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View From Here - Hawaii Travel Blog - Arts & Local Culture

Total Number of Entries - 125

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Merrie Monarch Here We Come

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Tue 4/26/2011

Destination: Hawaii Island

This is Luana Maitland. She is wearing a haku lei, or a lei that is made from braiding or plaiting, in this case, from many different plant materials. The haku lei is traditionally worn on your head, around your wrist or, even, around your ankles. I expect to see all kind of lei in the next few days, as I am headed to Hilo to experience Merrie Monarch Festival—the world-renowned hula competition that honors King David Kalakaua and all things hula.
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Writing It Real Like Mark Twain

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Thu 4/14/2011

Destination: Kauai, Hawaii Island, Maui, Oahu

April is National Poetry Month, so it seems appropriate to post a poem. I have long pondered the one I have selected for you. It was first published in 1889, some 16 years after Mark Twain visited the Hawaiian Islands—only he called them the Sandwich Islands—for four months and a day. You know him, right? Mark Twain. He penned Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, also known as the Great American Novel. At other times, he clenched his tongue firmly in his cheek and wrote one thing when he meant another. He wrote essays and short stories and letters that still--100+ years later--make us laugh out loud. He was known as a novelist. A satirist. A humorist. But what he wasn't known as was a poet. And, yet, we have this, what has come to be called his "Hawaii Prose Poem."
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Art is Alive in Kapaa

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Mon 4/4/2011

Destination: Kauai

This past Saturday evening, I joined my friend, artist Pam Woolway at a.ell design for the monthly Old Kapaa Town Art Walk. Pam displayed her ceramic Ganesh figurines and served chai and curry nut balls, while I tried on Angelique’s numerous creations made from bamboo and soy fabrics and poured pinot noir. Outside, musicians Pat Gmelin, Joe Zingaro and Spencer played guitar and drums. Down the street, Kathy Cowan celebrated one year of Alley Kat Art, and people gathered on the steps of Ship Store Galleries.
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Tsunami Preparedness: Live Aloha

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Mon 3/14/2011

Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

It's Monday morning, March 14, 2011 in Hawaii. I pull back the sheer curtain covering the window beside my desk to peer through hibiscus bushes. I see blue sky, white clouds and the glare of sunshine through a dappled leafy view. A shama thrush belts out a musical tune. My dogs race upstairs to investigate a sound that only they can detect. I sit at my computer, fingers poised above the keyboard. Threads of sentences stream through my head. But I am at a loss for words. I must write about the tsunami in Hawaii, of course. How could I not?
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Malasada Tuesday Taste Testing Tour

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Tue 3/8/2011

Destination: Kauai

Today, in Hawaii, is Malasada Tuesday. Elsewhere, you may know the last day before the Catholic tradition of Lent begins as Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday or Maradi Gras. I started my Malasada Tuesday Taste-Testing Tour of Kauai by myself. It ended with help from my friend Susan and a black-and-white dog. Here’s how it went.
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Kohala Coast Getaway, Part 2: King's Trail

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Sun 2/13/2011

Destination: Hawaii Island

The King’s Trail, also called the Mamalahoa Trail, once ran for 32 coastal miles from the village of Kailua-Kona in the south to the village of Puako in the north. The sign along Waikoloa Beach Road says it was originally built in the mid 1800s by prisoners and Hawaiians who paid their taxes in labor. It was used as a highway, of sorts, for pack animals. As such, it was stretched taut, in a straight line, with curbs of stone built up along the sides in order to keep the horses, donkeys and mules on the right path, just in case their riders nodded off to sleep during their long ride. I would imagine many of these riders set out at night to avoid the heat of the day, because there is absolutely no shade on the trail.
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Who Needs Zumba When There Is Hula

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Mon 2/7/2011

Destination: Kauai

Coming off another spectacular performance--Kumu Frank Kawaikapuokalani Hewett—the week before, a local hula troupe thrilled the 500-strong audience at EKK last Monday. Kumu Lena’ala Pavao Jardin opened with a resonating oli in Hawaiian. As is the custom, she recognized ke akua, God, and her own kumu, Ray Fonseca. “I hope you will see his [Ray’s] love for hula through me,” she said.
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This is Winter in Hanalei

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Mon 1/31/2011

Destination: Kauai

Today, I returned to my desk after a weekend writing retreat in Hanalei on Kauai's North Shore. The environmental philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore shared inspiration and tips on writing nature essays. Here, with Kathy's tutelage, is one essay I wrote from the retreat. She called this form, combining prose and poetry, a haibun.
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Guest Blogger Carol Yotsuda Wraps on Frank Hewett

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Fri 1/28/2011

Destination: Kauai

For 28 years, Carol Yotsuda has orchestrated Kauai’s weekly E Kanikapila Kakou, a gathering of Hawaii’s most beloved musical and cultural performers set in a backyard musical jam session. This past Monday, the esteemed Kumu Kawaikapuokalani Hewett and his hula halau performed. In the way that has become her signature, Carol wrote her “wrap story” about the event.
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Bagging Litter

Kim Steutermann Rogers on Wed 1/26/2011

Destination: Oahu

As I walked down the sidewalk, I passed a slip of paper on the ground. I looked at it long enough to note that it was the stub of a used boarding pass. In the early morning fog that is my brain, I remembered writing once about how important it is to stop to pick up slips of paper like this one. How the act, even for a scrap, completed over and over again, turns into a habit and a way of thinking about taking care of our environment as if it is our living room. And how the act of picking up litter—especially someone’s else—witnessed by others, serves, possibly, as a pay-it-forward, chain reaction.
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