modern luxury hawaii

there is new lifestyle/travel glossie in town and its name is modern luxury hawaii. the quarterly magazine is aiming to fill a niche by targeting cosmopolitan kama'aina and jet setters who love food, fashion, good design & vacationing in the islands with style.

while i was home i tracked down a copy at borders and discovered an absolutely gorgeous magazine filled with editorials on what to do & where to go, handy dining/shopping/spa guides, features on notable locals (the premiere issue spotlighted momi from lily lotus!) and, my favorite part, the stunning photography. the hefty premiere issue weighs just a tad under three pounds since, instead of publishing separate editions, mlh
opted to print one side in english and the other side in japanese.

fyi - i did spot complimentary issues at pacific home (after i bought my copy. darn.) so keep your eyes peeled at shops catering to mlh's demographic (or you can always subscribe online).

5-0 magazine roundup

here's one last ditch effort to save you from the madness that will be the mall this weekend with a few magazine subscription ideas for the style mavens & surfers on your gift list.

smart made its debut a few years ago as a lifestyle glossie for island fashionistas. flip through its pages to find out what's hot in hawaii and get the scoop on the local designers & shop proprietors on a mission to bring more style to the islands.

it's truly surprising that even though hawaii is the birthplace of surfing that not one surf magazine called hawaii home until nalu hit the newsstands a few years back. it's filled with tons of slick photos with an emphasis on local surfers who are making waves around the world.

and you gotta love how both publishers show a little island pride on the covers of their magazines!

{update | jan 2010: smart magazine folded in 2009 and nalu underground stopped publishing in 2008}

4 & 3 . . . reading, writing 'n houses

 

let the kokua countdown continue . . .

no. 4 - hawaii literacy
there is nothing like getting lost in a good book . . . especially when you're growing up on an island far from the rest of the world. and even if you are not a bookworm, well, you probably never realize how much easier reading makes your life (filling out paperwork, navigating a street map, reading your favorite blog, etc).

hawaii literacy runs classes where volunteers work with adults who need help with basic reading & writing skills. they also operate the bookmobile which brings books to kids living on the west side. me - i'm gathering up books to send home to stock the bookmobile with a complete set of my beloved childhood series, betsy-tacy (which just happens to be one of island girl bette midler's favorites too).

and if you are weeding out your bookcase before the end of the year, before you take everything to goodwill remember that most libraries welcome book donations to stock the sales run by the friends of the library.

no. 5 - habitat for humanity
well, if you are celebrating the holidays in the warmth of your home remember that the recent housing crunch has pushed far too many local families out to the beachparks (check out the "homeless on the waianae coast" series at the honolulu advertiser).

i sometimes wonder what the impact would have been had all the people who bought & sold vacation homes in their island paradise & the real estate agents who love them had made a 1% donation to the habitat chapter on the island where the property is located. food for thought.

whether you want to donate cash, building materiels to the re-store, or a little sweat equity, here's a list of habitat chapters around the islands:

• big island - hilo & kona | kauai | maui | molokai | oahu - honolulu & leeward

hawaiian legends of dreams

while wandering through the stacks at the bookstore, i discovered that one of my favorite artists, caren loebel-fried, has published another book delving into the mythology of ancient hawaii. her stunning block prints are sprinkled throughout hawaiian legends of dreams which is a treat for both young and old.

keola beamer sums up the book very nicely in his foreward:

"dreams are the beginning. they are the seed of our ambitions, the source of our inspiration, and the impetus for our creations. the book you hold in your hands is the manifestation of caren loebel-fried's dream to share the mana`o of traditional hawaiians on the amorphous world of dreams.

in this book, her love of our culture is evident in her research and beautiful art. she has captured the spirit of our view of the world, in which all things are connected and there is no distance between souls, alive or passed over, which cannot be bridged. we believe that mana, or life force, flows through the universe, and all things have a voice . . . even in our dreams."

the companion book, hawaiian legends of the guardian spirits, is also perfect for bedtime stories so definitely check them out if you want to share the hawaiians' love of storytelling with the little ones in your life.

secrets of hawaiian warriors

aloha from hawaii! yep, by the time you read this i hope to be kicking it on the beach and enjoying ani's sweetbread & papaya for breakfast. the trip this summer was way too short so among the things on my hit list is a field trip to the bookstore. until then, i thought a few readers may be interested in a book we picked up on the last trip home called lua: art of the hawaiian warrior.

if you fancy yourself a lover of hawaiian history, you may want to pick up a copy of this fascinating book which delves into the centuries old secret martial art that has survived into modern times. the book features background on the philosophy of this almost lost art plus legends, gods & chants, and illustrations depicting techniques still used by lua practioners today.