I Never Did This Before. . . Really!

Aloha!

Welcome to

Virtual Waikiki A lens masterpiece by Ted Trimmer (c)

Right here in Waikiki

"Reality is nothing but a collective hunch."

Lily Tomlin

Love that rustic door pull!

King Street, Honolulu

"To love for the sake of being loved is human, But to love for the sake of loving is angelic."

Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine

Ah, A shower at the end of the day!

Yes, that's my actual shower.

"We all leave footprints in the sand, the question is, will we be a big heel, or a great soul."

Source Unknown

Poet, blogger, and urban rude-boy, Walking Man at:

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

Tagged me with a meme.

And though I have never participated in those sorts of goings-on before, it seems a lazy, hazy time of relaxation and gimcrackery like today might be just the time to take a break for some fun.

So here's "Times Four"

Four Movies You Can See Over and Over

"Once Upon a Time In America" Sergio Leone

"The Trouble With Angels" Hailey Mills

"Avalon" Barry Levinson

"Public Enemy" St. Jimmy Cagney

Four Places You Have Lived

Books

Philadelphia

Honolulu

Mostly in my head

Four TV Shows You Love(d) to Watch

Bill Mawr

TCM Movies all day & night/Sporanos

The Avengers / Honey West

30 Rock/NYPD Blue

Four Places You Have Been on a Vacation

Books

Movies

Magazines

Jamaica

Four of your favorite foods

Dim Sum

Pizza

Lomi Salmon wit da rice / Hawaii "Plate Lunch"

AUTHENTIC Deli / New Jersey Diner

I'm sure that I'm forgetting important items...glad this is just a game.

;-)

TAG

You're IT!

Aloha Cloudia

Slaying Dragons

A l o h a !

Come relax a spell

here in

WAIKIKI "Put something silly in the world

That ain't been there before."

Shel Silverstein

Hometown Hero

Here Be Dragons

I found a poem,

translated from the Chinese by fellow blogger Teresa, http://wwwwhitechinese.blogspot.com/

that really spoke to me after this week's spectacle of frail human beings being confronted by seemingly over-mastering forces like their governments or the economic situation.

There is, I have learned, something stronger than mere apparent worldly power. That when a final accounting occurs, slain heroes will be honored, even as bullies are at last shamed and punished.

And somehow, that "final accounting" is not far off, but very real and alive even here & now. The Kingdom is indeed at hand. When we reach out we can feel it:

Handshake


By Jiang Pinchao


Translated by Teresa Zimmerman-Liu


Edited by Brian E. HansenPublished in June Fourth Tiananmen Massacre Twentieth Anniversary Memorial Booklet




In the tree-breaking storm
you cared for the flowers
among the thistles in my path.
You did not avoid the thorns but
threw petals before me.
In my difficulties
I was lonely,
I needed understanding and support.
Your handshakegave me what I lacked.
We did not speak at our solemn parting but
your eyes brimmed with pity, love, sorrow.









High walls, electric fences, guard towers,
blocked the desolate road ahead,
machine guns aimed at my thoughts, but
I know my responsibility.

When I am lost
I will remember your eyes.
When I feel lazy,

I will recall your hand’s touch.
Friendless,

I will remember.
Suffering,
I will rejoice.
Lonely,
I will ponder.
Terrified,
I will fight.












In this desolate wilderness
when life gave me a bitter drink
you allowed me to taste sweetness.
On this precipitous mountain roadwhere some would cut off my freedom
you whispered, “They are evil.”
On a freezing winter night
when history would lock me in a cold prison
you gave me a flame for warmth.








At the end of my life
I will have a rich harvest.
On this glorious journey
history will see a new dawn.
My fatherland will see
a day of democracy, a day of freedom,
a day of prosperity, and
I know this new day

will come because of you
because of your handshake.
As a zealous patriot for my fatherland
I etch your name
into the corner of our memorial.

March 23, 1990, Hanyang, China

Chai's Island Bistro

Aloha!

Welcome to Honolulu Harbor at Sunset!

Aloha Tower, courtesy of Chuck Painter (c)



“A tree trunk the size of a man grows from a blade as thin as a hair. A tower nine stories high is built from a small heap of earth.”
Lao Tzu


Women Warriors of WWII. Note the camouflaged Aloha Tower!

Contemporary Clouds;
like Me!

Morning Ladies!

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them,

but to be indifferent to them. That's the essence of humanity."

George Bernard Shaw

No, I don't know what these birds are called.

I call them Oahu Woody Woodpeckers ;-)

"Cloudia, I loved your little book (Aloha Where You Like Go?);

I laughed, I cried, I got 'chicken skin.'" (Goose bumps)

Robert Cazimero

Tomorrow evening there will be a White House first: a Hawaiian Luau on da lawn!

My sincere admiration to Cha Thompson of Tihati productions for keeping secret this engagement of her dancers and fire knife masters until the official announcement. She looked like she won't need a plane to fly to DC.

The "Coconut wireless" has it that planners wanted to use East Coast hula dancers, but that a Local Guy (In Chief) nixed that idea in favor of bringing in the real, local performers. He can handle 16 crises AND chew gum at the same time. Our President well exemplifies the local Hawaii saying: "Cool head main thing." Yay Barack!

My luau was last night,

as Favourite Husband and those California Cattermoles took me to Chai's Island Bistro at the Aloha Tower Marketplace for a belated birthday dinner.

The Aloha Tower, a local icon, was the tallest thing in Honolulu till after WWII. Once upon a time, she greeted the Matson Liners on "Boat Day" while bands played, lei sellers displayed their fragrant wares, and kids (some of whom I met as senior citizens) dove for coins tossed into Honolulu Harbor.

The tower, though still Harbor Control Headquarters, and the docking site for the QEII and her sister cruise ships, is now home to a mixed-use "festival marketplace" like San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

Chai is a nice Thai guy who brought his palate to Honolulu some years ago and launched a successful restaurant career. His eponymous bistro is known for great food and as a place to hear world-class local talent.

Wednesdays feature the famous Cazimero Brothers, holding court and playing Hawaiian Classics as they do at their periodic Carnegie Hall concerts. But on Tuesdays the room belongs to Robert Cazimero: songwriter, vocalist, and respected Kumu Hula (hula master) who transfixes the room with his brilliant contemporary interpretations of the great Hawaii Songbook.

Alone at the piano, he effortlessly conjures a magic atmosphere. Deftly his melodious voice moves from one unique vocal interpretation to the next. "My Hawaiian Souvenirs" once recorded by beloved auntie Genoa Keawe on the old 49th State record label, is one such almost-forgotten Hapa Haole masterpiece that Robert breathes charming, fresh life into.

A single Hula dancer joins him from time to time, her expressive hands, feet, face, & body as supple and salutary as Robert's voice. During breaks, the sound system plays Hawaiian classics - including the evening's featured performer.

Can you tell I had a good time?

The food? Oh yes! I had a Pu Pu (appetizer) platter to myself (greedy girl) consisting of seared, crusted ahi (red tuna) sashimi, a diminutive crab cake (very different from the working class, Philly crab cakes of my youth) and two towering prawns wearing Summer-weight robes of spun tempura batter.

"These prawns are almost Hifumi sized!" I thought, comparing them to my favorite budget Japanese Restaurant, located (only-in-Hawaii style) at the Chinese Cultural Center. They are famous for giant shrimp tempura (and honorably stand up to the fleet of excellent Chinese eateries surrounding them).

At the end of the evening, Robert sang "Happy Birthday" to me from behind the keys. An artist I admire so much!

You know, Robert's exemplary Aloha is very much at home everywhere, at classy Chai's or blue collar Hifumi. His graciousness to the upscale patrons last night was EXACTLY the same as I've seen him lavish on near destitute patrons at a favorite Hotel Street dive around the corner from the Hawaii Theatre. The governor, an ancient, homeless drunk, or me: Robert shares his simple, profound kindness with each one.

THAT is the definition of Aloha.

He permits each one of us to be Ali`i (chiefly) for a charmed hour. The world-recognized artist treats each like a peer, spreading his kingly feathered cloak over our shoulders too. . .

Last evening will always remain one of my cherished Hawaiian Souvenirs.

I hope YOUR visits here make you feel a little of that tropical

magic too!

A L O H A! Cloudia

Dusk Friends

Aloha. . . . .

Ah! Welcome to Waikiki at Dusk

click on photos to enlarge

Friends

"Why study Buddhist texts on impermanence when I can just sit here and watch Wednesday slip away?"

Sy Safransky

"Repeat: Do NOT take the orange barrels!"

"Art is food. You can't eat it, but it feeds you."
Bread & Puppet Theater

Big Sky, Little Red Surf Board

"When your kids are young, your reactions help shape how they perceive their experiences - whether they're going to feel good or bad about what just happened. You're the sculptor of their emotional lives. We tend to tell toddlers 'No, no no' all the time. My work made me think that there needs to be more playfulness in my parenting, more emphasis on stepping back and following the child's interests."
Barbara Fredrickson

Let the child in you run free today!

Aloha, Cloudia

Just a Summer's Day

Aloha!

Welcome to Waikiki So glad you stopped by today!

Palolo Valley

Just musing on the summer beauty. . .

Today I brought a poem to share

with you

as I wander in a realm of sensation.

My brain works - not - right,

let's call it grief.

Flooded by memories

and the present seems like a dream. . .

Wisteria Woman
by Lisa Shields

Violet lavender drug

slipping beneath my skin,

shucking off the stale air

of too long shut in,

too long shut away

whispering to me

to breathe deep and be.

The clothes fall away

till I stand like mother Eve

two bites before the apple.

Lips blush to rose,

and the tongue tastes

of sweet tart pomegranate,

while a wisp of wind

carries hair to frame my face.

All I have been is pollen dusted,

oh the wisteria sweet

kissing deep,

till I feel the promise of fertile,

drooping fat on a vine

petals that promise nothing,

but hint at all.

A month from honeysuckle still to come,

but I can taste the nights,

raise my eyes to the mantle of sky,

suddenly clad in the skin

of every moonlit woman,

and beckoning with my being

for you to dance beneath

the far flung sky

in the arms of a Wisteria Woman

©2007, Lisa Shields

Lisa Shields resides in New Jersey.

Pidgin Be Flying

Aloha,

Greetings, Hello, Anaseo, Shalom, Howdy, Konichiwa, Ciao, Ni Hau !Click on photos to enlarge

"Writing cannot express all words, words cannot encompass all ideas."

Confucius

"By words the mind is winged."

Aristophanes

Young breadfruit, or Ulu in Hawaiian

"He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel."

Francis Bacon

"Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues."

Ambrose Bierce

"There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the Earth."

Elias Canetti

"When I use a word [...] it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."

Humpty Dumpty, in Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my dog."

Emperor Charles V

"England and America are two countries divided by a common language."

George Bernard Shaw

Every area has it's own unique "tongue."

We can tell a lot about people by the way they speak,

or the way they "tawk."

When I was in Jamaica the patois was impenetrable, though based on the Queen's English.

Ebonics, the English spoken by some black Americans, refreshes and enlivens our language and our culture.

Cockneys, Brooklynites, Southern Belles, and Oxford dons may be distinguished by their modes of verbal communication, as may Pakistanis, and New England Yankees.

Well Hawaii is no different. We have our own indigenous way of "talking story" through the use of Pidgin, or "Hawaiian Creole English."

The other day I was in a Waikiki store behind a lady from the continental USA.

She asked the shop girl for a certain thing.

"No mo," replied the girl.

"No mo?" asked the puzzled woman.

"No," answered the local girl.

I could have told the woman that the girl was telling her there was "No more."

This is standard pidgin that we use because it is our primary tongue (and yes it is a problem in school and employment) or because it is the linguistic equivalent of comfortable slippers, or as a mark of belonging to this special community.

I look like a tourist to many local folks, even if they are fresh off the jet from Pago Pago, the Philipines, or Micronesia themselves. They way I speak, the words and the rhythm of it say: "Easy, Brah (Bruddah) or Sistah, I stay local too, eh?" When we can't think of the word for what we need we use: "Da Kine" (the kind) "Hand me da kine." And they hand it to you. You go to the neighbor to borrow a tool: "You get da kine hammer?"

We say stuffs like: "You like come?" "Can or no can?" "Stay COME Den!" (then).

In my autobiographical novel "Aloha Where You Like Go?" Pidgin is practically a character. The book's glossary contains Pidgin, Hawaiian, & Japanese words because that's the reality here. We don't have ghost stories, we have Obake (Japanese ghost) stories. If you enjoy that sort of literature, you should go to Amazon and check out books by Glenn Grant who collected TONS of this material and presented it very compellingly. You might want to buy one of his books AND mine for the complete Hawaiian STAY-cation; you can read us by the pool this Summer ;-)

Hawaii people are justifiably proud of this brilliant cultural adaptation through which those of many cultures and languages were able to communicate, and to make their contributions to the language and life of these islands.

It is important to remember that Pidgin is not Ka Olelo Hawaii, the Hawaiian language of the indigenous people, though Pidgin does seem to be based somewhat on Hawaiian grammar. A song lyric: "Nui ke aloha," literally means: "Big, the love." Contemporary Pidgin speakers will say things like: "Beeg (big) da dog!" Phrases like "Where you stay?" or "Stay come!" likely have something to do with the Hawaiian word/concept "Noho" meaning: seat, sit, reside, stay.

Through speaking Pidgin we linguistically honor our Kupuna (Hawaiian word meaning grandparents or ancestors) and their ethnicity's using borrowed Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian and English words (among others) in this daily celebration of our unique, plantation-born, "Local" culture.

"Cool head main thing." "Stay pau" (I'm finished") "Ono for some grinds?" (You hungry?) "I like go beach!" (self explanatory ;-) "Meet me pau hana." (after work) "Beeg da keiki!)" (Those/that kid/kids are getting HUGE!).

Just da way we roll here in the 808 (telephone area code for Hawaii)

Stay Come! No Worries, you going like 'um!

Laters, Cuz! Cloudia

Jack Bauer's Law

Aloha!

Click on photos to enlarge

"Not to know is bad. Not to want to know is worse.

Not to hope is unthinkable.

Not to care is unforgivable."

Nigerian Saying

Tuning up

It's right THERE!

Jack Bauer Law of Character Writing

"Good guys" in popular fiction (including TV & movies) break the rules to help others in peril, for the right reasons, but then they face the music and even take responsibility when wrongly accused.

"Bad Guys" break rules for their own convenience (or for the pure fun of it) and ALWAYS avoid responsibility. They lack any self awareness and always blame others.

What do YOU think?

ALOHA! Cloudia