Damon Tucker just posted about an interesting video interview with Sig Zane. Sig is the well-known clothing and fabric designer in Hilo whose clothes are absolutely da kine. And I’m sure Merrie Monarch week must be his busiest time of the year, because all the hula enthusiasts swarm to his shop. He has the loveliest clothes.
Sig Zane’s shop (even the shop is beautiful) is at 122 Kamehameha Ave Hilo, HI 96720. Phone (808) 935-7077.

Sig is married to Nalani Kanaka‘ole, one of the kumu hula of Halau O Kekuhi*, and is a member of …

 
One of my many hats has me, along with Kris Bordessa, operating the website Big Island On The Cheap, a place for all things free/cheap/discounted on the Big Island. And right now, in honor of Merrie Monarch week, we have some contests going on. All you have to do is follow the links to the contest posts, and then enter your name in comments there to possibly win one of our random drawings.
We are giving away a beautiful, and I do mean beautiful, hand blown glass vase from the Volcano glass studio 2400 …

It’s Merrie Monarch week and it’s absolutely the best week of the year here in Hilo. 
We went down to the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel this afternoon and watched the free hula performance by Puanani Crumb’s Halau Hula O Hilo Hanakahi.

It was wonderful. The music, the hula, the crowd. Hula Legend Uncle George Na‘ope was there, wheelchair-bound now, wearing a green running suit, white Crocs and then of course his hat and his wide gold bracelets running up his arm. 
I just love it all. The tiny kids who dance. The older ones who dance …

An article in tomorrow’s New York Times is titled ‘Hyperlocal’ Web Sites Deliver News Without Newspapers.
If your local newspaper shuts down, what will take the place of its coverage? Perhaps a package of information about your neighborhood, or even your block, assembled by a computer.
A number of Web start-up companies are creating so-called hyperlocal news sites that let people zoom in on what is happening closest to them, often without involving traditional journalists.

It’s very much like what has sprung up over at FBI blogs, to which I belong. (And when I …

It’s almost Merrie Monarch week here on the Big Island. I love this week, when Hilo town shimmers and comes alive with people and flowers and hula everywhere.
Over at Big Island On The Cheap, we are going to be hitting Merrie Monarch hard. We’ll have a bunch of features — where to eat, half- and full-day trips to take around Hilo, all the exciting things going on with Merrie Monarch itself, some great local coupon deals that are exclusive to our readers (whether residents or visitors),  and some other surprises, …

Does anybody have extra Merrie Monarch tickets I could buy from them (at cost)?
One year my friend was on a mission to get Merrie Monarch tickets and asked a stranger in line at Starbucks, and said stranger indeed had extra tickets.
I haven’t asked at Starbucks yet, but how about you, online world? Surely you’re more effective than hitting up strangers at Starbucks!
I’d throw in a signed copy of my Exploring Historic Hilo book, if it helped.
Please ask around, tell your friends, all that. Let me know! I would really appreciate any help.

Macario is publishing a new online magazine and you should have a look. Wow. It’s eye-popping.

His photography is always great, and in this new magazine, called Macario’s Big Island, he combines his photos, interviews and commentary to illuminate some of the Big Island’s most interesting people in the world of arts, food, music and more.
He just put up what is only his third post there. It’s a feature on the Waimea architect Clemson Lam, and in a stunning turn of events – I’ve just now been able to get my jaw …

I have a good friend coming to visit here on the Big Island next week, a history buff like me, and I’ll have to find out if she’s ever read Isabella Bird.

I love reading an interesting book about a place while exploring it, and I highly recommend Isabella Bird’s book if you’re planning to visit (or if you live in) Hawai‘i.
I can remember reading Sarum when visiting Salisbury Cathedral, and Jane Austen in, of course, Bath. And Michener’s Iberia (or parts of it anyway; I remember a great section on gazpacho that …

I have an essay on the last page of Hawaii magazine’s August issue. It’s about living here in this beautiful place.
My husband Macario is a professional photographer who, among other jobs, shoots a lot of Big Island photos for the PacificBasin Communications magazines. So they called him to photograph me for the article. (How convenient is that?!)
And so we went down to a nearby river and we both stood in it, pretty much. And here’s the side of the photo shoot you don’t usually see — because the set-up for a …

My husband Macario harvested some kalo (taro) and made some fresh, delicious poi today. Our 4-year-old couldn’t get enough. And then we had some more.

In the old days, poi was pounded with stone pounders, and Macario, who comes from a long line of kalo farmers, can do it that way, too. But nowadays, we use a Champion commercial juicer. So easy. I think some of our ancestors would have used a Champion juicer if they’d had one. 
It got me thinking about an article I once wrote for the Hawaiian Airlines in-flight …