Food Spotting: What Hawai'i Chefs Eat

Some of the chefs participating in the app

Throughout decades she spent producing culinary series for PBS, and today as co-founder of the foodie-gathering website Share Your Table, the top question everyone asks Melanie Kosaka is where do Hawai'i's chefs eat? 

After talking with good friend and Hawai'i’s master sommelier Chuck Furuya, and connecting with ICanHasCheezburger.com founder Eric Nakagawa, Kosaka has answered the call by creating the What Chefs Eat iPhone app. 

"We don’t need to know the 50 pizza places close to us, we want to know the top three, recommended by people we know," says Kosaka, who asked just a dozen of Hawai'i’s elite chefs and farmers, from Alan Wong to D.K. Kodama, what they like to eat at their favorite hole in the wall spots and why. 

All users have to do is choose a chef or category, like best late night spot, and up pops their photo and brief, geo-targeted recommendations, with directions on how to find, say, Roy Yamaguchi’s favorite fried chicken at Zippy’s Kahala or Ed Kenney’s top noodle haunt Super Pho. 

Kosaka’s rolling out fresh San Francisco, New York and LA versions soon, as well as new categories like food and wine events and best places for barbeque. They’re also working on releasing a version for other platforms, but for now this seems the tastiest excuse to buy an iPhone.  

Whatchefseat.com

By Christine Thomas

Interview: the Green Giant (aka Ed Kenney of Town)

Ed Kenney at his Kaimuki restaurant Town

When you glimpse self-professed "noodle freak" Ed Kenney Jr. leaving his Kaimuki darling Town Restaurant, the first thing you notice is his sleeve—not snowy chef coat sleeves, but multihued tattoos covering his right arm and peeking out from his shirt on the left. 

Perhaps this is why Kenney’s been labeled a culinary maverick, or maybe it’s his position on the soul side of the current divide between brainy, molecular gastronomy riffs on familiar dishes and farm to table trends. Or, it could simply be his reverse restaurant model at Town and sister location Downtown at the Hawai'i State Art Museum (or his cheekily named new catering division, Uptown). 

"Usually, you set a menu then cost it, and that’s how you regulate how much money you make. We did the opposite—we change our menu based on what we have," says Kenney. 

Yet while the ingredients change, they always remain grounded in Town’s motto: local products first, organic when possible—which is quite often given a close relationship with Ma'o Organic Farms. Kenney incorporates everything from ulu to Italian succulents to wild boar into his peasant Mediterranean cooking—no foams or drizzles here—and it seems to work an elegant magic. 

"When you’ve got the best ingredients, less is more," says Kenney. "What we do is so simple and old school, but maybe these days simple and old school is gourmet and maverick." 

Townkaimuki.com, 808-735-5900
By Christine Thomas

Are you hungry?

Chocolate-caramel ganache cake by Waimea's Kooky Cakes

I hope so.

Over the next few days I'll be posting gourmet-related stories, from restaurant spotlights to delectable dishes, and from giant chefs to local-style iPhone apps and more. 

Stay tuned!

UH Press Anniversary Sale

I

It's another end of summer sale, this time an opportunity for you to save 40% on every UH Press title in inventory. The sale runs from Sept 1-7, and all you need to do is visit their website and order.

I recommend checking out the Hart Wood book about architectural regionalism in Hawai'i, The Value of Hawai'i, a collection of voices pondering Hawai'i's past and future, which has been featured regularly on the new "newspaper" in town, Civil Beat, and classics such as Kuykendall's three volume series The Hawaiian Kingdom and Billy Bergin's Loyal to the Land.

Book Review: The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno

We're transported to the Gilded Age in this debut novel about circus curiosities.

REVIEWED BY CHRISTINE THOMAS

For the Miami Herald

THE TRANSFORMATION OF BARTHOLOMEW FORTUNO. Ellen Bryson. Holt. 338 pages. $25.

Today, no ticket is necessary to gawk at the freakiest aspects of modern humanity; a quick Internet search delivers them in seconds. But in 1865, morbid curiosity was assuaged at such places as P.T. Barnum's pre-circus American Museum in New York City. There the larger-than-life showman paraded odd objects and such human curiosities as Bartholomew Fortuno, the World's Thinnest Man and fictional narrator of Ellen Bryson's promising debut novel.

After a slow beginning tripped up by cumbersome, overwritten prose, The Transformation finds firm legs in Fortuno's entrancing voice and the atmospheric reimagining of Barnum's museum. The story opens on the eve of President Lincoln's funeral, 10 years after Barnum rescued Fortuno from the circus. Artfully inserted historical details -- from sewer smells to the reading of the latest Dickens' installment in Harper's -- make the period tangible.

When Fortuno spies Barnum with a veiled woman, he is threatened and intrigued by what can only be a new act. Then the famously smiling Barnum asks Fortuno to spy on the newcomer, Iell, the Bearded Lady. The ensuing entanglement upends his routine, the curiosities' hierarchy and eventually his identity.

On the surface, Fortuno is the consummate gentleman, forever respectful of his best friend and opposite Matina, the Fat Lady. He's a loyal employee and a passionate performer who believes his act provides an important service to audiences. "[O]ur destiny insists we use our gifts to show others who they really are or show them what, in an ideal world, they could become,'' he opines. "It may shock them at first, but, deep down, we open their eyes to greater possibilities.''

But, as Fortuno admits, some visitors stare in awe and others in disgust, so perhaps some readers won't delight in sticking close to tall, thin Fortuno, whose deeper psychology can be as grating as his physique. Until Iell enters the scene, Fortuno is a naive shut in whose delusional arrogance helps him rationalize his refusal to leave the museum: "Normal people needed the context of my show to understand my place in the world, and I needed the distance from normal people. Idiots, every one.''

But when Barnum and Iell force Fortuno to connect with the outside world, his reality expands, and being swathed inside his point of view becomes less limiting. Amid this broader world still rich with magic, Bryson plucks readers' curiosities to probe timeless questions: What happens when we suppress our appetites? What do we sacrifice to belong? What is lost when we hide?

Uncovering Iell's secrets leads Fortuno to expose his own, and this subtle but profound transformation casts a spell over the narrative until the last pages. Novel and character are awakened by the magnetic Iell, who makes Fortuno feel "empty and full at the same time. Hungry and satiated.'' By the end of the novel, readers should feel that way, too.

Book Review: The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Science journalist deftly brings to life the periodic table of elements.

REVIEWED BY CHRISTINE THOMAS

For the Miami Herald

THE DISAPPEARING SPOON: and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of Elements. Sam Kean. Little, Brown. 380 pages. $24.99.


Imagine you're taking a course encompassing the history of the world, madness, love, politics, rivalry and alchemy as seen through the periodic table of elements. Unless you're a straight-A science geek, you'll want a teacher who enlivens even the most tedious subjects by relating material to everyday life in everyday language and who exhumes juicy backstories about experiments and the people performing them.

Science Magazine reporter Sam Kean is that sort of teacher, and his new book is precisely this sort of wild but approachable course, with undeniably sharp science teeth.

The book tethers tales of carbon, silicon and the like to set themes and genres yet its information-packed chapters are infused with a sometimes directionless ebullience. Kean, who graduated with honors in physics, maintains "there's a funny, or odd, or chilling tale attached to every element on the periodic table,'' which he sees as "both a scientific accomplishment and a storybook.''

He jumps gleefully from one story to the next, confident in exactly how all the details fit. His writing is easy to follow when the stories are woven with intriguing characters and moments in history, such as Marie Curie and her scandalous reputation or the origins of chemical warfare. He's also adept at providing fun facts such as what causes the eponymous spoon's disappearance. His conversational prose sizzles with pop culture references to such items as iPods and Pepto Bismol, and he provides surprisingly informal analogies, such as calling the castle-like periodic table "a gigantic and fully sanctioned cheat sheet'' and likening atom-molecule collision to "two obese animals trying to have sex.''

Elements are also daringly personified, from Kean's beloved "cultish'' and "alluring'' mercury, which also helped archaeologists track down Lewis and Clark's campsites, to independent and erotic helium, aloof gases, and that "black sheep'' germanium. In these moments, Kean's is the one class you can't wait to show up for.

But the book isn't entirely breezy and fun, particularly when the science gets more complex and the explanations more detailed and lengthy. Kean works to dissect intricate physics and chemistry, such as quantum mechanics or radioactive decay, into layman's terms, but these sections produce the unpleasant sensation of cramming an entire semester course in one sitting (while fully expecting to fail). Fellow science geeks need not worry, but lest others be tempted to skip these details, plan on digesting Kean's ode to the periodic table over time. Indeed, a semester might be an ideal schedule.

The detection of elements and their relevance in our lives is far from dead: the most recently discovered, copernicium, was added to the table in 2009, and europium is a modern anticounterfeiting tool. Kean's palpable enthusiasm and the thrill of knowledge and invention the book imparts can infect even the most right-brained reader.

A Sigh of Relief

Ah..... Time for a period of dedicated travel (finally!). While I replenish and restore (and do a little travel writing and research) over the next month Literary Lotus will be on break.

Circle back 'round at the end of August for book reviews, author interviews, and new events, spots, and news from Oahu, the Big Island, Fiji, and more.

 
In the meantime, if you want to read what I'm reading, pick up:

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Book Review: Spent - Memoirs of a Shopping Addict

One woman's journey from materialistic mania to mellow mood.

Spent: Memoirs of a Shopping Addict | Avis Cardella |  Little, Brown | 263 pages | $23.99


REVIEWED BY CHRISTINE THOMAS for AARP Magazine 

"How can a woman with a closet so full feel so empty inside?"

That's the question fashion writer Avis Cardella kept asking herself during the depths of her compulsive shopping addiction—one that drove her to shop every day just for the "retail high," to forgo food in order to buy designer clothes, and to fill her closet with bulging but unopened shopping bags.

Meanwhile, her credit-card bills ballooned and her rent went unpaid.

In Cardella's confessional narrative, Spent: Memoirs of a Shopping Addict, she traces the deep psychological roots of her dependence—a surprisingly widespread affliction that often gets dismissed as "irrelevant" or "simply what women do." Cardella tries to blame this nasty habit on fashion magazines and social forces.

In September 2001, Cardella reminds us, President George W. Bush and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani urged Americans to display their patriotism by going shopping. And even in our current economic crisis—one fueled in part by unconstrained borrowing—we consumers have kept right on spending. Significant reductions in our consumption would transform an economy like ours radically and uncomfortably.

From her more self-aware position a decade on, Cardella looks back at how she used shopping both to define and to avoid herself. In the late 1990s, when she was working as a freelance writer and living in Manhattan, Cardella allowed the men she dated to finance what her writing jobs could not: a "carefully calibrated" image based on a perfect wardrobe, a circle of chic friends, and frequent weekends in the Hamptons. (With her avowed "quest for superficial perfection," the author seems perversely determined to deflect our sympathies.) 

Yet Cardella was hardly the first, the only, or the last consumer to fall prey to America's "national preoccupation with having more, consuming more, and displaying more of the materialistic symbols of success." Her fellow shopping addicts pop up in three centuries, from Mary Todd Lincoln to Imelda Marcos to Victoria Beckham. Cardella also weaves in research and statistics (at least 6 percent of Americans have a compulsion to shop) to bolster her argument that we have a national shopping problem—and that it must be recognized and resolved.

For all her protestations of outside influence, Cardella's root issue is psychological, not social. She used clothing to shape and reformat herself, creating a polished exterior designed to ward off self-doubt and insulate herself from grief at her mother's death. Her fragile self-esteem funneled her right into "the lacquer of the good life," and she liked this society-approved "external artifice" better than her own self and sense of style.

As she retraces her shopping symptoms—dodging creditors' calls, borrowing money from friends, eating less in order to spend more—Cardella indeed appears unbalanced. Her edgy voice is diffident and biting, yet it is also exaggerated and blasé, replete with sarcastic asides and characterizations that sound witty but unintentionally raise the question of whether she might be prone to prevarication.

Immersing readers in her life like this is risky and courageous—as is Spent's exposure of this undeniably fascinating and important subject. As a narrative, however, Cardella's book comes off much like her mother's embarrassing rabbit-fur jacket: "pieced together from different-colored scraps." Isolated anecdotes are linked by clunky transitions, and the book's tenuous arc seems to mirror the author's instability; it marches ahead with no discernible direction, detailing every retail fix but neglecting certain key events altogether, such as the romantic ruptures that she claims stoked her addiction.

But this aimlessness is also endemic to the topic at hand. Unlike alcoholics or drug addicts, compulsive shoppers can't go cold turkey; there are groceries to buy, worn shoes to replace, and other life functions to meet. Facing the challenge of "recontextualiz[ing] myself as someone who was defined neither by her ability to shop nor by her possessions," Cardella decamps for decidedly less consumer-centric Paris.

If every American embraced "conscious consumption"—a saner retail approach in which customers purchase things to supplement, not suppress, who they are—the ubiquitous and seemingly benign act of shopping might lose the seamy underbelly that leaves us feeling Spent.

Surf is Free in Fiji

As I plan an upcoming work/play excursion to Fiji later this month (expect LL to be on hiatus during this time), I keep popping over to Fiji Guide.com to check in with people I met on a press trip there last year and search for helpful information for my stay. I'll also be writing about my trip for Fiji Guide, filing stories on location when possible.

On recent site visit, I read a post by publicist and Fiji Guide founder Rob Kay about the very interesting surfing development in the island nation. Fijian resorts now no longer have exclusive access to "it" surf spots such as Tavarua. Tourism experts estimate this change could bring more than 20,000 surfing tourists to the nation per year. Keep in mind that in 2008, Fiji had just over 585,000 visitors.

Is this good or bad for surfers and surfing? Will this make Fiji less or more desirable as a surfing destination?

You tell me.

Read more on Fiji Guide.

Photo linked to FijiGuide.com

Book Review: What He's Poised to Do | Ben Greeman

Collection explores relationships -- romantic, erotic and miserable.

REVIEWED BY CHRISTINE THOMAS

WHAT HE'S POISED TO DO. Ben Greenman,Harper Perrenial, 171 pages, $13.99.

At times the best way to communicate the struggle of humanity is simply to write it down; even in today's instant messaging, friended Twitter-verse, the old-fashioned letter still serves a much-needed purpose.

The prolific Ben Greenman, a New Yorker editor and Palmetto High school graduate, investigates the interplay of the why, what and how of such communication in his epistolary collection. The 14 stories in this slim but substantial volume -- the length has more than doubled since its first incarnation as the six-story, limited edition letterpress box Correspondences -- are set in a range of locales (from Paris to Harlem to the moon) and eras (from 1851 to present).

A few stories unfold during the Internet age, when Greenman's characters must sidestep modern communication's brevity and instantaneousness. They usually do so artfully, save for the narrator in the perplexing yet intriguing Seventeen Different Ways to Get a Load of That, set on a U.S. moon settlement in 1989. He shuns technology and stubbornly clings to letters, what everyone else views as "an antiquated practice.''

Letters are integral parts of the plots and messages. Some impart news, such as the erotic missive to an ex-wife in Country Life is the Only Life Worth Living, pulsing with the narrator's boundless appetites, while others are considered "particularly efficient delivery mechanism[s] for additional misery.'' Some letters are conduits for the blossoming or wilting of love, like the words written by the man in the title vignette who separates from his wife via postcard or in the effortlessly unfurling To Kill the Pink, where deeper connection between two lovers rests on a short note. And some are never meant to be perused, like the more than 2,000 over-the-top romantic love letters Tomas Tinta writes in Hope to a woman he met once.

Throughout, a limber Greenman, author of the rock and roll novel Please Step Back, plays confidently in his customary milieu of human and romantic relationships, inhabiting rapacious male and devious female narrators (as well as quite a few observant painters and lawyers) with practiced ease. Yet his stories are at once weighty and genuine and light and breezy, as he subtly nudges hefty themes of permanence and transience, meaning, isolation and connection. Intensifying mystery and rescuing the collection from a formulaic devotion to letter writing are the intimate yet diaphanous connections the stories share, perhaps a word repeating in two parallel stories or the uncertain sense that characters repeat.

What rises to the surface is that What He's Poised to Do isn't just about communication, but what drives it -- man's eternal dilemma, articulated slyly in Against Samantha: "[I]t is every story, told all the time, in every language, with every available flourish. Man is asphyxiated by choice, not in the abstract but in the concrete. It hardens around him.''

Sometimes choices can't be communicated and shouldn't be received quickly. Because, like Greenman's earnest, troubled and deeply human characters, sometimes we need more time to ponder what to do next.

Read more at the Miami Herald
Photo by Dorothy Hong

WW Norton Titles Summer Sale

Did I forget to mention that W.W. Norton's Architecture, Architectural History, Landscape Architecture and Practice titles are on sale this summer?

Purchase directly from W. W. Norton at a 20% discount with this special promotion code before July 31, 2010: SUMMER10 

We can all use a little 20% off love these days, so thanks W.W.

Take a peek at Norton's description of the sale books:

  

The Acoustics of Performance Halls

J. Christopher Jaffe, an acclaimed acoustician known for his innovative design concepts, describes the common misconceptions about what makes a successful classical concert space, explains that sound reflections rather than geometry are the key to developing an outstanding hall, and shows how a series of simple principles related to how humans perceive musical quality can provide the ideal environment for classical music performances. This book should be required reading not only for acousticians but also for concert administrators, concert division directors, and operations managers, as well as theater consultants, architectural firms, and construction companies.

   

Rematerial

Packed with dazzling photographs, this book makes a compelling case for recycling as a stimulus for design. Among the memorable examples: the surprising Poop House in Melbourne, Australia; gorgeous Peach-Stone floors in Cape Town, South Africa; the modern elegance of the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin; and the airy Big Dig House in Lexington, Massachusetts. Works by the Rural Studio, REFUNC, and Dan Rockhill (among many other sustainable pioneers) are also examined.

   

American Art Museum Architecture 

Architectural historian Eric M. Wolf delves into the archives of some of the country’s premier institutions not only to explore the design decisions made at their founding, but also to understand how those institutions have continued to evolve along with their collections, up to the present day. Wolf examines the gradual development of six major museums: the Frick Collection, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Menil Collection in Houston, the Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

 Inclusive Housing

This title tackles the underlying theory and design of homes for disabled people, senior citizens, minorities, and low-income individuals. These marginalized populations need design attention, and more often than not are relegated to living in inadequate and dangerous housing. Also, as the average age of our population increases, this issue of age-appropriate housing will dramatically come to the forefront of national consciousness. Inclusive Housing addresses all of these issues in very timely essays and with physical plans for architects, designers, and city planners.

   

Garden Guide New York City

Tucked inside venerable museums, perched on rooftops, concealed behind sleek midtown facades, and waiting beyond unassuming gates you may have passed a hundred times, remarkable gardens welcome visitors in almost every corner of New York City. More than 50 color photos showcase the gardens, with each garden entry offering complete visitor information, clearly-labeled maps of each borough or region, and lively anecdotes sprinkled throughout.

Key Buildings of the 20th Century, 2nd Edition

An analysis of influential work by seminal architects, including Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, and Rem Koolhaas. A concise text supplemented by full-color images explains the significant architectural features of each building and the influences it shows or had generated. As an added bonus for readers, a free CD-ROM containing digital files of all the drawings is included inside the book.

   

The Architecture of Patterns

Drawing on the work of a diverse group of young international architects and forged from the intellectual and cultural milieus of fashion, ecology, cybernetics, evolutionary biology, chemistry, and consumer behavior, this polemical book examines the potential of a new generation of information-rich and formally complex patterns in contemporary architecture.

   

How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising

In print for over thirty years, this is the advertising industry bible and ultimate insider’s guide to getting in and getting noticed. Praised as the “essential,” “award-winning advertising career classic,” this is the book that all aspiring creatives turn to for brutally honest—and often droll—career advice, now fully updated to reflect what most impresses today’s top firms.

   

Frederick Law Olmsted

Sixteen selections, dating from the 1850s to the 1890s, reveal Frederick Law Olmsted’s youthful interests as well as his mature thinking on cities, small residential sites, the history and theory of urban parks, and landscape architecture in general. His writings directly addressed important issues of his day, but they remain as cogent as ever in today’s environmental crisis.

   

Great Public Squares

Architect Robert Gatje, formerly partner of Marcel Breuer and of Richard Meier, offers new insights, stunning computer-generated plans at a uniform scale, and color photographs to convey the spatial experience of forty European and American squares, supplemented by a brief history of each square and measurements to assess their success. No other source for this comparative data exists.

The Bird Files

Each morning as I sit at my desk I hear the cheep cheeping of a mother bird feeding her baby.

In a well positioned nest atop a ficus tree outside my kitchen window, what looks like a red-whiskered Bulbul watches over her baby bird and one sadly unhatched spotted egg. The favored food seems to be plump crimson berries, delivered at steady intervals throughout the day.

It's your Monday morning moment of zen.
 

Mission Houses Museum Last Saturday Literacy Days

Beginning June 26, Mission Houses Museum will host Ho‘omaka Hou (New Beginning) Days on the last Saturday of every month. This new program is designed to explore literacy in Hawai‘i in a fun, hands-on way, exploring a different topic each time.

On June 26, the focus will be First Peoples, examining traditions of Hawai'i's well, first peoples, through petroglyphs and other storytelling avenues. Story hour is at 12:30 and will be scheduled regularly at that time, and visitors can engage in rotating hands-on activities throughout the day. Above all, the museum wants to engage people and reflect on the idea of new beginnings.

“Everyone who has ever been a newcomer to Hawai‘i has experienced a new beginning here, so this program will hold surprises and relevance to everyone in Hawai‘i. We or our ancestors have all come here from elsewhere,” said Tom Woods, Mission Houses Museum Executive Director.

July's topic will be Yankees and Europeans Make Hawai'i Home, exploring how traders, sailors and missionaries integrated their traditions into Hawai'i's culture through the items they brought and developed, such as ships, china, quilts, and handwritten Hawaiian language. (see the 2010 schedule below)

It's great to see the Museum doing so many events and community activities, especially around literacy--reading and storytelling, after all, provide many new beginnings for adults and children alike.
 

Saturday, June 26, 10 am to 4 pm, children under 6 admitted free; $4 for kama‘aina, and $10 for non-residents; admission includes the house tour at 11am, 1pm or 2:45 pm, and all activities.


2010 Schedule

August 28: Plantation Days

September 25: Working Together

October 30: Chicken Skin Stories

November 27: A Time to Give Thanks and Mālama (care for) Our Land and Friends

December 18: A Circle of Ethnic Holidays



**Photo linked to the Mission Houses Library page--check it out!

Three Reasons to Visit Bishop Museum

I've never before heard of so many exciting reasons to visit the Bishop Museum. I dare you to not to mark at least one visit on your summer calendar.

1) Of course the renovated and redesigned Hawaiian Hall has been a draw for nearly a year (read more about this historic renovation here). And in July or August they'll switch out Liloa's beautifully fierce yellow and crimson feather sash adorned with human molars--one of the oldest existing featherwork examples--with Nahi'ena'ena's million-feather pā'ū, the largest in existence.

2) On June 6, they upped the ante with the historic unification of three jaw-dropping carved 'ulu wood Kū images from the British Museum (photo lower right © Trustees of the British Museum), Bishop Museum (above left, with white malo, photo by Linny Morris courtesy of the museum) and Peabody Essex Museum (lower left, courtesy of the PEM in Salem, MA). Throughout the Pacific, Kū is known as the god of war, prosperity and procreation, (Kūkailimoku, the snatcher of islands) and the Bishop Museum's image has been displayed in the "new" Hawaiian Hall since 2009. But this is the first time in more than 150 years that three traditional Kū images of this size and magnitude have been displayed together; the last exhibition of the sort was in the 1820s.

"This exhibition brings together the last of the great carved Kū images from across the world," said Timothy Johns, president and chief executive officer of Bishop Museum, during the media preview conference on June 3, 2010. "It has been a dream of people for many years."

Peabody Essex Museum Director and CEO Dan Monroe stated, “It is a pleasure to help it return to Hawai'i," and explained their image has been traced to a Christian chief who was set on destroying it. It was sent to Massachusetts in 1842, where the sea captain John T. Prince stored it until the Museum took possession in 1846. "We are happy to have the opportunity to preserve and protect him, an artistic masterpiece that reflects the artistic genius of native Hawaiians."

The British Museum’s Keeper of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, Jonathan King stated, “This is a wonderful and exceptional project we hope will be the first of many with the Bishop Museum and native Hawaiians," then went on to explain what they know about their image, which they think came to London during King Kalakaua's 1820 visit. He also noted that all of their mouths are carved very similarly,  and generally exhibit such confident stokes even though the tools were likely not in use very long.

E Kū Ana Ka Paia:  Unification, Responsibility and the Kū Images will be on display through October 4, 2010, standing together at over 10 feet tall in between the Pili Grass hut and heiau model. The exhibit coincides with the bicentennial of the unification of the Hawaiian Kingdom by King Kamehameha I, and begs exploration of issues including political sovereignty, cultural identity and how museums foster cross-cultural dialogue and understanding. It's also simply a rare experience since so little early Hawaiian sculpture remains--according to Mr King, "only around 150 pieces."

 
Bishop Museum Information about the three Kū:

• Temple Image, Bishop Museum: March 1895, made part of the Museum’s permanent collections through a purchase made by Charles Reed Bishop
• Temple Image, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem: Gift of John T. Prince in 1846. Sea Captain John T. Prince presented the 800 pound idol to the East India Marine Society (which later became the Peabody Museum)
• Temple Image, The British Museum: Gift of W. Howard in 1839
• **See them together in my very grainy photo below

3) And on June 19th, the Museum launched a new exhibit of historic surfboards and surfing images culled from their collection of historic Hawai'i photos--the largest such archive around. 

SURFING: Featuring the Historic Surfboards in Bishop Museum's Collection runs through September 6, 2010, and features such highlights as more than 25 historic surfboards (including some once belonging to ali'i), a surf simulator so visitors can try surfing right in the museum halls, examples of board design through modern times, and historic photos like this one from the archives.

“Surfing is worldwide, but its roots are in Hawai‘i. From its island home, the sport has spread internationally in the last one hundred years.  As surfing has grown so has the interest in its history,” said Library and Archives Collection Manager DeSoto Brown. 


Go, visit, learn--then tell me what you think. 

Author Update: Darien Hsu Gee, aka Mia King

Darien Hsu Gee was seven months pregnant when she and her husband left their Price Waterhouse jobs in San Francisco and moved to the Big Island.

"It was a big, last-minute, spur-of-the-moment idea," the ever-energetic and passionate Darien says. "We really felt called there and felt it was home for us."

Turns out it's the perfect spot—just ten years on, she’s an organized mother of three who home-schools her children, and having pursued her longstanding passion for writing, is a national bestselling author of four novels penned under the name ‘Mia King’.

"Life pushed us in the direction we needed to go," Darien says, and she has siphoned her experiences into each book, including her most recent, Table Manners (out in paperback August 4), inventing creative female protagonists on the brink of big change, and plots revolving around food—complete with delectable recipes.

Her next book Friendship Bread will be published by Ballantine in 2011, possibly under her real name because of its markedly different focus on a town emerging from tragedy, but Darien still aims to entertain readers and inspire them to keep growing and chasing dreams.

"Don’t let people tell you what you can or can’t do—do what you want to do,” Darien advises.

"I’ve been writing since I was seven—it was only a matter of time before I trusted myself to do what I’m doing now.”

-By Christine Thomas



Extras:

Need a new writing book? Here's one Darien recommends: Scene and Structure by Jack M. Bickham

Follow Darien on Twitter @miaking