Christopher Columbus Talk

Aloha kakou,

This doesn't have much to with Maui (all right -- it doesn't have anything to do with Maui!), but James is giving a talk to the The Italian American Social Club in Kiheil on Tuesday, February 23, at 7:00 p.m.

The talk will be held in Stawarz Hall at St. Theresa Church in Kihei.

James will give a multimedia presentation on "1892 - Christopher Columbus and the Making of Modern America." Nevius is the author of Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

A potluck dinner will precede the presentation.

For more information, contact Don Tedesco 214-6366 or e-mail dstedesco@gmail.com.

If you are interested in learning more about why it's so important that everyone learned the rhyme "In 1492 Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue," then join us on Tuesday!

A hui hou.

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Maui's Julia Mancuso Makes Skiing History

Maybe the weather's turned cold on Maui this week in honor of the 2010 Winter Olympics taking place in Vancouver. While the press has been focusing mainly on Lindsey Vonn and her injury-plagued quest for gold, Hawaiian news outlets are just beginning to wake up to the fact that downhill skier Julia Mancuso lives and cross trains on Maui during the off season.

So far, Mancuso has won two silver medals in Vancouver and she also won a gold in giant slalom in Turin four years ago. This means that she and Bode Miller have become the first two American skiers to ever win three Olympic medals. Way for Maui to represent!

You can read more about Mancuso's achievement in the San Francisco Chronicle. And to see Mancuso on Maui, visit Outside magazine's website.

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Keali'i Reichel's Kukahi 2010 comes to Maui

There are still mezzanine tickets available for both performances this weekend by Hawai'ian musical legend Keali'i Reichel. A twenty-time Na Hoku Hanohano winner and respected kumu hula, Reichel is among the most popular and best-selling musicians in Hawai'ian music history. He will be performing Saturday, February 13, and Sunday, February 14, at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center in Kahului.

The event is a fundraiser for his halau who will be heading to Merrie Monarch in early April.

For tickets and more information, visit the MACC at http://mauiarts.org/Feb.html#KealiiReichelInKukahi.

"Facing Future": Exploring Iz's Landmark Album

Somehow we missed this when it came out in December, but Continuum Books has selected Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's Facing Future as the first world music album to be profiled in their highly successful "33-1/3" series.

Continuum launched the "33-1/3" series in 2003 to allow freelance authors and music journalists to explore their favorite albums in depth. (Albums profiled range from Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis to Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited to James Brown Live at the Apollo.) For their foray into Hawai'ian music, journalist Dan Kois (a former O'ahu resident) not surprisingly picked Iz's Facing Future, the best-selling Hawai'ian CD of all time.

The book contains a basic biography of Kamakawiwo'ole, tracing his career from the founding of the Mākaha Sons of Ni'ihau* in 1976 to his untimely death in 1997. But the bulk of the writing focuses on the recording of Facing Future in 1993 for the Mountain Apple Company and the subsequent popularity of the "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"/"Wonderful World" medley, which -- as of this writing -- has been licensed for over 100 films, television shows, and commercials. Kois takes a critical look at Mountain Apple's president, Jon de Mello, and wonders if his relentless licensing of Iz's image and sound has devalued his music. (De Mello discredits this, noting in a recent Honolulu Advertiser story that he had promised Kamakawiwo'ole that his daughter and wife would be taken care of financially after the singer's death.)

Here on Maui, the book is available both from Borders in Kahului and Barnes & Noble in Lahaina. It also available online at Amazon.com. For more on Kois and the book -- including his perhaps farfetched idea that Barack Obama was at Iz's brother Skippy's funeral in 1982 -- see Kois's own blog at http://www.facing-future.com/.

* Is it us, or is it weird that the Mākaha Sons website doesn't mention Iz except in one buried page?

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Bill to Protect Historic Sites

Yesterday's Maui News had an interesting article about House Bill 1965, introduced by Maui's own Rep. Mele Carroll, which would require an archaeological inventory before selling undeveloped property.

Maui County is rich in archaeological remains -- particularly in Rep. Carroll's district, which covers East Maui, Moloka'i and Lana'i -- many of which are still undiscovered or have been forgotten during the most recent decades of rapid island development. In the 19th-century, many amateur historians, writers, and archaeologists commented on the heiau (temples) they saw and the remnants of pre-contact Hawai'ian settlements and farm sites. Many of those sites may still exist, but a comprehensive archaeological survey of the island has not been done in modern times using up-to-date techniques.

For anyone interested in reading more about Maui's archaeological past, the best (and most dense) book is Elspeth Sterling's Sites of Maui (unfortunately out of print, but sometimes available at used book stores on the island or online).

Or, of course, take a tour with us at Walk Maui! We'd love to share our island's history -- ancient and more modern -- with you.

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