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Posted by NICOLE
Sunday, December 13, 2009 9:37 PM
New book offers rich stories of life
by Lee Cataluna, Advertiser Columnist
Friday, December 4, 2009
Late one night, Michelle Cruz Skinner wrote about a guy she didn't actually know but could imagine speaking his manifesto. His funny, pointed, self-involved rant came to her whole. The piece "Ten-Fold Path," where a young man talks about race, culture, desire and identity in such a pitch-perfect voice, is one of 16 stories in her new book, "In the Company of Strangers."
"So, you two wander around the booths, eventually buying a Coke each and stopping at a few booths selling "Born-Again Pinoy" and "100% Filipino" T-shirts, genuine-made-in-the-Philippines woven bracelets, and wood carvings of carabaos and gigantic fork and spoon sets. You vowed years ago that someday, when you had your own house, you would sure as hell not mount some gigantic fork and spoon set on the wall of your dining room. No carabaos either."
"One of my students asked if I listen to guys talk," Skinner said. "I said a lot of them talk loudly, oblivious to everyone around them, so I can't help but hear what they say."
Skinner, a teacher at Punahou, was born in Manila and raised primarily in Olongapo City in the Philippines. She has published two other books, "Balikbayan" and "Mango Seasons," which was nominated for the 1996 Philippine National Book Award. Her new book, published by Bamboo Ridge Press (which, to disclose, has published some of my work), contains both fiction and memoir, including a piece called "Paper," where Skinner describes the significance of books and documents in her childhood in the Philippines.
"When I write letters to friends in Olongapo, I never put my name in the place for return address on the envelope. In my files is a birth certificate for a hospital that no longer exists, my medical records from a base that's no longer a base, my parents' marriage certificate although the marriage ended long ago."
The stories are rich and disarming, as in a piece called "Parenting," which describes that middle-age tipping point when your children don't need you as much but your elderly parents need you more.
The book's cover depicts Filipino politicians and popular figures as caricatures on milk-can labels. Skinner met the artist, Dindo Llana, at a book reading last year.
"As soon as I saw the picture with the six cans clustered together, I knew it was what I wanted for the cover. All the faces just looked right for the book. The writing on the pieces also echoed a sense of humor and understanding that appealed to me and which I'd tried to capture in my writing," Skinner said.
A reading and reception for "In the Company of Strangers" will be held at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa Art Auditorium Tuesday at 7 p.m. The reading is free and open to the public.
Reach Lee Cataluna at lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Source: Honolulu Advertiser
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Posted by GNH
Friday, June 19, 2009 4:23 PM
Word Bag words are italicized. Mahalo to all participating poets!
SATURDAY, MAY 16, 2009 ENTRIES:
1. Da boys no like me play marbles wit dem.
2. I gave my wife a double pikake lei.
3. Paddle in a canoe.
4. On my porch with pupus, I finally notice Orion looks jes’like it did when I was 2, 16 years ago.
5. After some thought, I dropped the mass in the hole.
6. Blessed oblivion enjoying shave ice and mochi in Honolulu.
7. Birthday wish, baby in the cradle at one year old luau.
8. Summer is the time for fun, to leave behind pressure of work, studies and enjoy and have fun with family, friends and others! Enjoy...
9. One plus one equals two
10. I like to spend money.
11. Smile, make your day perfect.
12. I would like to surf with a smurf.
13. Wings to escape, to explore, to navigate, always moving, why? whatevah!
14. No can sing with pupu in your mouth.
15. Acid-free.
16. Lean into the wave and marry touch to surf.
17. The sand of memory flows into oblivion.
18. Hibicus tree, you fragrant flowers sing to me.
19. You! Me! No can eat koi for pupu!
20. Neat inside.
21. Recipe for life. Forget all and live deep into the ocean.
22. Our lives change daily like sand through colored glass.
23. Daikon flavored ice cream. . . think Obama likes dat flava?
24. Da novel stay bumboochas.
25. You don’t need to go to a fortune teller to have pride and the hang-loose.
26. Sister riding on a tumult-like boogieing wave of attitude.
27. After my saimin and ochazuke I goin’ out snorkle.
28. Whether crimson or clover, oblivion is never over. The milky way is always your silky lei.
29. Through the strong plumeria scent the sound of the poi pounders rang beautifully.
30. Great day today, with penny musubi and sunlight.
31. I can be first.
32. I will come back to the mountain for kaukau one day soon...
33. Like flowers, children shrivel up when they have no where to be.
34. Try to paddle, clown.
35. The solution for a hot day is the cool wind and soda.
36. I find uncanny love in the music of my heart and the tombs of my mind.
37. The wind blows the flag and the person gets a lei.
38. The wind blows when it’s hot. The clown makes me laugh. Hibiscus smells good.
39. There were too many books in the span of my hibiscus self.
40. I saw a man shrivel up when he drank wine.
41. In the author the guy got stress and he think it was wrong.
42. Marry a trash man and make shell necklace.
43. I come here and enjoyed book and music festival and full of memory. (No wordbag words attached.)
44. Follow the Lord, and curb your earthly desire.
45. Shave ice hibiscus for the tongue.
46. When stuff happens, there is always one solution: Everyone pound wine!
47. Look too long you may realize a simple, blooming hibiscus is what you miss.
48. Don’t try to calculate how to curb the wind to your whims. allow it to be free, liberated from your iron manacles.
49. Wiggles around Pali.
50. I drank soda and futted in the sand.
51. I hate when my money goes through transit.
52. I donno if my memory I had shave ice.
53. In the corner, I like to sing, sing, sing.
54. No can eat, if no bamboo, Panda said, his eyes sad.
55. From every corner of the earth, life looks upon Orion.
56. Look sharp!
57. I colored one piece of paper.
58. There was no light in March what a fright! It made me wonder what season it was.
59. Teach me olelo Hawaii pretty soon.
60. The ocean can ridge you house can be terrible.
61. Aboard Hokule’a, the ocean churned like a bitter turnip.
62. A hard day is about bearing—ease it by baring, your soul.
63. There was nowhere for drought, but places for celebrating.
64. Don’t stop, bus driver, can we drive a little bit longer?
65. Life can be like picking up the ball and run with it, sometimes you win.
66. Lovely spring pleiades brings chicken skin.
67. We’ll salvage that gardenia and gather the others around.
68. Celebrate opihi love; turns the meat grey to crimson!
69. The clown’s crystal read the poetry and thinks its great.
70. Blue winter can choke the sorrowful, needy soul. Besides, spring is only for those willing to watch the fledgling butterflies.
71. Whopper ocean mist.
72. Colored though chorus.
73. Sweat play . . . GOTTA!
74. Orion, a speaker not of a colorful rainbow, but of multitudinous stars.
75. At graduation my poi dog ate all the pupus.
76. The speaker spoke, his vocal broke; his brains in smoke, no joke.
77. I started to read my Bamboo Ridge Press book under the lychee tree.
78. Pop the cork of that sparkling wine; it stings with the force of sand tossed in my face.
79. Everyone in my family has made me cry.
80. I always got to work choke to pay da bills.
81. Struggling to his feet with the feeling of another overwhelming loss of lives pulsing through his veins, America wondered why the entire world seemed to hate him when all he had wanted to do was be a hero.
82. Life’s choices echo like a haunting chorus, sometimes sweet like mango other times bitter like daikon.
83. I like to swim, drink soda and the hibiscus.
84. Poetry stirs my soul.
85. The world’s in a mess and I already need a rest .
86. One man in the chorus stood up, got out his shotgun and fired it.
87. As I walked down the street, a speaker yelled: “Come!” “Why?”
88. Every corner has an ono surprise.
89. Try sing jes’like Bing.
90. I like nasube.
91. I searched my memory . . . was she there at the fall party?
92. My garden has a single poem.
93. Toss the speaker in the crowd, does he swim?
94. I walk my dog and I pray every night.
95. Sea foam floating on the waves washing over the reef is the Hawaiian print in my soul and heart.
96. Stroke, stroke, swim, what stress, a simple sign of my duress.
97. The canoe washes the sad away, no one will find it, not even when fishing.
98. The mochi party was giving me stress.
99. The men made milk and walk like a milky way.
100. The summer air was as crisp as the first cut mango.
101. Mo’bettah! to go movie than a job.
102. Serendipity choose my memory which I hope I will not lose in oblivion.
103. Fellow countrymen lend me your ears when mom talks of family, oh gosh, bumboochas of fear.
104. I donno, how the lives aren’t always aren’t always viewed through colored views.
105. I’ll start drinking soda when I’m single.
106. You wish, happy standing.
107. It is too much spice on my hamburger.
108. Graduation turns love into music.
109. Life is a circle. You do things, meet new people and start all over again. You have a circle of friends. You stay with them until the circle ends when the circle ends, you’re done.
110. I used to drink aqua with Joe Belavacqua.
111. Everything listen, demented.
112. My husband cannot see them from his submarine tonight, but I pray to the stars that he will sleep sound, snuggled tight.
113. I love to eat manini, especially in panini.
114. The fog glazing the dips of the Koolaus reveals a bamboocha like moon.
115. C’mon light wake us to ourselves.
116. Toss the paddle on your shoulder, ohana calling, time to come home.
117. Sing, Muse, of Orion, the hunter, and the cry of the hounds through the stars.
118. Literary ice cream or trade winds would be welcome.
119. Through the hibiscus filled park you can find the ridge of bamboo— bamboo ridge.
120. Paddle the surf and try to fly.
121. Sweet smell of the winter rain showers the contribution of life on the ground beneath.
122. The rough edge of the mountain greets the sky.
123. Bachan’s koi pond by the hibiscus hedge. . . colors swirl within my favorite bamboochas!
124. The wind never rest.
125. Love will rescue you from a hole sharply.
126. Eating mochi brings back sweet memories of family, celebrations, and cultural traditions.
127. The state flower is a yellow hibiscus.
128. There was one crystal clown on the shelf.
129. Bash—bash—bash— kills love fails country—makes TRASH!
SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2009 ENTRIES:
130. Be dedicated and listen to the impression of your soul.
131. Wateva chowfun solution.
132. The trash makes koi disappear.
133. Afta da great gas battle, I sat content amidst the fumes.
134. Literature opens up a vast horison of wonder and truth. (no wordbag words attached)
135. The plumeria wiggles off the branch and floats to the ground.
136. My waistline’s grand! My new belt does the best it can to span!
137. Demented, the morose clown slunk sullenly toward his shrink.
138. All work and no play.
139. The solution to a happy day is a hug from a friend.
140. I donno, where wings go. Daikon.
141. A crimson sunset displays a lost snorkle awash on the shore.
142. Forget no wonder .
143. The onion in a can is the bus driver.
144. What a wave of Bamboo Ridge poi!
145. Nasube country, sand of my birth.
146. Orion, the hunter, coming home to a hot bowl of saimin.
147. Gather inspiration. I imagine.
148. Living lazy is a standard way to falll through the window of life and hit the floor of poverty.
149. The security guard said, “Come and eat the pupu platters.”
150. Love the ohana picture.
151. It was jes’like yesterday that I came to the Hawaii Book and Music Festival.
152. We buy lei because friends congratulation party.
153. Aloha, kiss my gardenia.
154. “Miss” is the word of life, “miss you” is the word of love.
155. Da guy on da boogie board played ukulele and ate toss salad which catching one wave.
156. Wine is not mean.
157. As you walk along the beautiful beach follow the huge mass shell and you will find faith in yourself.
158. School playground is windy and trashy.
159. Opihi can win.
160. Why are bamboo paddles best?
161. I got free books on my graduation day!
162. By gorgeous self in the home of my pacific state of mind today. Mahalo.
163. The ridge can connect to our world from the moon.
164. Time to swim when you cry.
165. The scent of the hibiscus sends my mind to my memory of blessed oblivion.
166. I like my house.
167. Even clowns have droughts.
168. Pikake pride, blossom of the islands.
169. I write a sentence with words for tutu.
170. Life has meanings you might never know.
171. Tutu sends love through her hibiscus wave.
172. Rainbows stir mean.
173. Reef is what lies beneath the sparkling blue ocean.
174. Pirates have treasures, bumboochas, and they got ice cream for sale.
175. I’d love to eat a huge scoop of ice scream!!
176. There is soda in the ocean.
177. I put the partially wilted flowers in my best party vase.
178. Ride the train of life without fear fling your flag high. I live to love!
179. We no can sing without voice, words will not sing. Without song, our words remain on the page. Silent.
180. It takes work to bring peace around the world. Let’s all pitch in, and let’s be bold. Peace.
181. Outdoor living makes you free. Kinda hard on da old body.
182. Rocks are good.
183. And the swim made my stress go away.
184. Hawaii celebrates my picture.
185. I like go in the canoe.
186. Heart lights giving neat knowing blessings blowing kisses.
187. Follow the balls to the Olympics.
188. My uncle plays the ukulele for his life and has nice hair.
189. Salvage a single love.
190. I have a problem so I to read it.
191. A fortune teller uses a tarot book.
192. I like rainbow flavored shave ice.
193. A whole lot of uncanny traffic.
194. My job circle cried over their accomplishments.
195. During her stay she fought the fashion control police.
196. I had too much lychee shave ice last year.
197. The wind was blowing through my hair as I got marry.
198. A vase with rolling surf pointed on its side, move than any other thing on earth, was my mother’s pride.
199. Find the money then toss um!
200. No calculate Hawaii.
201. Sometimes choke poi.
202. Mahalo! fo’ rescue koi; no eat dog!
203. Gotta climb a mountain.
204. Hibiscus singing at luaus.
205. Yeah? Then follow your heart to the picnic of life.
206. The upside to dark clouds is the rain we receive that nourishes us.
207. Mahalo, my family lives in the surf. Home ohana.
208. This whole year you run around free as a bird. You are a huge disappointment.
209. You are a pest! But jus’ a little bit.
210. Down my driver loop—hostage in my own bus—conveniently I get off to my familiar nowheres.
211. Watchless touch in tune such blossoms bloom to spend my pleasure in an oasis infest of popoki pecks.
212. Busy nose pipe.
213. Someone had one acid-free mist business.
214. Truths of a kind can be heard in your mind.
215. Dream big while the years go by.
216. On the right side of the road there is a mango tree.
217. Went to school, kiss a boy, kick um to the curb.
218. I brought a lot of moneyfrom the milky way.
219. Clear away my fear of ulu, we can dance the hula under the ulu; both belong in Hawaii Nei, I say.
220. Wishing a birthday party in a large garden somewhere at fall.
221. Days of sand; days of wine.
222. The Hokule‘a carries with its voyagers their collective memories of that place on the Pali where they saw glistening lines descending from the Koolaus.
223. In the summer I like to eat mochi ice cream coffee flavor.
224. The fresh sea was a beautiful gift after the journey.
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Posted by HAKEN
Thursday, June 04, 2009 7:00 PM
Mahalo to all who participated in the Word Bag Poetry contest in the Bamboo Ridge tent at the Book & Music Festival! Word Bag poets chose 3 words from the Word Bag and created a line of poetry using at least one of the words they chose. They then posted their lines on the boards in the Bamboo Ridge tent. Jean Toyama, Ann Inoshita, and Mavis Hara judged the Saturday entries; Gail Harada and Darrell Lum judged the Sunday entries. The Grand Prize winner was chosen at random from the Saturday and Sunday winners by Dennis Toyama. The Word Bag words in each line are boldfaced and italicized.
Grand Prize winner
(From Saturday, May 16)
Marry a trash man and make a shell necklace.
-- Marisa
Saturday winners
Jean’s Picks: Saturday, May 16
No can eat, if no bamboo, Panda said, his eyes sad.
-- Eliana Crestani
Orion, a speaker not of a colorful rainbow, but of multitudinous stars.
-- Martha Shirai
Everyone in my family has made me cry.
-- Nancy McMahon
I always got to work choke to pay da bills.
-- Alicia Cameron
Life’s choices echo like a haunting chorus, sometimes sweet like mango other times bitter like daikon.
-- Paul Zasada
Mavis’ Picks: Saturday, May 16
Sea foam floating on the waves washing over the reef is the Hawaiian print in my soul and heart.
-- Leslie
The canoe washes the sad away, no one will find it, not even when fishing.
-- Reed Sights
The summer air was as crisp as the first cut mango.
-- Nicole Dela Fuente
The rough edge of the mountain greets the sky.
-- Laurie Tochiki
Bachan’s koi pond by the hibiscus hedge. . . colors swirl within my favorite bamboochas!
-- pcseeker
Ann’s Picks: Saturday, May 16
No can sing with pupu in your mouth.
-- ‘Ilima Stern
Recipe for life. Forget all and live deep into the ocean.
-- Annie Suite
Daikon flavored ice cream. . . think Obama likes dat flava?
-- Natasha Shirley
I will come back to the mountain for kaukau one day soon...
-- Sherry Cameron
Like flowers, children shrivel up when they have no where to be.
-- Ikaika Pestana
Sunday winners
Darrell’s picks: Sunday, May 17
The trash makes koi disappear.
-- Harrison Yen
Afta da great gas battle, I sat content amidst the fumes.
-- Kent Sakoda
My waistline's grand! My new belt does the best it can to span!
-- Adrienne Iwamoto Suarez
Gather inspiration. I imagine.
-- Shoo and Cody
Time to swim when you cry.
-- Carol Moore
Gail’s Picks: Sunday, May 17
Find the money then toss um!
-- Kristie Kodama
Mahalo! fo’ rescue koi; no eat dog!
-- Don Lee
This whole year you run around free as a bird. You are a huge disappointment.
-- James Bright
You are a pest! But jus’ a little bit.
-- Lisa Katagiri
Went to school, kiss a boy, kick um to the curb.
-- Elizabeth Gonsalves
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Posted by HAKEN
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 9:03 AM
A filmmaker looks at island culture through the lens of local language
By Katherine Nichols of the Starbulletin
After spending most of her adult life in Boston, filmmaker Marlene Booth began visiting the islands in 2000 and said it didn't take long before "Hawaii got into my bones." The desire for a long-term project began to germinate, but she wondered how to encapsulate this unique culture in a film. "I was so struck by how little I'd known about Hawaii before I came here."
Yet Booth, who earned a master's in fine arts from Yale University in 1975 and has been making award-winning films ever since, wanted to learn.
Fast-forward through several years of research and a growing friendship with the late Kanalu Young, a former professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii. He suggested they look beyond the Hawaiian language to pidgin, because without pidgin, he told Booth, he would "cease to be whole." Under his tutelage, she realized that "pidgin really does seem to be the language of the heart."
The project began in earnest when she received a research and development grant from Pacific Islanders in Communication. When Booth's husband, Avi Soifer, became dean of University of Hawaii's School of Law in 2003, they moved here permanently.
Even then the story of pidgin remained elusive. Booth understood that it is a distinct yet universal language derived from many ethnicities trying to communicate with each other on plantations. But what does it mean to the people who speak it?
When Young, who became a quadriplegic in a diving accident at age 15, suffered health complications, his schedule slowed enough to allow him to share his musings about the connections between ethnic Hawaiian and pidgin.
"He had the insider's perspective and I had the outsider's perspective, and together we were going to find our way through this film," she said. Shooting began in 2005. Thankfully, they had just enough time before Young died last year.
"He was a remarkable guy," said Booth, who dedicated the film to Young. "What was open to him, he grabbed with intelligence and passion."
With extensive use of historical photos and interviews with Waianae and Punahou School students, as well as pidgin and linguistics experts, the film explores language and culture with enough nuance and clarity to satisfy both experts and neophytes.
In a clever and rather unexpected addition, the pidgin dialogue includes subtitles -- written in pidgin instead of standard English. Booth intersperses serious interviews with entertaining minilessons that evoke the humor and creativity omnipresent in the language. She also investigates pidgin's evolution and the role it's played in schools, social connections and careers.
"It's a mixed picture," she explained. For some people, speaking pidgin provides a powerful sense of identity, yet they also feel judged and ashamed -- emotions that arise from pidgin's enduring association with poor English. "So people carry this duality. There are attitudes that people bring to pidgin that they don't even realize they're bringing. But there's a reason we call the language of home 'mother tongue.' You don't want to, nor should you be forced to, give up your mother."
In the end, the project became Young's gift to Booth because it opened the door to Hawaii. "It was a labor of love," she said. "I learned so much from him about how to live here
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Posted by HAKEN
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 4:41 PM
The editor of Tinfish reviewed Lisa Linn Kanae's new book, 'Island Linked by Ocean.'
Here's an excerpt:
"With this new book of short stories, Kanae joins those who have used Pidgin not simply as subject, but also as medium for their work about Hawai`i. Most of the stories keep to the convention of narration in English, dialogue in Pidgin, though "Luciano and da Break Room Divas" does not. This story chronicles an office conflict between the high and mighty new secretary (well educated, standard English speaking) and her new office mates (working class Pidgin speakers), one of whom is trying to deal with the first anniversary of her husband's death. The characters encounter one another outside the office at a Luciana Pavarotti concert, where the one character, Hattie, exiles her demons in the wash of the singer's voice."
For the full review, hop on over to Tinfish.
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