Hawaii
Choral group visitors
join city’s Kuhio Beach showIT was quite a moving moment when Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus director Nola Nahulu arranged for those attending the conference of the American Choral Directors' Association Western Division to visit the city's nightly Kuhio Beach hula show. Performers Clyde Lono, Kalani Maio and Aunty Pudgie Young invited the visiting singers to join them on stage to share their music. Well, hundreds of them ended up wading in the ocean and onto the beach to join the chorus. First it was "Amazing Grace," followed by "God Bless America." Even the tourists joined in, creating an impromptu choir of about 1,500 voices cascading through Waikiki ...
HAWAII and especially San Francisco have heard the silencing of the voice of one of the greatest arts patrons of our generation. Dr. Jess Shenson died Tuesday at the age of 81 at his Nob Hill home in San Francisco, once again joining his late brother Dr. Ben Shenson, who died in 1995. Until Ben's death, the two brothers were inseparable, supporting a litany of artists and sitting on 12 San Francisco arts boards. The Shensons frequently visited Hawaii where Jess was a member of the Oahu Special Education Center. They said they had to revisit the classic Theodore Wores' painting, "The Lei Maker," which they had presented to the state. It's still one of the most popular paintings in the Academy of Arts. Dr. Jess continued his practice of medicine until last month, when he finally retired. He and Ben, before he died, invariably stopped by the Star-Bulletin to say hello. Their friendship was as satisfying as their tireless support of the arts, and I'll miss them both ...
Bidding good buy
AUCTIONS are becoming more and more popular in Hawaii. Witness the huge bidding war that went on in a special section of the Star-Bulletin. And at the 25th annual Heart Ball at the Sheraton-Waikiki, the traditional silent auction was supplemented with two 20-minute live bidding rounds. Popular items were 50 Cartier "surprise gift boxes" that went for $100 each. The "surprise" was that each wrapped gift was worth anywhere from $160 to $1,050. Two other bidding items were a hand-carved carousel horse valued at $10,000 and the first BMW 7-series "iDrive" model valued at over $70,000. At the Dale G Cripps jewelry liquidation auction, Paul Klink threw in a rare 1999 Lamborghini Diablo roadster and it went for an astounding $275,000 to a buyer on Kauai ...WINNER of the Boursin Cheese Co.'s "Chef of the Year" national competition at the Ilikai was Avelino Miranda, assistant chef/garde manger of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. It's of interest here because Miranda was garde manger of the Pacific Beach Hotel in Waikiki before heading for the desert. His winning dish sounds intriguing. The "Boursin Cheese Trilogy" consisted of salmon cannelloni, prosciutto ravioli and baked stuffed figs ...
Spiked again
RYE humor was personified in many ways by British comic genius Spike Milligan, founder and lone survivor of "The Goon Show," which began on BBC in 1951. Peter Sellers became more famous, but Milligan is a comic icon in England and forerunner of "Monty Python." Why "Rye?" He died yesterday at his home in Rye, England ...
Dave Donnelly has been writing on happenings
in Hawaii for the Star-Bulletin since 1968.
The Week That Was recalls items from Dave's 30 years of columns.Contact Dave by e-mail: ddonnelly@starbulletin.com