NM visitors - the Honolulu episode

Our friends from Albuquerque came to visit us a few weeks ago. They stayed with us here in Honolulu for a couple of nights and then we all went for a week on Maui. It was a true vacation—snorkeling, beach, sun, snorkeling, food, Mai Tais, and snorkeling. And snorkeling.

Wed July 26 – Once we had gotten the precise measurements of our friends’ suitcases, and had performed some advanced calculations, we decided we could pick them up at the airport in our Geo Micro. We drove to the airport, lei at the ready, to greet our friends with our best spirit of aloha. They arrived safely, as did their luggage. We brought them back to our apartment and toasted their arrival with champagne and some take-away tofu. Tired yet surprisingly game, they managed to stay up until 10-ish HST.

Thur July 27 – Although we did get up early for an epic visit to the Arizona Memorial (hence the above photo of the carrier Abraham Lincoln with those people in the foreground), as far as I was concerned, our evening activity was the highlight of the day. We went over to our Colombian friend’s apartment and she prepared a great meal for us. We of course ate too many of the lovely and delicious appetizers and couldn’t finish our servings of arroz con pollo—all so attractively presented, by the way—but our darling hostess sent us home with enough leftovers for another meal for four! One of the most interesting items on the menu for the evening was dessert: vanilla ice cream and tree tomatoes (tamarillos). These definitely support the argument for thinking of tomatoes as fruit—I mean, who would eat ice cream with vegetables?

Friday and Saturday (July 28, 29), we pretty much bummed around Honolulu, taking our friends to a couple of our usual beaches, watched a documentary about surfing. In short, we just tried to make them all-around jealous.

Friday we intended to go watch a body surfing competition but it turns out we were a day early. We nonetheless enjoyed watching serious body surfers, as well as a whole throng of cops ticketing surfers who were encroaching on the posted body surfing area. They even were out on the water with their bullhorn: You, on the green surfboard, proceed to shore! You, in the brown rashguard*, proceed to shore! (You see, it can be quite funny when it isn't you on the green surfboard or in the brown rashie.) The waves were getting bigger every day—probably a result of the remains of hurricane Daniel which thank goodness had fizzled out—and so the surfing was getting good. B had taken our visiting friend out body boarding the day before and they had a great time. By this day, however, the waves were getting a bit big for a novice, so B went in with another crazy body boarding friend of his that showed up. Being the good, self-sacrificing hostess I am, I stayed on the beach with our friends.

Saturday was B's birthday and he got up to go body board at dawn. He said it was just perfect and he had the waves almost to himself. I think for him it was a perfect way to start another year.


*a rashguard is the shirt that surfers (and others) wear to keep from being abraded by their boards and also for sun protection. We picked up the shortened form rashie from our Aussie pals. It sounds so much friendlier. And what is a rashie, if not your good friend? (see photo)

Movies: Indian, Mary

The World's Fastest Indian (2005). This is based on the true story of Burt Munro, a New Zealander who customized his 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle over decades (yes, that kind of Indian) and eventually came to the U.S. in 1962 to break the land-speed record. His class record of 183.586 mph (for a <1,000 cc motorcycle, I believe), set in 1967, still stands. Even if you never get around to watching the film, Munro's biography is worth a read and Indian Motorcycles has it on their site.
Munro is played by Anthony Hopkins who is, as always, great. The movie as a whole is absolutely charming. Highly recommended as a just that: charming. Not world-changing. Not going to win any Oscars. But a truly enjoyable flick. Thumbs up from all.

There's Something About Mary (1998). Yes, I finally caved and saw it. We watched this with friends--I was the only one who hadn't seen it. It is totally ridiculous and often...well, it's gross. But my teenage male sense of humor is apparently alive and well and it turned out to actually be pretty funny. I am not a fan of Ben Stiller, so that may be part of my trouble, but I did very much enjoy seeing Matt Dillon, who I esteem highly, as a totally repulsive sociopath sleazeball. With really big teeth.

Anti-British(isms)?

An author remarked to me recently that she was criticized by a reviewer for using the word loath--as in, to be disinclined to do something--on the grounds that it is a "British-ism." It appears in the piece as "academics are loath to point the finger at corruption for the problems..."

Would an educated American reader have trouble understanding this? Is this a legitimate complaint about the clarity of the writing, or is this something far more insidious? Perhaps this is some kind of a post-colonial backlash against a former imperial power? And might not it be unpatriotic for an American publication to use English that sounds like it originated from (gasp!) the English? Perhaps it is a reaction against what the reviewer percieves as pretentiousness? But how is this defined? One writer's pretentiousness might truly be another writer's natural voice. I would ask, then, whether the deliberate use of "plain" language or even the vernacular is any less pretentious as it reflects a self-conscious desire to be one of "the people" as only an intellectual (who is, one might say, inherently not "people") can express? Where, if not in academic circles, would formal language have a place? Certainly to use the synonym ("academics are disinclined to point the finger...") doesn't sound any less fussy! They are "reluctant" to...? They are "hesitant" to...? It loses its nuance of meaning--as an artist, I object!

In the interest of full disclosure, however, I must admit that I do insist on spelling grey with an "e" in my own writing because I think the word just looks wrong with the American spelling (gray). It's a soft and lovely color, and the "a" is downright ugly. I have also frequently been guilty of using the distinctly British structure of "I've no money" in favor of the cumbersome and more lengthy American construction of "I don't have any money." So sue me. Oh, but wait--I've no money...

Movies: Zorro(s), How to Steal a Million

It may seem like we have been watching piles of movies lately, but I'll have you know that I have also been reading books. But that will be another post. B somehow finds time to boogie board as well (he's a maniac). But all that fun and games will be curtailed somewhat as the semester is about to start. And I'm still working regular hours at the East-West Center--more on that later as well. Anyway, to the movies...

How to Steal a Million. More Audrey Hepburn. It turns out that my boss at the East-West Center and her daughter are also big fans of Ms. Hepburn and we have been swapping DVDs. I loaned her my Hepburn movies and she loaned us How to Steal a Million. No intellectual challenges here, but great fun. As so often happens watching Audrey's comedies, I am left wondering: Did women really sleep in all that makeup and those eyelashes in the 60s?

Now, the Zorros. Our Zorro-fest is over for now, unless we find a copy of the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks Mark of Zorro. We watched both of the Antonio Banderas/Catherine Zeta-Jones Zorros within a week or so. The first one, The Mask of Zorro (1998), was great fun. In the Mask, a retiring Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) is passing the torch--or in this case the mask--to a younger Zorro (Antonio Banderas). I had no idea Hopkins was in this (obviously I wasn't the one who put this in the queue) so I was pleasantly surprised. Anthony Hopkins is, of course fantastic, and his presence certainly added a lot of cred. Banderas and Zeta-Jones are also quite good and do a very good job both with the action and with the comedy. In our estimation, this movie is a rare example of a case where the revised ending that they tacked on, after the original ending didn't test well, actually was an improvement over the original. If you are flipping through channels on latenight t.v., and you can choose between this movie and Happy Days reruns, definitely choose this.

The Legend of Zorro (2005) is about as disappointing as one might fear a sequel to be. It feels like it is attempting to be more of a family film, with a painfully cute (spunky!) little Zorro Jr. with big brown eyes, and yet at the same time it impressed us as being more brutal. A strange combination. And the acting? Banderas and Zeta-Jones can only work with what they are given. And Zeta-Jones only noticeably slipped out of her spanish accent a few times. The allegedly French character even occasionally slipped into his French accent. Maybe their characters just all speak English so well that they weren't supposed to have accents... And while the horse totally over-acted, which I think that is often the case with horses, it is only fair to note that he had the accent totally nailed. In summary, there is no reason to watch this. If this is the best thing on latenight t.v., go to bed.

Brush with fame

(Okay, it's really a brush with someone else's brush with fame.)

For you who get Title Nine catalogs, you are familiar with their "real" models. They are real. And they do fill out really long questionnaires. My friend Holly got asked to model for them a couple of months ago. You can see her playing field hockey on the web and in the catalog doing other sporty things in nice, stylish performance apparel. We find out that for all her sweat and effort, she gets no renum... uh, remun... um, she doesn't get paid or get to keep the clothes or anything. Just for the glory of it. And for the glory of someone putting a link to it in their blog...
>>Holly bottoms (Sorry, Holly is no longer the "bottoms" girl on the website.)

The latest movie reviews

We’ve got the whole range going here again. First, we’d like to get credit for watching a critically acclaimed foreign film Y tu mamá también (2001). This was directed by Alfonso Cuarón, whose next film would be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), the third movie in the Harry Potter series. I see absolutely no relationship between these movies whatsoever, for the record. Anyway, Y tu mamá también is a very good film that shows a remarkable and varied perspective on Mexico that is certainly outside of the experience of most Americans. The central narrative, two teenage boys who think of almost nothing besides sex go on a short road trip with an older (relatively), married, Spanish woman to a secret beach. I’m not ever convinced that it is a transformative event for the boys, but it can be quite moving for the audience. That aside, I’m not recommending it to my mother—I mean that both literally and figuratively. It is full of profanity, sex (and this is not American movie sex), and some drugs sprinkled in. Now if you can take all that (and I confess that I almost didn’t make it past the first ½ hour) then it is very rewarding. We both thought it was exceptionally good, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to everyone. In Spanish with subtitles—I haven’t decided if that gives the profanity greater or lesser impact…

Next, Flashdance (1983). A pretty bad movie all around. But as part of my quest to see what later movies have been alluding to (The Full Monty, Shrek 2), I thought I’d better see it. It’s a ridiculous movie with almost no plot and even less character, but such an interesting time capsule of the early 80s. Wasn’t it a huge hit? Oh yeah—that’s probably because Jennifer Beals is a total babe. But what was she, like twelve years old?

And last but not least, we have watched our next installment of the Zorro movies: Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981) with George Hamilton. It is completely ludicrous and great fun. It was even funnier having just recently seen what it was spoofing (seeing the original is often an essential step in enjoying the spoof), the 1975 Zorro movie with Alain Delon.

More Zorro movies are on the horizon. We are ready.

Inaugural post

Main Entry: in-'au-gu-ral
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin inaugurare + English -al

marking the commencement : being the first in a projected series