Stopped by the fourth installation of Pecha Kucha in Honolulu on Friday. It was held in the courtyard of the Academy Art Center, a venue that makes quite a contrast with SuperDeluxe in Tokyo. Think a leafy canopy provided by gnarled trees, old stone walls and the occasional bird swooping down from overhead. On the whole, the presenters were maybe less polished than those in Tokyo, but not any less interesting. And free beer is a bonus.
Highlights included Dave Pollard, who coincidentally is now based in Tokyo, and had presented at Pecha Kucha there. Dave, an artist who builds primitive housing structures in urban areas made from organic and “found” recycled materials, shared his life story in twenty slides. Very passionate and inspiring. The other speaker of note had to be Nate Orr, who was on the bill as an “intuitive consultant”. He shared his ludicrous and highly entertaining vision of the world as viewed through the lens of a number of esoteric pseudoscientific practices. If he was sincere, it would be somewhat disappointing. If it was a piece of performance art, sheer and utter genius.
This SNL sketch sent Hawaiians into a tizzy over the past week. Some proved incapable of taking a joke, including the Lieutenant Governor and tourism officials. Instead of getting defensive, perhaps they should consider addressing some of the issues raised in the sketch?
Filed under: Branding, Hawaii, Media, Random | Tags: go!, hln, ignominious, naming
As someone who entered branding via the ignominious trade of verbal identity, I sometimes, rather pathetically, still find myself hovering hungrily over news of a verbal rebranding like a collector of rare manuscripts. I came across a couple this week:
This week a federal judge helped thwart go! Airlines’ attempt to rebrand as Aloha, dismissing their purchase of the name and logo as illegally conducted. Aloha was the local airline they put out of business almost a year ago through aggressive pricing tactics. It’s really odd to me that they’d want to reskin using the dead remnants of their old competitor. Yes, there is a lot of equity in Aloha, but here in Hawaii, folks would scream for blood if the deal went down. Aloha was part of the community, and a big job provider. You might fool the tourists, but the locals would be pulling the screws out of your wings.
I was a little slow on the uptake on this one, but to be honest I just don’t watch that much tv anymore. I happened to flip on Headline News – I mean, HLN – and the first thing I noticed, aside from how much further it continues to slide down the infotainment tube (npi), with CB-Rihana dominating the cycle, was the logo change. All this happened late last year, from what I gather, but they are still reminding viewers, just as the newsreader had to remind us that arraignment means “formally charged”. I guess all this is geared at the text generation, and what with the E!ish content leanings, it does seems very craftily crafted for their target demographic. At risk of sounding fogeyish, I was turned off (npi). Win some, lose some, I guess.
Recently acquired a whole raft of Frank Zappa albums, and felt compelled to honor his awesomeness with a quick post. Most of my prior Zappa experience was sadly filtered through a single album: Apostrophe. While that album is very good, it represents a very small slice of the Zappa pie, and captures none of the super-polished musicianship of the live performances. It goes without saying that Zappa was one of the bona fide musical geniuses of the last century, an acutely self-aware deconstructionist whose passion for satirizing musical and social conventions was only matched by his passion for embracing and enlivening the very conventions he mocked. I used to equate his dadaist lyrical bent with Weird Al Yankovic, but gawd how unfair I was!
Dropped by the Mughal event at the Honolulu Academy of Art, my first encounter with the Art After Dark monthly parties. The Academy is an ideal venue, with its traditional Hawaiian facade a gateway to a number of courtyards and galleries. A true exploratory experience for the first time visitor (me). With bars and dining available in each pavilion, live music and painting, as the sun sinks below the horizon and the locals pack into the halls and open spaces, the Academy begins to pulse with life. Somehow I missed the exhibit of Indian miniatures that was the thematic centerpiece of the event, but I did peruse a couple galleries that respectively housed an intriguing collection of abstract pieces and a modest but impressive collection of early modernist artists (all big names accounted for).
I may be late to the party, but chances are I am earlier than you, dear reader. That’s right, I have jumped on that next big bandwagon, and if you are not there, you are as behind as I was yesterday. I am officially a tweetin’ twitterer.
