Wahiawa No Mo' Starbucks

I found the poem "Wahiawa No Mo' Starbucks" or "What We Get" by Jill Yamasawa from Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Bus really interesting. The pop culture references, both specifically related to Hawaii (like Kemoo Farms, Kilani Bakery) and the ones not (like Starbucks, Jack in da Box, and 711) were great. I loved that this small book contained sights, feelings, sounds and people riding a bus. You could see or do pretty much anything on a bus and no bus ride is identical to another. I felt like this poem specifically addressed issues and topics I've heard addressed before like in stanza one, "Wahiawa no mo' Starbucks/so if you like spend tree/dollahs on one cup of coffee/gotta bus 'um Milliani or North Shore". Starbucks is expensive and I hear people complain about their prices pretty often. Although Starbucks is on pretty much every corner,  it's most likely to be found on Oahu/Honolulu. It may not be as easy to find on the big island or one of the less populated Hawaiian islands. However, the narrator goes on to say that many other things like McDonalds, 7-11 and Papa John's can be found where she lives. Starbucks isn't the end all be all. This poem was pretty easy to follow and I loved the pop culture references, as well as the slight humor throughout    ...like "So no need go Starbucks/if you like overpriced things/we get prostitutes ova hea too" The narrator feels that it's unnecessary to take a bus all the way over to the North Shore for an expensive cup of coffee because there are so many other choices near by. And if you're going to spend money on something expensive...there's always prostitutes. I'm sure there's a lot more to this poem and I'm still trying to figure it out. But those are just my thoughts so far!

The Permanent Legacy of Fatal Contact as seen in Spahr’s “Dole Street”

Within the “Dole Street” section of Juliana Spahr’s Well Then There Now there is one elegantly poignant declaration that shines through, almost as the thesis of the section: “But the names of the streets and buildings and schools and parks always tell a history.  And in this sense, Dole Street is another poem about bad history” (40).  Spahr unpacks this simple statement, as the rest of this section/chapter unfolds, through an examination of the many streets that intersect Dole Street.

            As Spahr details in the many sub-sections that follow the interesting declaration listed above, “only four streets that intersect Dole Street have Hawaiian names [despite the fact that] 86% of places names in Hawaii are Hawaiian names” (40).  There is Wilder Street, and Farrington Street, and Metcalf Street, and Oliver Street, and Spreckels Street, all of which are named after Haole men of power, either economically or politically, who gain their power at the expense of the Native Hawaiian population or their land/environment.  In this sense while people refer to the actual places on the Hawaiian Islands with Hawaiian names, Haole’s still control the actual demarcation of space on the Hawaiian Islands, as they have since the establishment of the missions and the plantations.

            Spahr realizes that “in this sense, Dole [Street] is the spine of the reddish centipede” that has lodged itself deep within Hawaiian landscape (40).  The “carnivorous” Haole came to the Hawaiian Islands with its "chewing mouthparts and legs modified into poison claws” and carved his place into the landscape at the expense of the Native Hawaiian population (40-41).  And the Haole “bite” left a “permanent black mark” on not only the Hawaiian landscape, which is evident today in the chosen “names of streets and buildings and schools and parks,” but also in the hearts and minds of the Native Hawaiian people (40).

Waikiki

Waikiki in the 2199 Kalia Road chapter of Well Then There Now, is a neighborhood that wears a mask of commercial paradise in the pacific to cover up its dirtier, more honest appearance. Even this so called honest appearance is itself dishonest to the original, once native environment of Waikiki. The transformation that happened there reminds me of the part in Valley of the Dead Air, by Gary Pak, when Correa was talking to Bobby about how the government was behind the malodor problem. He said the government creates the problem and then fools its citizens into thinking they’re doing them a favor by fixing it. This time the government is a man named Dillingham with a dredge, which comes into town and fabricates a reason to dredge, and then sells the excavated dirt back to the people once the dredge has finished creating the problem.

Waikiki was a natural paradise before America came to create its own version of paradise that sells “I got lei’d in Hawaii” t-shirts, California grade Mai Tais, and man made beaches to ignorant tourists. Now it’s a hollow kind of place that pimps its colonial history in bars with attendants who wear plantation style outfits and boasts its hotels authenticity by carbon dating the land it’s built on. Even though building on land that old would be considered illegal, the hotel perpetuates the lie in order to make more business. The swaying kiawe trees used in tourist guidebooks to express the picturesque experience one would have sipping drinks under it doesn’t mention the damage the trees cause. The image of Waikiki is exactly that, a fabricated image that has come to misrepresent Hawaii.

- Francis Miguelino

Crawford & Kahanamoku

In Seven Weeks in Hawaii, the relationship between M. Leola Crawford and Duke Kahanamoku is eroticized. It’s one that typically emerges when a deliciously exotic lifestyle like the one lived by Kahanamoku seduces the safe and proper lifestyle represented by Crawford. Her first description of him likens his physical appearance to that of an Indian, “tall and dark,” immediately alluding to thoughts of danger and adventure. The thrill of breaking societal boundaries she’s accustomed to is experienced not only by Crawford, but also the general American reader intrigued by the mysteries of Hawaii.

Crawford’s playful remark about not getting wet while being taught to surf develops into a flirtatious act of being carried back to shore by the gentlemanly Kahanamoku. She admits to her fondness of him and implies her attraction to his ways of transgression. After colliding with the outrigger canoe, Crawford is “spread out on a surfboard” and experiences lomi-lomi, a native therapeutic massage performed by Kahanamoku. She and the rest of her party complain of exhaustion, but none are regretful for participating in the physically demanding activities. The reader takes part in all the thrilling romance and is tempted by the ways of the Hawaiian transgressor.

- Francis Miguelino

Lecture Notes: Juliana Spahr

Rob's notes through Juliana Spahr are here

Final Paper Guidelines

Final Paper Guidelines and Prompts are here

Because I said I would post this ... "Brice de Nice"

Women in Surfriding Revival

Students discussed during our section that women were actually present in the Surfriding Revival section of Pacific Passages, but after revisiting the articles I still adhere to my initial assessment that women were mostly absent. When they were mentioned they were belittled and almost always associated with the danger of the sport, and definitely placed in the background of this era’s dominant narrative of masculinity.

Beginning with Jack London’s “Riding the South Seas Surf,” the sport of surfing is built up to be the epitome of masculine dominance over nature, in which he describes surfing as “a royal sport for the natural kings of earth” (139). London fills his prose with martial metaphor of battle, and later with the male dominated sports of wrestling and fighting. Before his mention of a woman surfer several pages later, the portrayal of surfing, using the hyper-masculine language of dominance and conquering, it’s difficult to find a place for a woman surfer to exist in his definition of the sport--and even harder to find where she might actually appear in his work. A reader without knowledge of the sport could only assume that she didn’t exist. When he does finally acknowledge a women, he takes it upon himself to initially believe that had “saved her life” by dodging her, while in fact it was his own inexperience that put her in danger in the first place (143). He admits she laughed at him, but goes on to thank Ford, who taught him how to steer, as her savior. Never once did he mention the women, present in the waves, and how they might have surfed or on what boards they used--her mention serves only to provide an interesting anecdote of one of the many dangers that surfriders must overcome.

    Alexander Hume Ford only mentions the young surfer girls to explain how easy it is for a foreigner to learn the sport and eases the reader by explaining “the water at low tide is not more than two feet deep,” water in which young children and girls can learn in (148).

Tom Blake mentions women using a very familiar trope as well:

“[T]he girl rises first, then the boy stands up with her on his shoulders--very thrilling, indeed, for the girl. The next board has two girls for riders. They “jam up,” after a short fifteen yard ride, with an inexperienced surfer and all three lose their boards and get ducked, barely missing getting hit by the loose boards. Rather brave these girls to be out there” (159).

Even though Blake acknowledges it was the inexperienced surfer who is at fault, Blake still manages to imply that the women are brave for surfing despite of these risks, in which the man, inexperienced, would apparently be more equipped to handle--more so than the women who are more experienced surfers.
    Coupled with the hyper-masculine descriptions of surfing, these sparse descriptions of women surfers used by these authors appeal only to their own notions of the passive and fragile female--feeding into a narrative that I still feel ignores the athletic female surfers of the time.

Alex Terry

Exploring With Spahr

I’m going to have to agree with everyone else and say that I really had a difficult time with this week’s reading. I truly have never read anything like Juliana Spahr’s Well Then There Now. At times I was 100% lost and found it really difficult to grasp what she was trying to say, but then I began rereading certain passages…and then rereading them again! I would say around read 3 or 4 of a passage I was finally able to catch on to the general topic of the section. After much confusion, I think that the best way to describe the novel is to say that Juliana Spahr is exploring. She is exploring the nature around her, the imposing western influence over Hawaii, and the changes in herself. After Rob pointed out the “Acknowledgements and Other Information” section of the book, I found it really interesting to track down where each section took place. Now, I may be wrong about this, but isn’t this the first novel we’ve read that has discussed land other than Hawaii? The vast majority of the book is based in Hawaii but Spahr does address her upbringing in Ohio. Maybe that is why I feel like Spahr is exploring so much. She is a woman in Hawaii trying not to be the cliché westerner. Spahr is able to recognize the many unjust topics in Hawaii (like the beach public access debate and the Western named streets) but, like global warming and the endangered species she talks about, she is incapable of sparking a change.   

well then there now

Spahr’s work is interesting, to say the least. I find myself lost in her words, sometimes unsure of what I’m even reading. Is anyone else feeling this way? Sometimes I read her poetry and feel myself wanting to skim. Wanting to skim because somehow my brain thinks that I should. I have to force myself to keep reading, not because it is boring, but rather, it seems simple. Simple sentences and simple words, but the meaning they convey is not so simple. I think that’s one thing that draws me into Spahr’s work. The way she phrases things…if you don’t read carefully, they’ll catch you. Her words are tumbling in such a manner that I feel myself caught as well. I feel like I want to skim because I feel like I’ll understand at the end, but I won’t. I have to read all of it to understand her meaning. Maybe she does it on purpose to keep us reading, not only the actual words but also between the lines. For instance, her piece “Things of Each Possible Relation Hashing Against One Another” – at first glance, there appears to be a message she’s trying to get across and you can assume and skim. But it won’t get you anywhere. You have to delve. Have to see the subtle changes of “analogy from analogy” to “analogy of analogy” (Spahr 58). There are subtle changes, and parallels to things happening to the island. She mentions mongoose brought to Hawaii to control rats, but rather, became an invasive species that feasted on local birds and bird eggs that stifled the local bird population. I feel like Spahr is comparing the introduction of these invasive animals to the introduction of invasive thoughts; invasive ideas that displace local or native ideas. The subtle changes help bring this about, shifting about the tone of the poem. I think what she’s trying to say is intriguing; and I believe the way she styles the book also helps in her trying to get across her ideas.

-- Tanya Tsoi

V-Land

V-Land - A poem by Trey

This is a poem I wrote in Rob's Borderlands poetry class back in 2008 and was my first, and one of my only, attempts at writing in a pidgin voice.  V-Land is a surf spot on the North Shore that, although named for legendary haole shaper Dale Velzy ("The Hawk"), is notorious for being a locally dominated line-up.  Enjoy . . .

- Trey

Well Then There Now

Hey everyone,

I'm wondering what everyone thinks of Juliana Spahr's Well Then There Now? At least so far? I'm actually finding it pretty difficult and am not sure if each sonnet/sections connects to the others. I do love that it seems like a lot of the pieces are about nature, animals and connecting with nature (something we have found to be true in the other pieces of Hawaiian literature we've read). I also found it interesting that some of pieces... especially those in "Sonnets" seem to be more science-related and about the human body (including blood). This is a pretty interesting contrast! There are also parts of Well Then There Now that are more historical (like in "Dole Street"). But overall, this book seems a lot to digest and I'm just wondering what everyone else thinks so far and what connections they are able to make.

Early Surf History in California

After reading "Lessons in Surfing for Everyman" by C. P. L. Nicholls, I was surprised to learn how much has changed in the history of surfing in California. The surf scene first started to pick up in the 1930s, and there were only a few hundred surfers in the entire state. There is little record of the beginning history of surfing in California; instead the research was mostly about surfing in Waikiki until some time after World War II. After that, every aspect of surfing in California was derived from the Islands. In early surfing in Southern California, there were only two organized surfing clubs, the Santa Monica Paddle Board Club, and the Palos Verdes Surfing Club. That's very little compared to the number of organized surfing clubs today, but of course there are much more than only a few hundred surfers today.
There were also only two recognized types of surf board in Southern California in the early history. These were the paddle board, a surface speed board, and what Nicholls calls the "true surf board" which was the essential wave riding board. There were varying lengths and designs to these boards, usually made out of balsa wood. Today, there are many more types of boards such as the shortboard, big wave board, the longboard, the fish surfboard, and the funboard, to name a few I found online. The costs of these two initial boards were between eight and ten dollars, and surfers usually liked to make them on their own to ensure personal preferences. Today the cost has escalated to anywhere from $150 to $1,000 and up. There was no average price that I could find, but each value I saw was pretty expensive. It's highly unlikely that you can find a board for $8 to $10 now.
As for the actual act of surfing that Nicholls describes, it sounds as though it has the same essential core. I'm no surf pro, in fact I've never even been surfing, but from what I know of the basics, Nicholls seems to be describing a similar act that I'm sure has only been added on to and perfected since the '30s. This section was interesting to read because some aspects (like the cost of the board) seemed unbelievable and it really shows a reader just how much has changed in the history of surfing. It begs the question, where will the act of surfing be in another eighty years?

Emily Warren