Hawai‘i Literature & Art
— Since 1978 —
When you wish for something hard enough, you just might get it. Then comes the part about how hard you thought about what happens next, as in being careful what you wish for. Jiminy Cricket says nothing about which star you should wish upon, nor about possible evil consequences of choosing poorly. How about the…
Next morning I’m hacksawing the x-brace separating the back seat from the trunk and measuring that space for an Army Surplus cot mattress, a perfect fit. Then the Salvation Army for a skillet, cooking pot, and pillow, which Carrie supplements with one of her own — goose down. Whitey surprises by adding their Coleman lamp…
Chapter One Call me crazy . . . for even thinking about it. God or no-God? Why wouldn’t it make a difference? I’m sure His hand was seriously in play that time Evers and I scored our famous ten-dollar lid at the olden golden International Marketplace, that masterpiece of 60’s Waikiki funk, the whole karmic…
In some old boxes of stuff I haven’t looked at for decades, I find a small packet of pristine snapshots, six altogether, of a much-younger me. It surprises me to see how much younger, yet how familiar. In two of them, I’m picking wild raspberries on a camping trip in BC. Another has me in…
In about 1962 I saw Joan Baez at the Seattle Civic, modestly well-attended by well-laundered overalls and plaid flannel shirts. Her name was the draw and her shirt was flannel. She was sponsoring this gnomish little frizzy-haired guy that nobody’d ever heard of. He did “Don’t Think Twice (It’s All Right)” and “It Ain’t Me,…
8:07 a.m., Saturday, January 13, 2018 Dogs somewhere up the valley — three of them, if I hear correctly. One hammers its bark, bark, bark drumbeat; another moans its sotto voce personal agony accompaniment to the lead growler’s dark warnings toward any who might seek to exploit this sudden vulnerability. No! Way! Jo! Se! Then…
Penning “2018” on my water bill payment, I realize it’s been fifty years, a full half-century. If not now, when? That novel of social and personal revolution, summer 1968. Better get to it. Staring absent-mindedly at the browning hulk of Douglas fir, I see needles and branches, lights and ornaments, all dry and brittle. Like…
Or is that plural: The walls have ears? Or both? Or neither? (How could a wall have ears?) Listen, I’ll tell you how. A recent Star-Advertiser story said our President will now allow parts of elephants to be brought into our country as trophies. One wonders which parts? Tusks, certainly. Entire heads? Unlikely. Too unwieldy….
Whitey, an avid golfer, thought I should be too. The last time he visited, ever, he brought a five-gallon plastic bucket full of old golf balls he’d collected over time and bequeathed them to me. Dutiful son, I stuck them in the attic and forgot them. Palolo gets a lot of rain, but no snow,…
Trick. Fool. Bamboozle. Clowns are they who vie for attention in this tragicomic vein. On the face of it, so to speak, it seems funny to wear too much makeup while trying to pedal a ridiculously undersized velocipede toward some stupidly ambiguous destination. Or is it sad? Is that the trick? Who’s the trickster? Who…