Secret Songs of Silence

on the road

I'm on the road for the next little while.  I do expect to be able to blog while I'm travelling but just in case, I've queued up some posts about last summer's trip to Italy which I hope my regular readers will enjoy.  UPDATE: At Will's request suggestion, I've also interspersed some eyecandy posts among the travelogues.  Internet access has so far been less easy than expected so new posts might be infrequent.

swimming with the fishes

I went swimming with the fishes on thursday. I saw lots and lots of colourful fishes. I also saw five sea turtles. It was awesome.

I am not sure, however, whether I saw a humuhumunukunukuapua'a.

I went snorkelling in Hanauma Bay. If you are ever in Oahu, it is a must see and do. The beach is way, way better than Waikiki, in my opinion. There are hunky lifeguards and plenty of eye candy. A yummy Japanese (I think) guy stripped off next to me in the toilet changing area. I looked. Very nice.

(pics taken with zoom and then cropped)

It was my very first time to go snorkelling. I was nervous because I am not a swimmer. For that reason, I had signed up with a snorkel tour company. It was money well spent. The guide literally held my hand the entire time. That allowed me to concentrate on breathing and taking in the glorious spectacle below and all around me. Thankfully, the three girls who were on the tour with me did not need much supervision so the guide could devote his attention to my survival. No, he was not a hunk.

I had bought an inexpensive camera so that I could record the experience for myself. I snapped away quite merrily through the two tours the guide led us on all the while thinking that I would not know how well the camera worked until I got back to my room and downloaded the pics. And so it was only when I got back to my room. That I discovered that I had forgoten to install the microSD card. I have no pics of my own.

And that's why I am not sure whether I saw a humuhumunukunukuapua'a; I have no way to check.

I do have memories of a terrific experience, though.

 

men friday - fiji

Herewith, pics of a couple of men from Fiji taken during my visit to the Polynesian Cultural Centre.

 

venezia vista (1)

What other way could one start a look back at a trip to Venice but with a selection of canal views!

There will be few, if any, names (and I don't have time to do the research to try and figure them all out), but I think most of these are from the Dorsoduro district.

polynesia on parade

The Mitt Romney sign by the driveway of a house just before my bus stop was, in retrospect, a reminder that I was entering a different place, and not just for the obvious reasons.


On my first weekend here, I decided to visit the Polynesian Cultural Center.  Described as a “Polynesian-themed theme park or living museum located in Laie, on the northern shore of Oahu”, it consists of eight simulated tropical villages in which “performers demonstrate various arts and crafts from throughout Polynesia”.

Sounds interesting, right?

And indeed it was interesting and quite worthwhile to visit though I would also say that it is overpriced and doesn’t allow the visitor enough time to really appreciate the historical displays - well, certainly not if you decide to attempt to dash from one show to another.  Each was 25 mins long with a 5 min dash in between.  Although I have never been on one, it brought to mind what life might be like on a cruise; bouncing from one planned entertainment to another lest anything be missed.


The shows were generally good being a mixture of entertainment and education.  I first visited the Fiji but I arrived late and couldn’t get a seat inside the small pavilion.  The show included participatory singing and beating a stick on the floor and dancing. I did get to see the bare-chested male dancers “warm-up” outside.  The Hawaii show educated me as to the true nature of “hula” as distinct from the Tahitian grass-skirt version popularised on TV.  The Tahiti show was disappointing; I could see nothing from the back of the room.  Tonga was both good and bad.  The good was a very enjoyable routine in which three members of the audience were selected to participate in a drumming routine.  The chosen three had very different personalities and this made for lots of fun and good humour.  The bad sided was the near constant simultaneous translation that was taking place just behind me as a tour guide explained everything to his charges.  The same problem marred the Aotearoa show and was perhaps worse as it was indoors.  This program also had a semi religious tone to it which was rather spoiled by the incessant chatter. 

The final show of the day, though, turned out to be the best: Samoa.  This show coincided with the start of the evening Luau to which I had not bought a ticket.  So the audience was small and more intimate.  But, the MC was a star and a comedian.  He spoke Chinese and Korean as well as English, and he engaged in comedic banter in all three languages.  It was hilarious to see a dark-skinned Samoan chide the Korean (or, was it Chinese?) members of the audience for not knowing their own languages - and it was evident from the reactions that he knew his stuff.  He also gave a brilliant demonstration of how to start a fire by rubbing sticks together; one couldn't help but feel that prospective Survivor applicants should watch him do his stuff.  He had a fire going within 2 mins flat - even using damp coconut straw!  He also demonstrated how to get milk out of a coconut.

The shows were also a chance for the MCs to remind the visitors - less subtly perhaps - of another mission.  The center was opened in 1963 as a way to provide employment and scholarships for students at BYU-Hawaii on whose grounds the Center sits. It may be uncharitable of me to have assumed, therefore, that most of the students I saw were future missionaries in training. Uncharitable or not, I never really escaped that feeling with every friendly greeting offered by every wholesome helpful attendant - and there were many of them.


But, if the guys were all Mormon boys, then a definite highlight was the canoe pageant which took place in the middle of the afternoon.  Six canoes, representing the six “major” cultures, on which rode costume-clad young men and women generally doing a traditional dance routine, were rowed past.  And, since the traditional male costumes did not involve shirts, it was a heaven-sent opportunity to photograph hot hunks as much and as openly as I wanted.  Manna to a gay man could hardly be better.

peekaboos

hints of hidden metal

(via Beep-ers)

(via Paris City Boys)

a hint of hidden jewels

(via tgrade5)

and a peek-a-boo from a guy with an iPhone:

Don Pa’kwale

Yes, it's a poor attempt at a humorous title.

However, the opera in question, Don Pasquale, presented by the Hawai’i Opera Theatre last tuesday was a rollicking good piece of fun.  The laughter started during the overture and continued right to the end.  The cast received a well-deserved standing ovation and everyone left with a smile.  How different from all those operas with sad and dramatic endings!

I don’t recall seeing this opera before though I’ve certainly heard it - or bits of it - on the radio.  The impression left by live broadcasts - Don Pasquale getting his come uppance at the end - do no justice to a live performance if this one was anything to go by.

There are aspects of many operas that are by now “traditional” such as staging, and characterizations, and I do not know to what extent some or any of these were unique to the Hawai’i staging or customary in pretty much all productions.

In this production, members of the chorus (for I believe it was they) acted the parts of stage hands, moving props on and off stage at the start of each scene.  As the curtain rose during the overture, it revealed stage hands caught unawares, as it were, and a stage totally unprepared for the show.  There was much to-ing and fro-ing (and laughter), drops were lowered and raised, until just in the nick of time, all was ready.

Dr. Malatesta was hilariously presented with a new hairdo each time he appeared.  In one scene, it was slicked and gelled out in front; in another, it was all in punkish spikes; in another, it was out to the side.

In the garden scene in Act II, members of the chorus wore flower pots on their heads and swayed in time to the music.  This effect was initally a surprise for at first their bodies and faces were hidden and it appeared as if the back of the stage was arranged with colourful flowers.  Until suddenly they all moved!  By the time he appeared, then, it was no surprise - but no less comical - when Maltesta appeared with his hair coifed as a pineapple.  (Sadly, I can find no pictures)

Apart from all this, the opera really worked because the cast worked.  The acting, in particular from Kelly Markgraf and Valerian Runinski singing Dr Malatesta and Don Pasquale, respectively, was terrific.  These are comic roles and the two singers played them to the hilt without sacrificing any quality in their voices. A minor complaint, though, was the volume form the orchestra which at times drowned out the singing.  Ernesto was competently sung by George Dyer.  And, lastly, but by no means least, the role of Norina/Sofronia was very well sung and acted by Evelyn Pollock.  As the lone female singer on stage, she needed to assert herself in her role and that she did while also projecting her voice clearly.

For me, the fun didn’t quite end with the opera.  It turned out that I was not the only patron who took the bus to get to the Concert Hall.  So did many others (tourists also?) and, after the performance, we all made a bee-line for the bus stop located 100m or less in front of the Hall.  A bus came along quite soon after I arrived.  It was not my bus but other opera goers boarded and off the bus went.  The fun part was the opera goers who, seeing the bus, didn’t bother to hurry up and seemed to expect that the driver would just wait while they dribbled over.  Their complaints as they bus departed were loud!  And then they all had to stand (it had rained, the seats were wet) in their evening finery until the next bus came along.  Only, in Honolulu!?

states of chassis

Just what the heck is going in these two neighbouring countries of ours?

I woke up this morning and read a Matt Yglesias tweet:

All-male House GOP leadership gets all-male witness panel to agree that all-male Catholic hierarchy should set contraceptives policy.

WTF

Has the Republican Party in the USA taken leave of all of its senses?

* * *

As if that wasn't bad enough, the Republican Party of Canada is trying to outdo them.  (Strictly speaking they are the Conservative Party of Canada but what's in a name when the correct ideology is all that matters?)

Three weeks ago, Prince PM Stephen went to Davos, Switzerland.  There, to the assembly of luminaries gathered, he expounded on the sorry state of Canada's national pension plan.  Alas, he had not bothered to mention this ahead of time in Canada.  And, quite predictable, he pissed off a lot of older Canadians.  I thought that the one thing every good Republican knew is that you do not piss off the senior vote.

Then, this past week his Justice Minister introduced a piece of legislation into Parliament.  Innocuously called the "Lawful Access" Bill, it is quite simply a most outrageous attack on civil liberties in Canada. 

The bill would give the government unfettered warrantless access to one's personal information and require internet service providers to maintain records of the communications that all of its clients send and receive on the internet.  Agencies of government could ask for this information - and receive it - without obtaining a warrant.

David Akin, a reporter for the right wing Sun newspaper group writes:

...the government’s so-called “lawful access” legislation, is bad, that, “there is no excuse for this kind of intrusion on the privacy rights of Canadians and certainly not one from a government that says it champions the idea that the federal government ought to respect individual liberties and rights.”

As far as the Justice Minister was concerned, you were either with him or against him.  Or, as he so quaintly put it to an Opposition MP in the House of Commons, no less:

he could either stand with the government or “with the child pornographers” prowling online.

Talk about sh*t and fans! 

The internet-loving Canadian public have not taken kindly, it would appear, to being lumped “with the child pornographers”

And today, the rather holier-than-thou Justice minister has had the rather sordid details of his extramarital affair, illegitimate child (as they would say in olden times), and divorce sent forth over the twitterverse.  All of the details were in the public record but may not have been as widely known as they are now.   If he wants to now all about us, he should be prepared that we should know all about him.

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau rather mischievously tweeted:

Just to reiterate my condemnation of @vikileaks30 (that's @vikileaks30) for being meanies towards the always nice and reasonable @ToewsVic.

LOL.

* * *

Finally, just for a change of pace, as it were, (the former) Matthew Rush had a bad start to his day:

I typed something into Google on my phone then held it to my ear. The worst part is I held it there waiting for someone to talk.

* * *

As Captain Boyle says in Sean O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock":

"Th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis"

 

verona visit (2)

In tis post: churches of Verona

I have blogged about the Church of Sant' Anastasia  before.  Here are a few more pictures from the interior.  It contains two wonderful holy water fonts supported by grosteque looking hunchbacks:

Here is a closeup of the Boldieri altar which includes a statue of St. Sebastian (on the left):

The Church of San Zeno is a little ways away from the centre of Verona but it is also worth a visit.  San Zeno is one of the patron saints of Verona so this was an important church.  It dates back to 1138.  The interior is quite large and open by comparison with the other churches I visited in Verona and was distinctive in having a split level upper part and lower part all accessible and visible from within.  It's massive doors were wonderful but none of my photos came out well enough to post.  Here's a picture from  the web to illustrate the amazing workmanship:

One thing that fascinated me about this church and its interior were the frescos:

and the fact that there were graffiti written on many of them:

You can see dates on some of the scribblings.   So, this is far from being a modern phenomenon!

There was also a lovely cloister attached:

My last picture is from the lower chapel in the Church of San Fermo:

I went to a free concert in the upper church on a sunday morning.  The upper church has a wooden ceiling that is decorated with portraits of many, many saints.

 

 

verona visit (1)

During my visit to Verona last summer, I managed to take pictures of some interesting people.

On my very first promenade into Piazza Bra, I came across this street actor dressed as a baby in a pram.  He was rather good, so I took a picture, here with a young (Northern European) tourist. 

I don't remember if I dropped a euro in his bucket though.

This seamster was quite happy for me to take his picture and gave me a thumbs up!

His shop is in the via Cappello - just around the corner from Juliet's tourist trap house.

One of the musicians in the orchestra at the Opera let me take his picture.  he was chatting with a relative or friend whose son is sitting on the edge of the orchestra pit.

The banks of the Arno and nearby streets seem to be popular places for wedding pictures:

One of the things that's very distinct about Europe as compared with North America - I think - is that European shops all seem to have nice paper bags for your goods.  This man, who walked in front of me as I made my way to the Basilica of San Zeno, had a good morning's shopping by the looks of things:

 

randai in hawai'i

There's a very bad pun hidden in that title for those of you who want to vocalise it and mispronounce it.   But that's not the topic of this post.

I mentioned in a previous post that my living quarters in a grad student dorm force me to look at opportunities in the larger community for entertainment.   For example, on sunday evening, and for the firts time in positiviely ages, I went to see a movie: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  It's a very good movie.  I thought the dénouement happened a bit suddenly but that's a minor quibble.  I also found it difficult not to think back to the BBC TV production.   But this too is not the reason for this post.

No, the prime reason for this post is to praise a wonderful production of a Sumatran Randai called The Genteel Sabai by the University of Hawaii's Department of Theatre and Dance.

Randai is a traditional folk dance-drama from the Minang region of West Sumatra.  It is based on well-known folk tales, local musical traditions, and martial arts.  Dialogue, songs, instrumental music, percussion, and dance are interwoven in the performane.  The dancers move around in a circle, practicing and executing  the moves of the martial art known as silek.  By moving in a circle, the students learn by observation.   One of the dancers (and it changed throughout) leads the dance with vocal cues.  The dancers also wear special pants which, when stratched, allow them to beat their hands creating a percussive sound that is quite dramatic when done in concert.

Interspersed between the dancer elements are recitatives wherein actors (some of them also dancers) portrayed the characters in a morality story telling it largely in rhyme.  In addition, some singers would also recite the story (both in English and in the Minang language).  I found it difficult to follow the words when chanted as my attention was usually focused on the dancers.

The story in this play is that of Sabai, a genteel and beautiful young woman.  One day, she catches the eye of King Rajo nan Panjang, ruler of the land but from a distant village.  Despite having many wives already, he desires Sabai and what he desires...he gets...usually.  But a marriage proposal from the King is rejected as Sabai is already engaged to another man.  The King is not pleased and sends for her father.  When he arrives, he is challenged to a duel during which the King, with the aid of two servants, kills the father.

Sabai finds her dying father and comforts him.  The King arrives and attempts to seduce Sabai.  She defends herself and, in the end, kills the King.  She is no longer the genteel Sabai.

The level of performance was very good.   The mastery of timing displayed by the dancers was exceptional.  Just to get all that movement choregraphed and synchronised was astoninshing.  There may have been an occasional bobble but you could see why it took 6 months to prepare this show.   The Kings henchmen were played with a definite comical twist reminiscent, perhaps, of Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern or, Thompson and Thomson for those Tintin afficionados.  The actos playing Sabai's parents were both very good.  Alas, the actor in the role of Sabai was disappointing.  Her vocal delivery seemed rather monotone and shrill, to me.  She didn't become the role.  This was more obvious, perhaps, because the actor who played the King was oustanding.   His mannerisms, eye contact with the audience, vocal delivery were convincing.    He looked and sounded every bit the playboy king.

The production has ended its all too brief run but I'm really pleased I took advantage of the opportunity to see this art form that was totally new to me and is one that I would never have learned about, much less seen had I not come here at this time.

ADDENDUM

Read this for a more detailed and informative review.