Godzilla and the Hawaii Book and Music Festival ...
It's back! The 5th annual Hawaii Book & Music Festival invades the civic grounds at Honolulu Hale this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, May 15-16) like a family-friendly Godzilla (not the less-than-friendly Godzilla, the destructive version of the giant radioactive mutant Japanese monster with the dangerous tail who likes to smash Tokyo and anything else in his way).
All the festival details and schedule are online. Take a look and then come back.
You're back! Was I right? Isn't the festival family-friendly? And like the cozier version of Godzilla? But enough about our large Japanese friend.
Here's a thought for all of us who love to read, and a way to appreciate the many writers who will be at the festival this weekend. Whether it's Doctor Seuss (who will not be at the festival, except in spirit) or Lisa Linn Kanae (who will be there, accepting the Hawaii Literary Arts Council's prestigious Cades Award for Literature at 3:45 on Saturday), each writer gives us a gift.
You could call that gift a way of looking at our world. A cat in a hat? Was there ever a more wonderful rascal in children's literature? When we return to this classic, and the other Dr. Seuss books, we see the world through the eyes of the amazing writer who gave us the cat, and green eggs and ham, and Sneetches, and a grinch who steals Christmas. Were there ever better titles than The Cat in the Hat and Horton Hears a Who and Yertle the Turtle? What great stories, and great lessons, for all ages, Dr. Seuss left us. He endures and lives on in his writing.
Lisa Linn Kanae, who is very much with us in person, also gives us that gift of a way of looking at our world. Islands Linked by Ocean (Bamboo Ridge Press, 2009) is a showcase for some short story magic, including my favorite, "Luciano and the Break Room Divas." Lisa is also the author of Sista Tongue (Tinfish, 2001), about which Susan Schultz wrote, "It combines the history of pidgin English in Hawaii with memoir with story telling."
When I interviewed Lisa last November, she told me this about looking at the world and finding stories:
Stories show up all the time, but I have to pay attention in order to "recognize" a concept worth developing. With that said, I believe that writers cannot afford to passively walk through life. It's like I tell my students: Walk through life like a writer. Keep your eyes and ears open and stay out of the way. A story will show up, you just have to work at paying attention and this will take energy on your part.
"Walk through life like a writer." Excellent advice for readers as well as writers. We open a book and begin reading. We begin to see the world as the writer sees it. When we close the book and look at our world again, it may not be the same as before. We not be the same.
I have a pair of sunglasses with blue lenses that I keep in my car. A couple of weeks ago, driving into town on a bleak voggy morning, I put on these sunglasses and, in a flash, the world brightened. I felt like Dorothy Gale after the tornado, stepping from her black-and-white Kansas world into the bright colors of Oz.
How appropriate that I found this pair of sunglasses on Maui a few years ago when I was there for a writers conference, because writers give us a new way of looking at our world. Lately I find myself reaching for those blue-lens sunglasses more frequently. I actually like green eggs and ham, and I do like seeing all that blue.
Tags: Dr. Seuss, Hawaii Book and Music Festival, Lisa Linn Kanae
