click on photos like a local!Uncle George Lanakilakekiahiali'i Naope
Born in Kalihi, Oahu in February 1928 - October 26, 2009
"I did all I wanted to do."
There's a feeling deep in my heart. . .
"Now we can call on him at any time.
A wheelchair can't come out on a rocky cliff or a crest.
Now we can call on him anywhere."
"I think what I always enjoyed most about seeing Uncle George is, whenever he went into a room, all eyes went on him. That energy, that responsibility he carried, he loved it. He loved that position, yet at the same time he had that mission, that responsibility to carry on the hula. It's really nice, this tiny little man could come in and the entire auditorium would stop. That says a lot about who he is."
Sig Zane,
Textile designer, Cultural Practitioner, and Kumu Hula.
In 2006, Uncle George was a National Endowment for the Arts fellow. He also received the Na Hoku Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts;
The Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau and Hawaii Tourism Authority both honored Na'ope with lifetime achievement awards.
"Uncle shared hula with the world.
It was his desire that hula be danced everywhere, and many of our kumu hula today are enjoying the legacy he leaves for all of us. He was a consummate entertainer, and that's what he did for the world, with aloha."
"I felt the hula was becoming too modern and that we have to preserve it. [David] Kalakaua [king of Hawaii 1874-91, aka The Merrie Monarch] brought the hula back to Hawaii and made us realize how important it was for our people. There was nothing here in Hilo, so I decided to honor Kalakaua and have a festival with just hula.
I didn't realize that it was going to turn out to be one of the biggest things in our state." Uncle George, NEA National Heritage Fellow 2006
"I tell the young people to learn the culture and learn it well, preserve it so their children and their children's children can continue with our culture and that our culture will live forever."
Uncle George
"In later years, Na'ope was known not just as a kumu hula, but as a raconteur, a dapper man decked out in bright clothes and huge rings. A fixture at the festival and its many auxiliary events, he was adored by hula-loving visitors, often seen in a huge peacock-style chair having his picture taken with visitors from Japan.
In latter years, when he crept up the ramp to the Merrie Monarch stage to perform a hula during the finale, the crowd would go wild.
He was called 'The Menehune,' for his small stature, or sometimes "Dandy," a reference to King Kalakaua's hula master Dandy Ioane, also a dapper dresser."
Gordon Y.K. Pang, Honolulu Advertiser
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When I lived in Kona in the 80's I used to see a dapper old fellow walking down the road. He was decked out in lei, with a flower in his hat, wearing many many Hawaiian bracelets & rings. "That's Uncle George," folks would say with a special tone in their voices.
The State of Hawaii declared him a "Living Golden Treasure" but needn't have. He was already beloved and appreciated in a way that is hard to express in this modern day and time.
He is one of the few slender bridges that brought the cultural treasures of Hawaii's past into the present. At the penultimate moment of the Merrie Monarch Festival (the "Olympics of hula") while the judges tally the results, the tension, exhaustion, and exultation are palpable - even when viewed on TV.
It was at just this moment that Uncle George would take the stage to dance. All eyes were on him, including all of the dancers and kumu waiting to hear their rankings.
There, in the spotlight, our foremost hula expert would begin to dance real Kolohe ("mischievous, naughty, prankster, rascal"). A bit funny, a bit naughty, he always brought a humanity and warmth that touched hearts throughout the world. He had something of the little kid in him.
I last saw Uncle George here in Honolulu in the Spring of 2006 when he was signing inaugural copies of "Humu Mo`olelo - Journal of the Hula Arts" of which he is considered the founder.
It was always permitted to treat him with warmth and familiarity, so I mentioned Kona days and we admired each others jewelry. He signed my journal: "Aloha Cloudia, Uncle George Naope."
Here it sits by my side. The privilege was all mine, Uncle.
Aloha `Oe to a dear & great human being!
And to each of YOU for joining us today. Dance on!cloudia
Here is the link to Burl Burlingame's Honolulu Star Bulletin article:
“The royal road to a man's heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.” Dale Carnegie
"That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness,
will appear tomorrow as an essential link
in the complete chain of Man” Kahlil Gibran
"The tree which moves some to tears of joy
is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself." William Blake
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When I was a kid, sports seemed like mass psychosis to me. Other kids, and ADULTS got so worked up about a game! Couldn't they just read a book or something?
Some ancient cultures used the outcome of games and competitions as oracles. Their gods literally chose sides and chose the victors. It is precisely the combination of talent, training, & skill plus a thousand and one variables that makes sports so compelling. And they provide a wonderful survival of magical thinking. Witness the rituals that athletes and even fans go through! If I remain standing, my team will score a basket, touchdown, home run or whatever. We make idols and demi-gods of our sports heroes because they are human-yet-excellent. We also like to live vicariously
through them.
This is not purely or even mostly a conscious thing either. When your school or town wins, spirits and testosterone rise!
We no longer build civic temples, but they survive as stadiums. Local teams are one common factor across all strata and conditions of society. Sports are, after all, a surviving, ancient form of mass behavior. Something primitive within each of us, and within our "civilization" still lusts to WIN. And when we DO win, it seems that heaven smiles on us promising to bless all of our endeavors. "What we plant will flourish!"
You might suspect that this post resonates with Monday Night Football here in the US.
Silly!
It's all about baseball and the Phillies.
The team that frustrated grand dad (and an entire city for) decades. Last year I was watching the game with my dad when they won the world series.
Dad passed around 7 months later.
I'm glad we had that moment together before he got really sick and started to leave worldly things behind.
It still chokes me up when I remember him saying:
"I just wish I could drive my car again."
Yes, the mundane things of this world are more important than I realized as a grandiose, underage philosopher
all those sports-hating years ago.
Now the Phillies of my roots, complete with my Hawaii's slugger Shane Victorino, will play in the Big Game for a second year. And when they do, I'll be watching along with many ghosts.
Yes, and I'll be enjoying every mundane little thing about it including the junk food snacks.
All the precious, passing Earthly treasures!
'Cause in heaven
there aint no beer.
But all pets go to heaven - so there will be someone to play catch with!
SHOUT OUT: To Universty of Hawaii/Manoa Women's Volleyball Coach, Dave Shoji on his 1000th Victory last week.
click on photos to make bigger Let's relax under the banyan tree
"I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through
the deepest snow
to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch,
or an old acquaintance among the pines."
Henry David Thoreau
My retinas are burning! That's PINK!
“Almost all words do have color and nothing is more pleasant than to utter a pink word and see someone's eyes light up and know it is a pink word for him or her too” Gladys Taber
Ah! Noble Green Greetings.
"All theory, dear friend, is gray,
but the golden tree of life springs ever green."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do you smell it? Have you guessed?
MMMMM! New computer smell!
After months of investigation and self doubt, I have obtained another DELL laptop. Dual core processor, Windows 7, and yummy ice blue case.
I'm stylin` baby!
Now I won't need that fail safe post I had all set to post if I couldn't get back on line for a while. If all goes as planned, you should find it just below this post.
But before you scroll there, please check out today's video of old friend Soupy Sales who died yesterday. In the black & white world of my childhood Soupy and his happy hipster irreverence opened a window on a world of joyous nonconformity that delighted me.
His TV world complemented the art of Dali and Magritte. Looking at his few videos available at You Tube made me laugh out loud again, and to remember early joys.
Note: This sheduled post was set to publish if my computer blew up. Now that I have a new laptop I thought I'd share it merely for your pleasure. To recap: I will be posting as usual!
Don't worry!
I'm NOT dead. . . at least I don't think I am.
But my computer is so old ("How old is it?")
that it is STEAM powered.
It's operating system was written by a caveman.
It has taken some interesting contortions, tricks, and propitiations to keep the old Dell running.
But I do love my antique technology. . . . Plus, I'm as thrifty as a grandmother.
I went through a time of asking every computer-savvy
person I met:
"Are you a Mac or a PC?"
I examined the option of using a Net Book.
Finally, I decided to stay an un-hip PC laptop.
Windows 7!
If I can just hold on until I can buy a box with Windows 7!
Thursday October 22 is the day that I can buy a computer with the newest operating system
(and put the old one into a museum!).
I'm really looking forward to it.
Visiting all of YOUR blogs has been an ordeal with the old OS; I'm really looking forward to visiting you more often!
But if you are reading this post, it means that I didn't make it.
The old lap top has finally passed on!
Thanks old pal; We graduated college, wrote a novel, and launched this blog together.
So if you, my Dear Bloggy Pals, are reading this: PLEASE be patient!
Please check back!
I will return, as Benjamin Franklin's gravestone says, "In a revised and improved edition."
Do check out posts you may have missed.
There's tons of stuff here that deserves to live beyond it's
one butterfly day.
In REAL Cloudia withdrawals (so modest!) you might consider clicking on the image of my little novel at the foot of this blog. That will take you to Amazon where you can buy the sweet little book that many folks seem to have enjoyed.
" I'll be BACK!!!
I WILL Find YOU! "
Until then, Warm Aloha to Each of YOU, my friends.
I'll be (in withdrawals and) missing YOU more. . . .Cloudia
