Told adventure photographer Guy Sibilla I'd just gotten back from Hilo. “;That's nice,”; he said. He was back from Togo in equatorial Africa, where he'd been shooting photos of Voodoo practitioners.

No American magazine would touch his article, “;Hands Off My Mojo.”;

“;Pictures of dead crocodiles and snakes and voodoo dolls - too scary,”; he said. You'll see it only if you pick up a copy of the English-language upscale travel magazine DestinAsian, out of Jakarta, Indonesia.

Voodoo isn't scary, insists the photographer. “;They're more like Chinese herbalists. Tell them what ails you, and they grind up some bat wing and snake to fix you up.”;

One gave him something that, through a combination of sign language and fractured English, he finally understood was supposed “;to make your girlfriend happy.”;

Did it work? “;Didn't hurt,”; said Sibilla.

LAID-BACK FOR LYMANS

There are no yachts at the Hilo Yacht Club. Why clutter up a nice ocean view with boats?

You can't even find the club if you don't already know where it is. There's no sign. That didn't prevent 200 Hilo folks from filling the place last Sunday, all for a benefit for the Lyman Museum, in celebration of the 175th anniversary of David and Sarah Lyman's arrival in Hawaii.

Oops, it was really the 176th anniversary. The missionary Lymans arrived in Hilo in 1832, from Bedford, Mass. Carleen Birnie, who chaired the evening, explained the tardiness: “;We're laid-back in Hilo.”;

The Lymans spent the rest of their lives in Hawaii, trying to get the Hawaiians to give up such sins as tattooing, surfing, hula and adultery. “;Our theme is Hawaiians vs. Missionaries,”; said Birnie, who has Hawaiian blood and dressed for the evening as a Hawaiian chiefess.

Libby Burke dressed as Sarah Lyman. The waiters and waitresses wore missionary garb borrowed from the University of Hawaii-Hilo Theatre Department.

No one wore a malo, but Birnie's husband, Ian, dressed as a 19th-century sailor. He said he'd jumped ship and been seduced by a Hawaiian chiefess. “;Close to the truth,”; said one friend.

Though elegant, the evening was Hilo style, laid-back and loose. Emcee Penny Vredenburg pointed to a whole roast pig on the buffet table and said, “;I see my ex-husband made it.”;

In the crowd were old friends: Ted Dixon, publisher of Hawaii Tribune Herald, who resisted the impulse for fancy dress. Alan Young, once food columnist for the Honolulu Weekly. Bones Yuen, who was chef at Washington Place for Govs. John Waihee and George Ariyoshi.

There were several from the far-flung Lyman clan, including Billy Lyman, who is on the board of the museum. “;I'm both Hawaiian and missionary,”; he said proudly. His father was Rufus Lyman, who had 15 children. “;No mo' TV in Hilo in those days,”; explained Billy.

Richard Henderson, president of the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board, gave the most candid speech I've ever heard at a fundraiser: “;Thank you all for coming, we need the money.”; The event raised $5,000 for the downtown Hilo museum.

Cookin' up fashion

It was a slam-bang party last weekend when sisters Cheryl DeAngelo and Brandy Antonelis opened a boutique named Adoracion in Manoa Marketplace.

There was great wine and pupu, since Cheryl is married to chef Fred DeAngelo of Ola. She got chefs - husband Fred, Russell Siu, Hardy Kinscher, Eric Leterc, even the normally shy Colin Nishida of Side Street Inn - to walk the runway modeling her men's silk shirts.

The biggest hit among the chef-models was Guido Ulmann of Waialae Country Club. “;He came dancing down the runway to the tune of 'Candy Man,'”; says Cheryl.

According to Ulmann, he wasn't exactly dancing. He was pantomiming first whipping up a sauce and then stirring a big pot of beans.

You Read, I'll Sing

Writer John Wythe White's reading for his new novel, “;A High and Beautiful Wave,”; was like Tom Sawyer painting a fence. He got his friends to do it.

“;At least he didn't make me pay him to read,”; said Forrest Furman, a mailman whom White introduced to the crowd at Kumu Kahua Theatre as “;the unofficial mayor of Haleiwa.”;

After nervously going over his text outside the theater before last Wednesday's performance, Furman read the novel's surfing stories.

Also drafted to read was local actor Charles Timtim, who played Jeff on the short-lived TV series “;Hawaii.”;

White sang. The book is fiction but based on his time at Taylor Camp, Kauai's legendary '60s hippie enclave. White's worked on the material so long that at one point it was a musical - “;a horrible idea,”; he says.

But the songs he wrote he included in the novel, and White sang two of them, accompanied by guitarist Peter Bond of the group Monkey Hate Circus.

Sample lyric: “;I'm doing fine at Taylor Camp/I'd send you a letter but it rained on my stamps/What am I gonna do?/Gonna get myself lost and find myself, too/But I need some money if it's all right with you.”;

Endangered Moose

A nice seen-on-the-street moment in writer Cloudia Charters' “;Waikiki News”; blog.

Recounts Charters, “;Walking along Kalakaua Avenue the other evening, a brunette woman took a flier advertising a gun club. A moment later she accepted a coupon from the guy in the moose suit who touts Moose McGillycuddy's Pub on Lewers. Then it hit her: 'You should get together with the gun club people!' The moose guy backed away slowly.”;

“;Was that Sarah Palin?”; asks Charters.