take two; doing some home repair ("home depot, maybe bed bath and beyond if we have time"); and finishing out the year of the ox by putting my head down and working on all my projects.

Also on my radar: trying to find out more information about what's going to be forthcoming from Amazon's new publishing house other than Perfect on Paper, hoping someone assigns me to review The Ask by Sam Lipsyte, and staying warm up here in my cloud forest.

What's your last Year of the Ox project going to be? Perhaps it will be to finish that stack of books on your nightstand, because I know it's there.

Let me know if you find anything good.

Interview: John Hara, architect

In the thirty-eight years since opening his Honolulu-based practice, architect John Hara has designed a series of private homes and more than twenty-five public, academic and cultural facilities throughout the state, his work always reflecting a distinct place and environment, never his personality or particular look. One notable and recent project was returning the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel to a state of elegant simplicity, but all of his work (Punahou School buildings like Case Middle School, Honolulu Academy of Arts pavilion etc.) reveals a longstanding architectural influence responsible for shaping our town--often experienced but not always seen.

I have had the pleasure of interviewing John about his work and what he's up to a few times, and written about him for the now defunct Hawaiian Style and for Modern Luxury Hawai'i. I've included a long series of interview dialogue here since it's sad to have this all in my files, hidden and unseen.

CT: You’re known for never building for a certain time period or trend—so how do you decide what building makes sense in a particular place?

JH: You begin with the site and the other important factors, and especially for institutional work there's the program—how are these facilities going to be used. It’s got to be a combination of, first of all, a workable building in context with wherever this building is. For example, at the Art Academy, there’s a historic building there but the needs have evolved over the past 75 years, so to try and do a building based on the original building probably wouldn’t work. So we try to understand programmatically the present and future needs together with the historical context of the building. It doesn’t need to be a mirror image of what was built 75 years ago, but it needs to make sense. It’s also true in most of the work that we do that building form comes from where it is and what it’s used for, instead of selecting a form because you like the form and fitting whatever you have to fit into it.

CT: One of your recent projects was the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel renovation. How did you cope with the compromises that had to be made in a hotel and historic building? 

JH: The Mauna Kea was unique in that it was a great building to begin with. What made it challenging was that it’s a semi-historical building but nonetheless there was the physical need to accommodate present day needs of travelers to the hotel, understanding that they need bigger bathrooms and technology access. To bring back the original ambiance of the building and maintain it while transforming certain portions to accommodate present day needs--that was the challenge.

CT: Some green architects and regulars will be upset that the rooms are now air-conditioned. What do you say to that?

JH: Ideally, sure, we’d like to be green and have natural ventilation. It was originally designed to natural ventilate and throughout years it was transformed and air-conditioning was installed. Technically you have to air-conditioning today because the louvers that allowed the fresh air to come in aren’t allowed because of current building codes. You want to, but you can’t. And from the hotel point of view, people who are going to spend that kind of money to stay there expect air-conditioning.

Similarly, we designed Case Middle School for natural ventilation and it works, but very few teachers open the windows. Interestingly, the students are asking the faculty to open the windows for sustainability. The kids picked up on the design and they are continuing in the curriculum to look at energy conservation throughout the campus.

CT: What’s your next project?

JH: We’re working on the UH West Oahu campus, in the middle of the old Ewa plantation. Obviously one doesn’t normally begin to design a new campus from scratch, so completed the design after about two years. This project has been in the works for 30 years in different forms, and I think the time has come and it will get built. But the principle design issue here is relating to the heritage of the Ewa plain, quite different from Manoa or Windward or Leeward O'ahu. There’s a gulch there and we are using that as a beginning and reinforcing the idea of an existing mark in the landscape. The orientation of the buildings are all north/south in the interest of sustainability. CT Note: I understand the building is slated to happen in 2011.

CT: Is there one word that describes your aesthetic? 

JH: No. Each of these projects are quite different, so there is no one particular style that I like or do not like.

CT: If you were in charge of rebuilding Hawai'i, what would you build or tear down? 

JH: That’s a hard question to answer because when you live in a place it will evolve and what we did yesterday is probably not valid for what we would do today; so in that sense it’s ever changing as an environment. But I do think it’s very important to be very careful about where our new developments are placed.

CT: What’s Hawai'i changing into? 

JH: I think the whole issue of population density is going to make the most significant impact, and also the rail. I think environmentally, Honolulu has to be very mindful—a rail running along the ocean has a tremendous impact.

CT: What’s the go-to place in your house?

JH: The house itself, which is 75 years old and in an old, overcrowded neighborhood in lower Makiki. We’ve been there for a long time and are comfortable. It’s very small, so no particular room stands out. From the outside we just try to keep it appropriate to the neighborhood. Inside we’ve done some limited renovation. My wife is looking for architect—I’d do it but there are priorities.

CT: A lot of architects are perfectionists. What are you carefree about?

JH: In some things, of course, we have to be perfectionists, but not on everything. We have to be very careful when we design buildings. It should be precise and it’s hard to leave anything to chance. But in life, with time and with age one tends to become more and more tolerant of others’ opinions.

CT: Architects are said to have good handwriting, so what’s messy about you?

JH: Really?—I have horrible handwriting. I never thought they had better handwriting than anyone else.

CT: Your office is one of the busiest in town, but after work what’s your guilty pleasure?

JH: I was a musician before—one of my first jobs in high school was as the 4^th oboeist in the Honolulu Symphony. So I spend down time listening to classical music, and when we travel we go to lots of performances. I don’t play now; I retired a long time ago. I played in the symphony for a while but it’s difficult to have two careers.

CT: Does architecture still inspire you, or will you retire soon? 

JH: I opened my office in 1970, and I see no reason to stop now.

In the Rafters

Though Jackie Ward’s diverse, jazz-loving friends—and she has lots of them—have long gathered in the soundproofed top floor of her 77-year-old Kaimuki home, her social jam sessions at Ward's Rafters are perpetually fresh and eclectic.

On lazy Sunday afternoons—just right for a bring-your-own picnic supper—or during Friday and Saturday evenings’ dynamic Global Caravan, you might hear chamber music, jazz, bluegrass, Latin, or a new visiting artist.

“I never know what’s going to happen until someone calls and then we’re off in a different direction,” says Ward. “Every performance is new, because what we hear that night is new.”

And that’s perfect for this vivacious patron who just wants to bring new people together. New Jass Quartet formed here early on, and Ward says friendships and even marriages are sparked as people get comfy on seat cushions and discover music they never knew they liked.

And it’s all possible merely through kind donations of friends—old and new.  

This Saturday January 23 it's Loose Screws improv comedy at the Rafters.

3810 Mauna Loa Ave, Kaimuki between 15^th & 16^th (the big, three-story house in the back); 808.735.8012, cech@pixi.com, byob.

Originally published in Modern Luxury Hawaii Magazine fall 2009

Book Review: The Harvard Psychedelic Club | Don Lattin

Four come together for a memorable head trip in 'The Harvard Psychedelic Club'

The inside story of how visionaries tried to initiate a freethinking way of life in the '60s. 

Review | Odd child is the focus of 'Spooner'

SPOONER. Pete Dexter. Grand Central. 466 pages. $26.99.
My official measure of a novel has to do with visionary reach and enduring ideas and other high-minded literary attributes. Secretly, it's none of that stuff. It's all about envy.
The novels I love, the ones I consume with the ferocity of a crack-smoking junkie, come with lines that stop me dead on the page, cause me to back up and read the words again, muttering jealous curses, wishing they were mine. Melville's great and all, but once I got beyond ``Call me Ishmael,'' my self-esteem remained pretty much intact. Melville laid out the big ideas, maybe, but Pete Dexter wrote the lines that laid me low.

The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. Don Lattin. Harper One. 237 pages $24.99.

Almost 50 years ago, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, who took the name Ram Dass and was once described as "a consciousness-raising Oprah,'' launched the ambitious -- and in retrospect, unbelievable -- Harvard Psilocybin Project.

Most know what resulted from their groundbreaking psychedelic experiments with MIT and Harvard graduate students, but the inside story has remained mysterious. Now a remarkably engrossing biography by veteran religion journalist and author Don Lattin reveals how Leary and Alpert linked up with world religion expert Huston Smith and later clashed with Andrew Weil, today's bearded "CEO of alternative medicine in America,'' their lives from then on forever entwined.

Lattin's narrative is engaged but journalistically neutral, and though he categorizes Leary as "the trickster prophet,'' Smith as "the teacher,'' Alpert as "the seeker'' and Weil as "the healer,'' the individuals resist his dispassionate labels. The book offers an oppor tunity to be a fly on the wall, witnessing the unfolding of the decisions, yearnings and -- yes -- drug trips this infamous group experienced centered on seeking a more conscious and freethinking way of life.

To unpack these interwoven, perhaps karmic, relationships, Lattin's narrative hops around, swooping through one man's life then alighting on the next. Time becomes somewhat unhinged, much like Leary and friends describe the LSD experience, and, unfortunately, Lattin continually repeats facts and context, from explaining Weil's future career to the reason the Beatles' wrote Come Together. Yet the story's inherently captivating elements allow these redundancies to be overlooked. Lattin is unexpectedly adept at plaiting together separate but contemporary threads of history and purposefully employing '60s parlance, allusions and celebrity cameos (Ken Kesey, Aldous Huxley).

Lattin's prose is also atmospheric, holding its own against this powerhouse backdrop while resting confidently on a narrative nonfiction foundation of sanctioned re-created dialogue, outside source material and recent interviews with Dass, Smith and Weil. When he describes Leary's first "mushroom ride'' in Mexico or Smith's terrifying yet awe-inspiring LSD trip, his evocative description highlights drama and siphons readers into the moment to experience it, too.

But arguably the most interesting aspects surround the early times. The book begins when Leary and Alpert were driven clinical psychologists. Leary, who attended West Point, was also "once considered a rising star in mainstream psychology,'' and Alpert struggled with his sexual and spiritual identity long before a visit to India transformed him into America's guru. They joined forces with Smith, an open-minded scholar and author of the foundational book The World's Religions, steeped in faith since his missionary childhood in China. Only the ambitious undergraduate Weil was perpetually excluded from the clique, his scheming keeping him tenuously connected (one of the story's most shocking and captivating facets).

The Harvard Psychedelic Project's intimate, revealing vista makes the book soar, and, as Lattin hopes, just might inspire today's idealists to carve a new path and profoundly change the world as these four dynamic visionaries once did.

BY CHRISTINE THOMAS

Originally published 1/10/10 in the Miami Herald

Book Review: The Listener | Shira Nayman

A psychiatrist treating soldiers has his own problems

The reader is put into the unpleasant vantage point of the doctor's mind.

THE LISTENER. Shira Nayman. Scribner. 305 pages. $25.

With U.S. involvement in Afghanistan ramping up, examining the effects of war on the psyche has never seemed more important. Shira Nayman churns up past complications of both World Wars in her new novel, as seen through the distorted lens of English expatriate psychiatrist Dr. Henry Harrison. She purposely blurs the line between sanity and insanity not only to engage readers in solving the plot's mysteries but also to underscore that when war is involved, the line is always blurry.

Like Harrison, this methodical novel is almost exclusively ensconced on the woodland grounds of New York's Shadowbrook asylum. There Harrison is charged with implementing the then-new "talking cure'' to heal World War II soldiers suffering battle fatigue, only to deliver them back to the front and later on to real life. The endeavor is at once in line with Harrison's service as a medic in World War I -- he describes his mental state at the time as "suspended in a disturbing netherworld, alive, yes, but dormant,'" -- but from the soldiers' points of view, a sort of war crime.

Utilizing Harrison's first-person narration, Nayman puts us directly inside the unpleasant vantage point of his mind. A former opium addict, Harrison sneaks alcohol throughout the workday and mentally cheats on his wife Ursula. He's self-absorbed, always analyzing, complaining and mired in self-pity, but he is not self-aware. Yet he craves connection, perpetually feeling like he's ``enclosed in a separate sphere, unable to make contact with the people and things around me.'' Soon he slowly unravels on a spool of "screeching loneliness,'' "aching emptiness,'' "terrible, grinding loneliness'' until "the final, heavy emptiness'' descends.

Though firmly anchored to a dual spine of intrigue and love triangle, the narrative is largely plodding and gloomy. Harrison is stumped by a crafty patient, Bertram, who feels "more like a colleague than a patient'' and seems to know Harrison's deepest secret. Both men are enamored of the nurse Matilda, who also served in the war.

Imprisonment in Harrison's irrelevant dreams, conversations and imaginings can be maddening, yet by locking us inside his occluded perspective, Nayman forces a vicarious experience of his psychological damage. For a psychologist like Nayman, who once worked in psychiatric hospitals, examining everything in detail is part of the "cure'' and must be inherently fascinating; it also may be why the book goes too deep into psychiatric theory and practice specifics. Indeed, reading the novel is much like observing a prolonged therapy session, and in some places one tires of this unwavering analysis.

But the reader must ultimately become Harrison's psychiatrist -- questioning his sanity and what is real and true -- and in so doing ponder a central query humanity has left unanswered: How do we heal from war and trauma?

At the end of The Listener's cold, lonely tale, one can't help but feel relieved to finally be released. Yet the reminder that we too are afflicted with the same human condition as Harrison and his soldiers -- even if we know not the cause nor have the cure -- is inescapable.

--Reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS
Originally published 1.5.10 in the Miami Herald

Book Review: Burn & Learn | Eric Paul Shaffer

Burn & Learn: Memoirs of the Cenozoic Era
By Eric Paul Shaffer 
Leaping Dog; 415 pages

When is a novel not a novel? When it’s a quasi-fictional memoir—filled with short stories, koans, lists, charts, observations, futuristic imaginings and a high-dose of speed-like energy—called Burn and Learn: Memoirs of the Cenozoic Era. Previously published only as a poet, author Eric Paul Shaffer, a Honolulu Community College English teacher, has branched out with his new book—one that has no discernable beginning, middle or end, that can be delved into and put down at any point without losing the thread because it lacks a structured plot—aiming to create a new interactive literature genre.

Borrowing from Kerouac, Shaffer ambitiously clepes his ‘novel’ a “book-movie,” setting the bar quite high. Readers are asked to transform the book’s many parts—that seemingly include everything jotted down in Shaffer’s Moleskine compiled into a deconstructed and reconstructed totality—into a whole. Rather than read detailed description, they are also instructed to visualize elements when an asterisk appears, such as at the mention of a gray whale when the arguable protagonist Reckless and his girlfriend K.C.—not to be confused with his Uncle K.C., though it happens easily—go whale watching.

Shaffer’s prose zeroes in on mundane details of everyday life, including—but not limited to—pennies and dimes, gas meter arrangements, stamps, the thumb, and his great-grandfather’s grave. Its frantic speed jolts between topics, genres, and characters, at times reading as if Shaffer is trying to channel Hunter S. Thompson. Everything is untethered—time, place, people, writing style—and everything is lighthearted, to be taken with a gigantic bucket of salt. Though there are some sections that stand out as clean, entrancing and often touching and meaningful stories and observations, generally we’re encouraged not to take the book too seriously or ponder it too deeply—what is perhaps Shaffer’s real message, or life philosophy.

The nature of this mercurial prose was fully disclosed early on, when Shaffer in turn calls Burn & Learn “a compleat guyde to nowhere,” “an all-in-one-book fiction kit,” or “a discontinuous chronicle of self-organized moments revealing Rufus, Reckless, JT3, and the marvelous multiplicities of K.C.” But thus he begs the question: Why? Why read a novel with no story arc and characters that morph into each other, where you have to put the story together—a somewhat risky endeavor that can be interpreted as work or play?

The answer may simply lie in Shaffer’s early assertion that “[t]here are as many ways to read a novel as there are people on the planet.” What he neglects to mention, however, is that some of those people will like to read a novel in this very original and charged way, but some simply won’t. 

--Reviewed by Christine Thomas
Originally published in the Honolulu Advertiser 1/4/10 

Interview: Moses Aipa, creative director @ Incase

Not yet thirty years old, Kailua-born graphic designer Moses Aipa has journeyed far from his small-town beach upbringing. He’s ditched the niche surf motifs he experimented with on Apple design software as a Kamehameha high school student, developed a more universal design aesthetic, and as Creative Director of California-based Incase, collaborates with celebrities like John Mayer on logos, designs seamless cases for iPhones, iPods, Macbooks, and is in-the-know about every up-and-coming Apple product--after all, he has to design the cases for them.

“Growing up, I wasn’t so into design itself,” Aipa admits, “but I was always finicky and curious, taking things apart, putting them back together.” True to down-to-earth local style, Aipa doesn’t mention this attention to detail is also firmly planted in his genes—his cousin Ben Aipa’s family is well known for surfboard shaping and artwork—and is just as modest about his career success. “It just kind of happened. I always had a knack for organizing and keeping things in place, so it’s a natural fit.” 

Since joining Incase in 2002 while a senior at the USF-CCAC, he’s quickly risen through the ranks from freelance brochure designer to directing photo shoots, sketching product and packaging concepts, and now driving the company’s next generation of fashionable, functional technology protection. “I’ve had my hands in everything,” says Aipa, including inventing Incase’s now signature logo and Topo design.

Something’s always new at Incase. This past Fall, they overhauled their nylon bag collection, introduced fresh case graphics like camouflage prints and new scales and combinations of the Topo print, and a seasonal color palette. But Aipa’s also watching trends toward hip and lively colors and no-logo and no-label fashion. “Brands like Muji and Uniqlo are on it,” he raves.

If he could create a gadget (and a case) for anything? “I wish I had a device to get me through airport security checks,” Aipa jokes, since he's always traveling within California, back and forth to Hawai'i and Asia. Whatever the challenge, he’ll undoubtedly create a clean, simple, stylish solution. “If I have control over it, I’ll lay everything out in a visually pleasing manner. Right angles are king.”


I talked to Aipa at length for Modern Luxury Hawai'i magazine, but not much of our conversation fit into the article's space. So below, check out a longer Q&A where Aipa reveals exactly how he got started and how he keeps on top of what's new and hot.


C.T. You grew up in Kailua, so were beaches and waves your first design inspiration?
 
M.A. I got a good sense of design from nature in general, growing up outdoors and being in the water, hiking or outside with my family. Growing up, I wasn’t so into design itself but was a finicky kind of kid, taking things apart and putting them back together, or breaking things—more curious, so that led to an attention to detail.

C.T. How did you get from Kamehameha Schools to designing for Incase on the mainland?
 
M.A. I started taking design classes in high school--everything from screen-printing to ceramics in the more structure realm of learning about art. One of my art teachers recommended and I start playing around with Apple computers, designing on them as a junior/senior year—he promoted that and influenced me a lot to get into the software. That triggered my interest in actual graphic design—that was the turning point. I still was not so familiar with the actual profession—just logos and stuff.

Then I started applying to southern California colleges while in high school because they had surf teams. I made it into USF first and—and not others. So I went. They had a graphic design program and I thought, I’ll try it, and then they had a joint program with CCAC, so I started that. The first couple of years it was very surf inspired and Hawai'i waves and ocean—basically designing surf brands—but over time I recognized a universal design language rather than a niche surfing thing.

So in 4.5 years I transitioned to become an overarching universal designer recognizing simpler solutions for a variety of genres. It kind of just happened.
 
C.T. How did you get back into the bag/case niche?
 
M.A. A buddy who was freelancing at Incase during my senior year of college asked me to come in for some extra graphics help, so my first project was designing a brochure for the new collection. I started as a traditional graphic design laying out print collateral.

I always had a knack for organizing and keeping things ordered and in place it seemed a natural thing for me to work at a place where our goal is to provide solutions for people to carry their belongs and keep them together.

C.T. Are your Incase designs more about fashion or function?

M.A. What we’re trying to do is combine both on equal playing fields the idea of tech as lifestyle is what we focus on—that convergence. We are adding that fashion element to what we make for tech solutions.
 
C.T. How do stay ahead of what’s new and trendy?
 
M.A. We do a good amount of consumer research, talk to our customers and of course Apple has their own wants and needs, so we put those all together and go from there. A good amount is intuition, or we see what people aren’t doing and do that—we get creative.

C.T. Where are things going?
 
M.A. There’s the usual suspect—sustainable products. Gadget-wise, it's toward the smaller and more powerful. I also think being able to sync and do everything on a smaller device whether email social networking or whatever you need. Within my market there seems to be an upward trend for more vibrant colors and hip and lively, but there’s also a trend toward a more timeless approach to fashion in general—no logos, no label apparel. Street culture is kind of going down. Brands like Muji and Uniqlo are on it, both from Japan. Japanese fashion is unreal, their trend-setting ways.
 
C.T. What’s the gotta-have-it gadget or accessory in the design crowd?

M.A. Definitely the iPhone, and not because I’m biased. Our entire company functions off Apple so based on connectivity and thinking it’s just so convenient. It’s a hugely useful tool, and it totally syncs. A iphone/laptop combo is what I and everyone here has.

C.T. What don’t you have a case for that you wish existed?
 
M.A. I’d create a surfboard case—coming full circle back to surfing. I usually find solutions for everything I need or have them make it. I can make do with what I have. If I had an entire house to organize I'd design my house around organizing everything I own.

C.T. Is everything at your house in a case?

M.A. Everything in my house is in a case or exactly where it needs to be. I’m pretty obsessed with grids and systems and how things are laid out, so everything around me, if I have control over it, is laid out in a visually pleasing manner. Right angles are king. A clean surrounding helps me think.
 
C.T. What do you wish you had a device for?
 
M.A. I wish I had a device that could get me through security checks, since I’m traveling so much these days—something to simplify that.
 
C.T. What's your music soundtrack while at work?
 
M.A. I'm all over the place when it comes to music likings--everything from jazz, indie rock, top 40 hits, reggae, hawaiian, ambient, electronica, just not much country. It depends on my mood. Our company has its own last.fm site, a pretty good mixed plate of tunes: http://www.last.fm/user/goincase.

C.T. What are your HOTS?

M.A. Aloha shoyu; right angles; Hawaiian food at my parents’ house; Muji 0.38 ballpoint pens; Moleskine reporter-style grid notebooks; clothing with no logo; biking to work; Steel Pulse’s Smash Hits; Boot’s & Kimo’s banana mac pancakes with Portuguese sausage; the beach in the morning.

C.T. And your NOTS?
 
M.A. Security lines at airports; television; long pauses in conversations; my laptop’s spinning rainbow wheel; country music; shoes inside the house; 24-7 Bluetooth headset wearers.


--Interviewed and written by Christine Thomas, 2009

Guilty Guide: Last, last minute (and Belated) book gift guide

I admit it. I'm guilty this year of getting some last minute gifts, many of them books. So to assuage my guilt and perhaps help someone with a last minute or belated gift, here's a peek at what I picked up (in no particular order).





HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS
By Nigella Lawson

An oldie but goodie. Nigella's post-feminist back-into-the-kitchen baking guide was all the rage when I was living in London early in the decade. I secretly want this book, but got it for my soon to be mother-in-law.





MOLOKA'I : A Novel
By O.A. Bushnell

People say KA'A'AWA, another of Bushnell's novels, is the best Hawaiian novel ever written. I couldn't find it in the bookstore, so got MOLOKA'I, which is also in my book cabinet, waiting to be read.





THE FOREVER WAR
By Dexter Filkins

Some people like Iraq books--what can I say?






THE FIRST TYCOON
By T.J. Stiles

 It's a national book award winner and all about Cornelius Vanderbildt. Other than that, I can't yet say.





THE ASCENT OF MONEY: A Financial History of the World
By Niall Ferguson

This book is supposed to be great. Got it for my soon to be father-in-law, and though I thought it would be hardcover since it was just released late October, it was softcover.





PAT THE HUSBAND
By Kate Merrow Neligan

I can't yet figure out to whom I should give this parody of PAT THE BUNNY, but it was so funny I just had to get it. My favorite line, and I'm paraphrasing: The wife is hormonal, and the husband is a hormone. 




THE UNFORGIVING MINUTE: A Soldier's Education
By Craig M. Mullaney

I tried to find this book in stores but it was all sold out. I hear it's a must-read for anyone interested in Iraq, the Army, or modern warfare.

Book Review: Best Books of 2009

Every year at the Honolulu Advertiser, I write a short roundup of some of the stand-out books I reviewed or read during the past year. Here are my Best Books of 2009, not all-inclusive, of course, but, I hope, helpful all the same.
 

WESTLAKE: POEMS

By Wayne Kaumuali'i Westlake

Edited by Mei-Li M. Siy, Richard Hamasaki

UH Press; 275 pages

The epigrammatic poems comprising Wayne Kaumuali'i Westlake’s ‘new’ collection reveal the day-by-day creation of his poetic philosophy—a Taoist-Hawaiian cultural spirituality with a later dose of taut political awareness. Smartly arranged by theme courtesy of local poet Richard Hamasaki, Westlake’s verse provides a remarkably intimate and complex self-portrait of man and poet. And though he died in 1984 at age 36, his pungent catalogue of multifaceted, everyday life experiences remain relevant today. Whether mischievous or thoughtful, his poems consciously wander landscapes of time and space, shine with form and rhythm, exploding from tradition—rewarding reflections that nearly convince Hawai'i should only be written about this way.

PLEASE STEP BACK

By Ben Greenman

Melville; 254 pages

Diverse writer and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman’s sharp, ebullient new novel has inherent star quality and sparkling prose that, for the moment at least, shines brighter than any previous work. The novel’s third-person narrator sticks close to its larger-than-life funk-star protagonist, the prose resounding with crisp language tuned to the era’s slang as Foxx speaks to everyone in mesmerizing riddles and rhymes. But Greenman doesn’t forget the more important B-side—he centers alternating sections on Foxx’s wife Betty, the woman who, unbeknownst to Foxx, keeps him grounded and sane. The narrative pulses with natural beat, never betraying a stray word or scene, instantly drawing readers into its current and refusing to settle down until the very last sentence. “Please Step Back” finishes like the closing of a beautiful record, one that can be turned over and listened to again—until Greenman releases his next big hit. 

THE BONE HOOK

By Ian MacMillan

Mutual; 201 pages

In his sinewy new novel, published posthumously, Ian MacMillan, who died in 2008, showcases a lifetime of keen observation of his Kailua home via terse, economic prose nonetheless rich with detail and energy. MacMillan seizes readers’ attention from the first words of this deceptively simple story about an ancient mystery and hidden treasure that ensnares a small group of people with competing motivations, sustaining a kind of caffeine-buzz tension that refuses to die out even at the end. The narrative facilely bounces through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, maintaining a quick plot pace as characters discover something more valuable within themselves, ultimately unfolding a subtly authentic tale of greed, loss, and the downfalls and saving graces of human nature. Great writers leave you wanting more, and with “The Bone Hook,” MacMillan once again proved his greatness. Lucky for us, there’s another book due out next year.

THE MUSIC ROOM

By William Fiennes

WW Norton; 216 pages

At first glance, Fiennes’ newest memoir is an ingenuous ode to a childhood lived in a 700-year-old moated English castle, where tour groups surrounded him and playing in ancient rooms loosed his imagination. Yet Fiennes quickly pokes holes in this idyllic depiction, letting in darker anecdotes revealing his epileptic brother Richard’s truly frightening behavior. These, along with scientific excerpts on the history of the brain and mind, punctuate and interrupt Fiennes’ otherwise poetic, dreamy and swirling narrative, just like the outbursts once disrupted family life. Intensely personal, “The Music Room” resurrects, probes, and compassionately preserves a specific time and place, finally meditating on how what one inherits can define and forever shape our lives, and our minds.

JACK LONDON IN PARADISE

By Paul Malmont

Simon & Schuster; 386 pages

In his new and evocative historical novel, Paul Malmont soars on the wings of Jack London’s personal history, the first fictional work about this American literature icon, set against the backdrop of early-1900s Hawai'i. London is presented as a riveting hero in the last years of his life, and Malmont courageously, if also romantically, resurrects turn of the century Hawaiian society, complete with captivating depictions of Queen Lili'uokalani, Duke’s beachboys, surfing, Kamehameha’s Nu'uanu Pali battle, and more. Perfectly detailed and well researched, the novel offers entry to a complete and irresistible dream where following your passion—whether writing, movie-making or love—can deliver the world.

--reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS
Published in the Honolulu Advertiser 12/20/09

What's Mia King Reading?

This interview with bestselling author and Big Island resident Mia King (her pen name), known to friends as Darien Hsu Gee, was one of my last before my Advertiser column was canceled. Since then I've had the pleasure of interviewing her for other publications (those will be out next year), but thought I'd revisit our interview and post it below.

What I’m Reading | Mia King
Author

Q&A with Christine Thomas
Published 12/08 in Honolulu Advertiser

CT: What are you reading?

MK: I’m reading through my favorite books on writing. “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” by Anne Lamott is at the top of the pile, as is Brenda Ueland’s “If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit.” I also like “Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art” by Judith Barrington, whom I studied with 15 years ago, years before I was ever published. Since I write contemporary women’s fiction, I tend to read a lot of that as well, so I have the newest titles from Elizabeth Berg and Susan Wiggs and Kristin Hannah. I also read a lot of business books, so I just started Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers: The Story of Success.”

CT: What do you look for in books about writing?

MK: I like books on writing that don’t just talk about writing, but give you lots of first lines and prompts to get you going. It’s one thing to read about writing, and it’s another thing to just sit down and actually write. Books that help you refine your craft and can do so with humor and compassion are big hits with me. I also tend to prefer the less technical books on writing when it comes to creative writing—there’s plenty of time for that later when you’re revising or editing your work—but getting the raw material down first is important.

CT: How do these authors' principles influence your own writing, such as your novel “Sweet Life”?

MK: I have three kids and a family business, so finding time to write is a challenge. In “Bird by Bird,” Lamott talks about writing short assignments, which is essentially how my books get written. She also talks about first drafts and perfectionism, which can be the bane of any writer. Brenda Ueland’s book starts off with a chapter titled “Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say,” which I think is one of the most encouraging essays on writing out there, and got me writing again after years of working in corporate America.

What's Lee Cataluna Reading?

I interviewed the very busy Lee Cataluna last year around this time and find it interesting how the context of our economic situation and concerns remain relevant. I've included the full interview below.


What I’m Reading | Lee Cataluna
Columnist, Playwright

Q&A with Christine Thomas
Short version published in the Honolulu Advertiser 11.08

CT: What are you reading?

LC: "The Human Comedy" by William Saroyen. And I just finished Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath."

CT: How did you discover them?

LC: I read Steinbeck in school and wanted to revisit his work. Saroyan wrote about generally the same area in California, though a few decades later. My husband suggested I read him next since the books have geography and, to some extent, a kind of morality in common.

CT: What is their shared morality and how does it manifest?

LC: Particularly in “The Grapes of Wrath,” just the idea of the blessed nature of work—that work is that’s all they want. The family wants to work to support themselves, and no work is beneath them. They’re desperate but they’re also honorable in their horrible plight and the seriousness with which they take their work; it’s what they pray for and look for every day. They take responsibility for their well being—they think they can work their way out of every situation.

Some of that comes out in “The Human Comedy” as well. It focuses on a 12 year-old boy who delivers telegrams, and he takes that so seriously because some are from the war department telling families that their sons have been killed. He’s this little kid on a bicycle but he has a solemn path. But the reason he takes this job is not just a lark, it’s to help his family. …

CT: Is this what you liked most about them?

LC: “The Grapes of Wrath” is just such a beautiful book; it’s an American classic. The human spirit to endure the worst and to keep the family together is what I liked most about both books.

CT: Does looking back at these times spark column ideas related to our current hard economic times?

LC: I think a lot of times in our current economic situation we reference the Great Depression. We’re a country just starting to measure ourselves against history—are we worse off than we were then, are we going to get that bad? Thoughts have turned to the Great Depression very often. For me I just wanted to read a book about that time—it is fiction—but to get that perspective. But in terms of writing columns, no I don’t get ideas from reading fiction. I get it from everywhere.

Last Minute Gift Guide: Books for Keiki

I always give books as presents, even to children who can't yet read. It's never too early to start reading and reading to your child. The marvelous Wally Amos agrees, which is why he's involved with prompting literacy at Read it Loud.

In that spirit, here are a few children's books that caught my eye and imagination during 2009.


WAIKIKI LULLABY | by Beth Greenway | illustrated by Alexis America

"Waikiki Lullaby," a new board book by one-time Hawai'i resident Beth Greenway Skinner presents adults and children with a soothing bedtime story centered on Hawaiian-style activities. One memorable verse is the lovely: "Hear Uncle play his steel guitar, hear ocean breezes sigh," even though ukulele or even slack key guitar would have been a more contemporary reference. In other pages, hula girls put down their "feather dancing gourd(s)," or ūli'ūli, and surfers their boards, and soon enter a gentle night of dreams. Throughout, Alexis America's night sky-hued illustrations evoke the nostalgia of Matson tourism posters and classic images of one of my favorite books, Cooper Edens' "If You're Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow."



PULELEHUA AND MĀMAKI | by Janice Crowl | illustrations by Harinani Orme

A Kamehameha butterfly lands on a koa tree so it can converse with the soft-spoken māmaki tree in "Pulelehua and Māmaki," forgetting māmaki's past nurturing of her when the pulelehua was just an egg about to become a caterpillar. Some discussion near hāpu'u and palapalai ferns, some 'ōhi'a dancing in the wind, a new birth and raising of a new caterpillar later, Crowl's engaging storytelling reveals not only a clever and soothing way to teach children about our local plants and animals, but also an ode to our enduring culture and values that include caring for others, no matter whose blood runs through their veins.


WHAT AM I? A Hawai'i Guessing Game (vol 2) | by Daniel Harrington | illustrated by Susan Brandt

"You may see me resting upside down / My body is red, pink, and brown / Also on my body are many white lines / And very long and dangerous spines / What am I?" Did you get that one right? After reading "What am I? A Hawaii Animal Guessing game," the short and sweet, purely entertaining animal riddle book by Kaua'i teacher Daniel Harrington, you and keiki will know what animal this rhyme refers to, as well as rhymes about the Honu, the 'Io, Manō, and more. Brandt's illustrations are clear and large--perfect for small fingers pointing out features such as the beak of the Nēnē. (ps_the photo is of vol. 1)


KEONI'S SPECIAL GIFT | by Dorinda Lum | illustrated by Michael Furuya

It's award-winning illustrator Michael Furuya's atmospheric illustrations that steal the show in the surprisingly captivating tale of "Keoni's Special Gift" by retired art teacher Dorinda Lum, captivating with their step-above-Pixar reverberations and enlarged but realistic portraits of Keoni the 'o'opu and his adorable best friends the 'Ōpae, Koloa (Hawaiian Duck), and Pueo. Keoni is afflicted with the stuff of great childhood stories--the desire to be someone else (in this case a bird who can fly), but after trying on 'I'iwi wings for size and flying on an island adventure, he learns to appreciate what he already has, and ultimately who he is.

Book Review | A Good Fall, Stories by Ha Jin

Tales of escape -- and cultural resurrection

Chinese immigrants unwillingly revisit the past in Ha Jin's latest collection.

A Good Fall. Ha Jin. Pantheon. 247 pages. $24.95.

Everyone has something he wants to escape: a job, relationship, family feud or -- like the characters in Ha Jin's new short fiction collection -- a country. Rather than tell stories of emigration, though, Ha Jin, who left China in 1985, depicts moments when one's old life crashes into new routines, resurrecting all that has been lost and gained via escape.

Each story in A Good Fall siphons readers into straightforward plots about Chinese immigrants from diverse backgrounds now living in Flushing, home to New York City's second largest Chinatown. The characters' 180-degree turns are most often made in response to stress and heartache inextricably connected to immigrant life. All grapple with an intense set of expatriate problems. Wanping's love blossoms for a prostitute whose debts keep her tied to the water trade. A disenfranchised, 28-year-old monk thinks life is over because he can't pay his debts back in China. Yet delicate generational and cultural differences subtly define their unique situations, and Ha Jin unpacks the small details of their largely indistinct lives in ways that reveal their larger-than-life personal implications.

With the breaking of a condom, Ha Jin cleverly pierces the gossamer separation between China and America in the atmospheric The House Behind a Weeping Cherry, allowing China to seep back into the lives of prostitutes living in a boarding house. When a customer blames the break on "a substandard rubber made in China,'' one girl finally admits to the others, with unintended humor, that she "'feel[s] so awful to be Chinese here, because China always makes cheap products.'''

In The Bane of the Internet, email is the infiltration device, bringing the narrator's family troubles smack into her American life. "[T]he Internet has spoiled everything -- my family is able to get ahold of me whenever they like,'' she rants. "They might as well live nearby.''

Other times people crash the illusion of escape. When a young husband's mother comes to stay in the United States for six months, In the Crossfire becomes a captivating tale of reevaluation forced by the son's seeing life through his mother's China-centric perspective. In Shame, a young Chinese man studying abroad is surprised by the arrival of his esteemed professor Mr. Meng, sparking a wrestling match between obligation and reinvention and a love affair with New York, which Mr. Meng quips, "'is so rich even the air smells fatty.'''

And in Temporary Love Lina and Zuming's spouses arrive from China, sadly ending their peaceful cohabitation, what they call a "wartime marriage'' even though there's no war.

Everyone in A Good Fall struggles with past and present, and Ha Jin requires dynamic change of them all. Though his slice-of-life stories hit every plot point, and his choices as a writer aren't always evident, these understated clashes of culture reveal careful thematic design and provide an almost 360-degree view of this select human experience: The concerns of people everywhere trying to make a better life come alive, one deceptively simple story at a time.

BY CHRISTINE THOMAS

Published 12/6/09 in the Miami Herald

Poetry Review: Tinfish 19 | Diverse and Robust

TinFish 19 | Edited by Susan M. Schultz |

It’s a given that releases from local poetry publisher TinFish Press will feature verse, but form, subject and author are usually a surprise. The latest installment, TinFish 19, defies preconceptions from the outset with a volume reminiscent of an old composition book, complete with rust-colored cardboard covers and thick black binding. There’s no introduction, only title and table of contents—throwing readers right into what feels like someone’s private—if quite well made—poetry journal.

Editor Susan Schultz made an excellent choice opening the collection with Jill Yamasawa’s enchanting and unusual ode to paradise, “The Prodigious Man.” It begs to be read aloud and pointedly engages one’s tongue and mind: “You must have a mind of paradise” it advises, to “behold everything that is not here / and everything that could be,” and to devour the poem’s charms.

It’s smart, too, that what follows are two pieces about TheBus, an inextricable but not often exalted facet of our island ‘paradise’. In a series of thirteen short poems offering different perspectives, Gizelle Gajelonia boldly likens TheBus to God; echoes its bumpy, potholed circuit; and subtly evokes a generation’s dependence on public transportation.

Ryan Oishi, in turn, rides TheBus, using complaints about traffic to open up a prosaic laundry list of O`ahu’s problems. While these facts, such as projections that O`ahu will deplete its groundwater by 2020, are important to know, and his aim to provoke change admirable, there’s little humor or style to lift it out of a well of doom.

Many of the collection’s poems are intriguing but largely inscrutable, and the more successful ones tend to be less complicated in language play and more inventive in structure, without becoming mired in concept or forced in intention. Barbara Janes Reyes’s meditation “She: Chant/Fragment,” builds in intensity and depth as it continues, repetition working to its benefit from the first “she of air-conditioning / she of tinted windows,” to “she of brittle peroxide / …she friend of earthworms” and beyond. Emelihter Kihleng’s humorous yet earnest attempt to persuade unwanted tourists from visiting Pohnpei, “Don’t Come to My Island,” unfurls its message like a wave that reverberates on our shores.

Other standouts are Janna Plant’s “Flashing Daisies,” which reflects its clipped phrases like a mirrored mobile; “What the Landlord Said” by Oscar Bermeo, conjuring an arsonist’s sandpaper hands; and “Mao’s Indigestion” by Kenny Tanemura, whose tender description and concrete imaginings make real a world where Mao’s deepest worries and remembrances are unveiled.

But stuck in the middle—and it’s often in the center of our personal journals, too, where things get good—is arguably the collection’s best. “On Place and Certainty” by Dennis Phillips draws in readers with its confident voice of presumed authority, spins them out past “the anniversaries of births and deaths / [that] cluster around us like shadows / gathered at the base of a midnight tree at noon,” and around the hurricane of “phrases you never thought you’d use,” finally delivering them to the oft-searched for, “one real place.”

Of course, that place, like this unassuming yet robust collection, is not at all what one would expect.

--Reviewed by Christine Thomas
For the Honolulu Advertiser, published 11/22/09

Book Review: Talking Hawai'i's Story: Oral Histories Rich in Diversity and Detail

Talking Hawai'i's Story: Oral Histories of an Island People
By Michi Kodama-Nishimoto, Warren S. Nishimoto, and Cynthia A. Oshiro
UH Press; 312 pages.

It’s not often that what everyday people say is accepted as so-called historical truth. But oral histories of people integral to twentieth century Hawai'i culture represent a past way of life that resonates today. And that’s what the thirty narratives included in “Talking Hawai'i's Story” capture, revealing diverse experiences, values, and feelings of men and women born between 1900-1930, which in turn illuminate not only their lives, but their parents’ and grandparents’, and through that lens, prominent events in territorial and state history.

The entries were culled from nearly seventy oral histories previously published in the narrowly distributed University of Hawai'i Center for Oral History newsletter, though the editors regrettably don’t explain criteria for inclusion or add substantial information about their conduction of some original interviews.

Each narrative is fronted with a brief and helpful contextual biography, paired with personal photos that bring people and memories to life, and is arranged alphabetically. It’s remarkable, then, that apart from some expected repetition about plantation life, the collection has a natural flow and innate variety that provides easy momentum. Though the subject matter occurred in the last century, these kinds of personal details centered on everyday routines like chores, school, and work, are seldom recorded in print, and thus feel original and rare.

Together, the rich narratives present an interconnected patchwork of values and themes such as hard work and independence evidenced in Robert Kahele’s belief that “[r]aising taro is one way of expressing my freedom.” They also offer a wide swath of perspectives from neighborhoods throughout the islands, as well as ages, jobs, ethnicity, and experiences, such as Abigail Burgess and Lillian Cameron, two sisters who sold flower and seed lei at their father’s airport stand, which they called “an honest way to make a living by using your own hands.”

The bombing of Pearl Harbor and resulting internment is a cynosure of many lives, as well as immigration, plantation labor, sugar, pineapple and tourism. And through their intimate experiences with these events and work in these sectors, the texture of life in Hawaii can be witnessed.

Martina Kekuewa Fuentevilla captivatingly describes her birth in a pili grass house, upbringing as the hanai daughter of her grandparents, and life in Kona from poi pounding to sneaking drinks of sweet potato liquor. Ernest Golden tells the seldom-discussed details of what it was like to be an African American in Hawaii after the war. Alice Saito Gouveia’s touching tale of carving out her own success as owner of Maui’s Economy Store underscores the perseverance of Hawaii’s entrepreneurial spirit. And Lemon “Rusty” Holt, a member of the Waikiki Stonewall Gang whose father was a member of Queen Lili'uokalani’s mounted patrol men, whose grandmother was close friends with the Queen and knew just what type of coconut she liked, who himself regularly surfed with Prince Kuhio, is one of the collection’s vibrant, kolohe voices.

Many of the people here have since passed, but “Talking Hawai'i's Story” preserves their life portraits and allows their wisdom to live on. It also resurrects past lessons that remain relevant today, not least of which is what Moses W. “Moke” Kealoha’s parents smartly reminded him, that “[w]e [were] wealthy because Hawaii had everything we needed and more.”


Reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS
Originally published 11/8/09 in the Honolulu Advertiser