THE ROYAL HAWAIIAN BAND

The Royal Hawaiian Band came to entertain us at 15 Craigside. Clarke Bright is the Bandmaster, as he has been since 2011. I know him because when he was a student at the University of Hawaii, he worked for the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, which I directed. His father is the legendary Ronald Bright (photo to the left), who appeared in a range of entertainment venues throughout Hawaii, and seemed to have been in charge of a lot of them.

The Royal Hawaiian Band is the oldest and only full-time municipal band in the USA. Formed in 1836 when these islands were ruled by King Kamehameha III. It started as a military band, but attained global prominence under the leadership of Prussian Heinrich "Henri" Berger, loaned by the Imperial German Army to the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1872. He would later be honored as the "Father of Hawaiian Music." Berger collaborated with King Kalakaua in creating Hawaii Ponói, the official state song. Click on that link to watch a particularly majestic version, music by Berger and lyrics by King Kalakaua.

Did you know he was elected King? His wife was Kapiolani, and they traveled the world. Kalakaua built Iolani Palace and organized the Hawaiian language into a book, Legends and Myths of Hawaii. In 1881 he traveled the world. Took him 281 days, meeting President Chester Arthur in DC, Queen Victoria in London, Pope Leo XIII, Rama V of Siam and the Emperor of Japan, among others. About Iolani Palace, it was completed in 1882 and was wired for electricity and telephones even before the White House in DC.

Finally, the Royal Hawaii Band has 40 full-time members and performs every Friday at noon on the grounds of Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu, (watch that one hour concert, which occurred last week) and on Sundays at two o'clock at the Kapiolani Park Bandstand in Waikiki. Their concert at 15 Craigside was specifically for the residents, as in additional to Hawaii Ponói and other Hawaiian favorites, they played a lot of old Japanese songs bringing back memories. A particularly touching moment was Karen Keawehawaii singing Misora Hibari's Kawa No Nagare No Youni. I took a video of Karen's version, but could not apply it to this blog. However, watch her singing this song for the Japanese Cultural Center's New Year's Ohana Festival.

First, we have Babs sniffing the Band.

The 15C crowd.

At the end I told Clarke that this was the best concert I've ever enjoyed, and meant it.

Yesterday, we went to Assaggio, and had our typical Opolo wine from Paso Robles with Antipasto and Osso Bucco. Plus three loaves of bread, the best made anywhere.

Our Thursday night table at 15C celebrated our annual birthday party where Bob and I now have a combined age of 178. Knowing that we are both Dragons, and he is 12 years older than me, you should be able to calculate our ages.

Ever tried haupia and ube ice cream? Haupia is Hawaiian coconut pudding, and ube is made from Okinawa purple yam.

I enjoyed one of my favorite meals watching 60 Minutes: Pork Tonkatsu and Chu-Toro Blue Fin Tuna Sashimi, with Kirin Beer and hot sake.

We had a Hawaiian Luau at 15 Craigside, and I will later add a dinner photo with Susan and Steve.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

Search This Blog