A Dream Goes On Forever
“Art like life is an open secret.”― Lawrence Durrell
We are currently at the Northside of the Island of Kauai (we have been here for about a week thus far), staying near Hanalei in Princeville. Anyone who knows Princeville, knows that it is pretty much a township made up of…places for tourists to stay, one after the other: a double-edged sword for the area, as discussed in the poetry of Hawaii’s new poet laureate Brandy Nalani McDougall (see below: her poetry tells stories we who visit here need to honor and learn from). There is also a cave of turtles in Princeville as well as The Tiki Iniki, a Tiki Lounge/restaurant owned by none other than Island resident Todd Rundgren and his wife Michele.
The last time Barb and I had seen Todd perform was at the Fillmore on December 23, 2017 (with Barb’s brother Craig, who has since passed away) and he put a whale of a show…blowing through a career of hits (just check out the setlist)…including songs from his Utopia and Nazz eras…complete with choreographed dance numbers and a killer band—even showcasing a delightfully bizarre pre-made music video for Deaf Ears in the middle of the set. He is such a unique performer: a coat-and-tied giant-framed shaded multi-instrumentalist with dance moves bringing with him a stadium show crammed into a theater. He still tours all the time…just completing a run in the US a few months ago.
And when he is off the road, he calls Kauai him. He has since 1992, when Hurricane Iniki leveled Kauai and offered the Rundgrens a moment of affordable real estate deals on the Island. They not only bought in, but opened up a Tiki bar named after that very storm.
At the Tiki Iniki, you need a reservation to avoid waiting in a potentially long, slow line (we learned that last year) so I made one as soon as we got our plane tickets months ago. We went with trepidation, reading mixed reviews including the coffin-nailer: “C'mon Todd. This restaurant is an embarrassment to your legacy.” But we had to see for ourselves. The main complaint of the place is the slow service, but our service was fantastic (maybe because we were sat next to the Michele Rundgren’s table?). All four of us liked our food (which is an unusual event when we travel) with unexpectedly great Japanese-style sweet sticky ribs, and a sour Mai Thai that was inspired by the version made famous by the original Trader Vics (a taste that I had not experienced for a long time). The kids got virgin fruity drinks that were presented in fun Tiki glasses (as were the adult drinks). While we ate, we were serenaded by a sweet acoustic guitarist who displayed some tasty licks, riffing against a warm slightly humid Hawaiian evening.
Todd did not make the scene while we were there, but dining and raising glasses in his establishment was a nice treat…definitely a fine addition to his legacy (a legacy that includes his producing the first New York Dolls album, Patti Smith, Badfinger, The Tubes, Cheap Trick, Laura Nyro, The Lords of the New Church, XTC, GRand Funk Railroad, The Psychedelic Furs as well as all of the records of all of his bands).
We are here in Kauai for another few days. We walked the Napali Coast this morning (a day after I soloed an extremely muddy….potentially treacherous hike), swam in the ocean right after, and then dined at Hanalei Poke, eating the best Poke Bowl this side of the Island. As we finally wash away the vuggam from our everyday lives, we find ourselves nearing the end of our vacation. At least we forgot what day of the week it was for a short while…
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Vacation Reading: Thank you Ulf Olsson for the incredible vacation book recommendation. The Last Wolf/Herman by László Krasznahorkai was a sensational, albeit super dark, read. In the second novela that makes up the book, Herman the trapper had a moment where he snaps, realizing his whole life has been framed incorrectly. I meditated on these lines as a fell on my ass a half dozen times descending a severely muddy, slippery, crazily beautiful Okolehao Trail:
…he (Herman) had been living his life steeped in the deepest ignorance, allowing himself to be led by the nose, firmly believing he was obeying the order of divine providence when he had divided the world into noxious and beneficial, while in reality both categories originated in the same heinous ruthlessness that had infernal light lurking in its depths.
The Big Review: Vittore Carpaccio at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC
In the current issue of New York Review of Books, Andrew Butterfield does a sensational job bringing the works of Carpaccio to life. The article is behind a fire-wall, so this one will have to suffice. However, here is a passage from Butterfield’s article about the painting above (Saint Augustine in His Study):
The painting depicts the moment of the death of Saint Jerome, who, now free from mortal limits on human wisdom, has come to Augustine in a vision to instruct him on the ineffable mysteries of the divine; we do not actually see Jerome, just the refulgence of accompanying light that flows into Augustine’s study…(Carpaccio) creates the sense of an exact and fleeting instant in time—the light is swelling to a climax and will recede in another moment. Carpaccio applies a similar precision to all the features of the picture, inducing a nearly hypnotic sense of presence, as if you too were standing in the room as the miracle occurs. You know what day it is—September 30, 420, the day of Jerome’s death. You know what time it is—the hour of Compline, about 7 PM. You know where you are—Augustine’s study in the city of Hippo—and you know that you are facing north, since while divine radiance falls from the window in the foreground at the right, early evening sunlight flows from the west into the window of the small room in the background at the left. The sense of actuality is uncanny, as if you are there.
Chuck Jackson is known for his slickly produced soul records…but if you want something more on the funky side, for me the highlight of his recording career was the 1966 release Tribute to Rhythm and Blues. Recorded live at the Wand studio with his touring band…it is a foot stomping killer. Chuck Jackson, RIP.
How The US Tried Using Exploding Cigars, Poison Pens, And More to Assassinate Fidel Castro
Not hard to believe…but this is a crazy story nevertheless.
What happens when you give all your writings, jottings…what-have-you…to your literary “executer” with the instructions to burn them upon your death? In Kafka’s case, everything….everything eventually gets published. From classic books like The Trail and The Castle (yes, both published posthumously…both intended to be burned before being read) to a new book of “short reflections” like this one!
HOPE IN THE DARK: History and Ghost Stories
A look at the deep rich history of the ghost story…
This Island on Which I Love You
By: Brandy Nālani McDougall
And when, on this island on which
I love you, there is only so much land
to drive on, a few hours to encircle
in entirety, and the best of our lands
are touristed, the beaches foam-laced
with rainbowing suntan oil,
the mountains tattooed with asphalt,
pocked by telescoped domes,
hotels and luxury condos blighting
the line between ocean and sky,
I find you between the lines
of such hard edges, sitting on
the kamyo stool, a bowl of coconut,
freshly grated, at your feet.
That I hear the covert jackaling
of helicopters and jets overhead
all night through our open jalousies,
that my throat burns from the scorch
of the grenaded graves of my ancestors,
the vog that smears the Koʻolaus into a blur
of greens, that I wake to hear the grind
of you blending vegetables and fruit,
machine whirl-crunching coffee beans,
your shoulder blades channelling ocean,
a steady flux of current.
Past the guarded military testing grounds,
amphibious assault vehicles emerging
from the waves, beyond the tangles
of tarp cities lining the roads, past
the thick memory of molasses coating
the most intimate coral crevices,
by the box jellyfish congregating under
ʻOle Pau and Kāloa moons, at the park
beneath the emptied trees, I come
to find you shaking five-dollar coconuts
(because this is all we have on this island),
listening to the water to guess
its sweetness and youth.
On this island on which I love you,
something of you is in the rain rippling
through the wind that make the pipes
of Waikīkī burst open. Long brown
fingers of sewage stretch out
from the canal, and pesticided
tendrils flow from every ridge
out to sea, and so we stay inside
to bicker over how a plumeria tree
moves in the wind, let our daughters
ink lines like coarse rootlets
in our notebooks, crayon lines
into ladders on our walls
and sheets. Their first sentences
are sung, moonlit blowhole plumes
of sound that calls pebbles to couple,
caverns to be carved, ʻuala to roll
down the hillside again, and I could
choke on this gratitude for you all.
This island is alive with love,
its storms, the cough of alchemy
expelling every parasitic thing,
teaching me to love you with
the intricacies of island knowing,
to depend on the archipelagic
spelling of you lying next to me,
our blue-screen flares their own
floating islands after our daughter
has finally fallen asleep,
to trust in the shape and curve
of your hand reaching out to hold mine
making and remaking an island our own.
