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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Holo Mai Pele -- Hi‘iaka: Ka Wahinepo‘aimoku at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center

This Saturday, January 30, 2010, the Maui Arts and Cultural Center in Kahului is presenting a unique long-form "opera-length" hula: Holo Mai Pele -- Hi'iaka: Ka Wahinepo'aimoku.

Danced by Halau O Kekui, the work is a sequel to the groundbreaking Holo Mai Pele, first presented at the MACC in 1995. The evening will combine hula, chant, drama, and storytelling to recount the tales of Pana'ewa the lizard god from Hawai'i island, Kapo'ulakina'u from the island of Maui, and the forest goddesses Ko'iahi, Mailelauli'i and Kaiona of the Waianae mountain range.

For anyone interested in Hawai'ian storytelling and/or hula, this promises to be a great night. Last time we checked, tickets were still available at all price levels (including the $12 seats in the balcony); you can check for tickets and read more about the show at the MACC's website.

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Martin Luther King in Hawai'i

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Did you know that King visited Hawai'i in 1959? He came in September -- just a month after Hawai'i's admission into the Union -- at the invitation of Ellen Watumull and Shelton Bishop of the Honolulu Council of Churches. Bishop had only recently moved to Honolulu, having served for years as the pastor of St. Philip's Episcopal Church in New York City's Harlem neighborhood. (St. Philip's was both the oldest and largest black Episcopal church in America.)

According to The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. King spoke first at the Honolulu Ministerial Association and then at McKinley High School. But King's biggest speech was to the State House of Representatives on September 17th at 'Iolani Palace (the new capitol would not open for another ten years).

King spoke eloquently about integration and civil rights and the address ended in sustained applause. It also sparked a fight on the floor of the House, with Representatives battling over Republican Senator Hiram Fong's conservative stance on immigration. For his part, King was also moved by his experience and later reported to his congregation: "As I looked at all of these various faces and various colors mingled together like the waters of the sea, I could see only one face -- the face of the future!"