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Call Me Ishmael: Herman Melville and the San Francisco Opera

October 25, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

It is one of the most memorable first sentences of a novel ever written. With three simple words, it draws us into the story, lets us know who the narrator is, and hints at dramatic transformations to come.

This opening line – Call me Ishmael – was written by Herman Melville in his epic about Captain Ahab’s quest to kill the white whale Moby Dick. One of the surprises of the San Francisco Opera’s current production of Moby Dick is that this line is used in a different way in the story – to very good effect. I won’t spoil the pleasure in telling you how, but would urge you to see this wonderful production yourself.

Spoiled for choice…

October 5, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

There always seems to be one weekend in the fall when there’s just too much going on. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, this weekend boasts not only Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free music festival in Golden Gate Park founded by the late philanthropist and financier Warren Hellman, but also Fleet Week. And it’s the first weekend of Litquake, the city’s rocking literary festival. Not to mention this Saturday night is the annual party for Adopt-a-Family of Marin, a wonderful non-profit organization that supports local families in need. As an Irish friend once said to my husband Charlie and I when we lived in London, “You’re just spoiled for choice!”

Meeting Hawaii’s Next Generation Authors? (…and How I Handle Criticism)

September 20, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler 9 Comments

A young man sitting in the back row tentatively raised his hand. I was talking to a group of history students and their teachers at Kamehameha Schools last week about my book, Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure, published by Grove/Atlantic earlier this year. “How do you deal with criticism as an author?” he asked.

A dialogue with journalism students

Mark Ho’omalu and a “Kingdom Denied”

September 15, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

“Get your papers!” cried the delivery boys and girls, carrying rolled up copies of a Hawaiian newspaper printed especially for that evening’s show. Wearing natty caps and suspenders, they ran through the aisles clutching copies of the “Star of the Pacific,” yelling, “Get your papers!”

Thus began an extraordinary one-night performance of the musical “Kingdom Denied,” which was written by kumu hula Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu, founder of the Academy of Hawaiian Arts in Oakland, Ca. I’d interviewed Mark for a page one story in the Wall Street Journal last year about mainland hula troupes headlined “Aloha, Lady Gaga.” (You can watch the video that accompanied the story here.)

The Queen and the Clevelands (Grover and George…)

September 2, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler 6 Comments

September 2 is the birthday of Hawai’i’s last reigning monarch, Lili’uokalani. Born in a grass house in 1838 and adopted by Hawai’i’s ruling dynasty, the infant girl who would become Hawai’i’s last queen began her tumultuous life 174 years ago at the base of an dormant volcano in Honolulu.

Queen Lili’uokalani, Hawai’i State Archives

For the past several years, historians, Hawaiian cultural practitioners, and others who keep Lili’uokalaini’s memory alive, have gathered at the grounds of ‘Iolani Palace on her birthday to lead walking historical walking tours in an event called Mai Poina (Don’t Forget.) The tour on her birthday sold out but there are still a few spots left this coming weekend, September 7-9.

“The Wave” by Susan Casey

August 21, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

The ancient Polynesians felt profound respect for the power of the sea. Their custom was to carry ti leafs with them when they went on risky journeys. As Susan Casey reports in her masterful book, The Wave, California-born but Hawaii-bred surfing legend Laird Hamilton, perhaps superstitiously, always carries a ti leaf along with him as he hunts down the world’s monster waves. “You take the leaf out,” Hamilton told her, “and the leaf brings you home.” So far it’s worked for him.

Susan Orlean on Stagecraft (and How Writing Can Be Like Stripping…)

August 12, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler 2 Comments

I just spent the past few days at the 21^st Annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference. I was on a panel with Andrew McCarthy, who made his name as an actor in “Pretty in Pink,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” and “Less Than Zero,” and is now an award-winning travel writer for National Geographic Traveler and other publications. I also discussed the “Art of Attention” on a panel with veteran travel writers David Farley, Larry Habegger, and Georgia Hesse.

How an 1863 petition from Ni’ihau re-surfaced in San Francisco

August 10, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler 7 Comments

The story begins in November of 1957. The chief photographer for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Warren Roll, climbed into the passenger seat of a small plane in Kauai. The pilot took off, heading towards a 73-square-mile privately-owned Hawaiian island of Niihau.

The plane landed roughly, smashing its landing gear and splintering its propeller. Roll, carrying his camera gear, left the pilot and set off across the island in search of the island’s one village. The Robinson family, who by that time had owned the island for nearly a century, had restricted access to it for decades. Roll, an unusually enterprising photojournalist, had successfully penetrated what was by then known as the “Forbidden Island.”

Mondavi and Backen: Napa’s First Family and its Favorite Architect

August 7, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

An invitation landed in my inbox recently with the subject heading: “Mondavi and Backen.”

Reading a bit further, I learned that the Peter Mondavi family, owners of the Charles Krug winery, had hired the famed Napa Valley-based architect, Howard Backen. I was invited to the groundbreaking celebration for the $6 million refurbishment of the winery’s grand old Redwood Cellar.

I’d first visited this 1872 building about eight years ago, as I began reporting the Wall Street Journal story on the Mondavi family that would eventually become “The House of Mondavi.”

Veering Off the Hana Highway

August 2, 2012 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

My family and I just returned from a week in Hana, on the eastern coast of Maui. The town is probably best known for the road leading to it –a series of heart-stopping one-lane bridges and sheer vertical drops to the ocean below. But tourists who drive to Hana and back in a day from resorts on the sunnier side of this Hawaiian island miss exploring one of the most isolated and beautiful spots on earth.

Sunset at Hale Honu

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