Recently I had reason to drive around the back coast of Wellington from Island Bay to Lyall Bay just at sunset. The glow on the hills was so striking I had to stop and capture the moment. I stayed a while to watch airplanes take off from the airport, and to see seagulls squabble over the choicest seats on the rock.
I don’t usually blog about movies, but last evening I saw The Descendants, and thought I would say a bit about it. So: 1) It’s a very good film. You don’t need me to say it, or to review it. All the critics have done that. Why I thought it was interesting enough to mention is because of 2: 2) It’s the only remotely mainstream film that I have ever seen that actually captures Hawaii in any capacity. Forget Blue Crush and 50 First Dates and all the other crap that pretends to be Hawaii and is really some weird fantasy land that only exists in the minds of movie directors and the gullible public, The Descendants actually looks like Hawaii. Granted, the Hawaii it shows is a rarefied version: I knew old Missionary families: the elite ‘Cousins’ who had been their for generations but never quite assimilated. And I knew kids who went to Punahou School and HPI. And the world they lived in was far, far from my world. But the neighborhoods? And …
There was, up until a month ago, a sign in Wellington that reads “The Royal Antedeluvian Order of Buffalos”. The sign was on the very artsy, independent (dare I say ‘hipster’) Bats Theatre, so I assumed it was a joke. Nope. Turns out its real. There really is a Royal Antedeluvian Order of Buffalos, and despite all the stuff they have going against them, they take themselves pretty seriously. In order to be a member, you have to be over 18, enter of your own free will, and be a “true and loyal supporter of the British Crown and Constitution.” Oh, and be male. Obviously (thanks to the British bit), despite the name, there aren’t a lot of Buffalos organizations in the US. I have no idea what goes on at Buffalo meetings today, but they started out as a club for stagehand and theatre techies in the early 19th century (well before techie was a word). Their history sounds like it came out of a kids book: the actors had a club called Lushingtons, …
