Aloha!

Man, do I love this place! Hawaii even has compulsory employer-provided health insurance for anyone who works at least twenty hours a week. Believe it or not, everyone here seems pretty laid back despite this blatant theft of their "freedoms" by the state. How could they be so blind? They're living in a police state and don't even know it. It's a frightful price to pay for the knowledge that when you're sick you can go to the doctor or the hospital and worry only about your illness...

Even the BFI himself has nothing but good things to say about Hawaiian health care...

I took the photo above from our table at dinner. T. saw a pair of whales cavorting in the distance...



This is our view from the restaurant where we had dinner. T. saw a pair of whales cavorting in the distance.

Everybody Does It in Hawaii

Check out the view from our hotel room!

During our week in Hawaii, I was struck by the paucity of contemporary literature and music. The literature part I understand: Despite the inspirational setting and rich history, the island chain is isolated and had no written language until missionary Hiram Bingham helped devise a spelling system for Hawaiian and translated a number of books of the Bible. For these and other reasons, Hawaii has never been able to jump start a literary tradition. As near as I can tell, the best novel of Hawaii remains James Jones From Here to Eternity (1951), set in the Army culture in the days leading up to Pearl Harbor.

Music is another matter. Traditional Hawaiian music is rich, atmospheric, and sets a high bar for musicians and singers. It's fair to say that the Hawaiian guitarists of the early 20th Century virtually invented steel guitar virtuosity.

Collections of Hawaiian music from the late 20s and 30s reveal a musical tradition at the top of its game, a vibrant traditional base soaking up jazz, blues, and country influences brought to the islands by soldiers and sailors stationed at Pearl Harbor and Schofield Barracks. The music of that period is so good and so invigorating that you can practically select a CD at random and be rewarded. I'm partial to Hawaiian Steel Guitar Classics: 1927-1938; History of Hawaiian Steel Guitar, which includes a wonderfully illustrated booklet; Legends of the Ukulele; King Bennie Nawahi, Hawaiian String Virtuoso: Acoustic Steel Guitar Classics from the 1920's; and Roy Smeck Plays Hawaiian Guitar, Banjo, Ukulele, and Guitar, 1926-1949.

Today, the passing of contemporary slack key masters like Sonny Chillingworth, Ray Kane, and Gabby Pahinui appears to be an incalculable loss. I don't claim to be an expert in Hawaiian music, but music store racks look to include a preponderance of easy listening, New Age, Jawaiian, and every Iz Kamakawiwo'ole track ever recorded. Jawaiian, an effort to blend Hawaiian vocal styles with a reggae beat, is largely a misfire: Hawaiian tenors and harmonies and laid-back lyrics simply don't mix effectively with the revolutionary rhythms of Jamaican music. It's well-intended, certainly, but nothing I've heard is interesting or memorable. Kamakawiwo'ole is an undeniable talent whose act wears as thin as he was corpulent. As for the rest, the less said the better...

I can't help falling in love with you...

Paul Krugman explains why the California death spiral awaits us all if we don't get health care right...

The great E. J. Dionne writes that Democrats better get off the defensive and soon. I have some thoughts about this that I'll be developing in future entries...

The Sunday Funnies & Arts will be back next week! In the meantime, enjoy some classic Hawaiian tunes, starting with King Bennie Nawahi and "My Girl from the South Seas" (the photographs and vintage postcards are wonderful, too):



It's Sunday and Citizen K. hasn't posted any gospel music lately. Let's make amends with the Hawaiian gospel sounds of Bob Dylan favorite Sol Hoopii:





Finally, although not traditional, but here Merle Travis leads the dogfaces of From Here to Eternity in a chorus of "Reenlistment Blues":