Aloha kakou!

For elegance, utility, and design perfection, today, we’re honoring the coconut palm. The Niu, or coconut palm, Cocos nucifera L., is our beloved Hawaiian coconut!

Stately beacons, especially at the seashore.

The niu’s slender ringed trunk ascends to a crown of fronds, some up to 9 feet long. Coconuts form at the base of the fronds, and every part of the plant is used, it’s one of the ten most useful plant species in the world.

Here, Jessie Mikasobe Keali’inohomoku talks about the delicious phases of the nut meats! Among a lot of other things, including efforts to educate and propagate Niu culture.

Mahalo to Jesse, as well as Indrajit Gunasekara – Uluniu Project Founder, and Dr. Manu Aluli Meyer – Kūlana o Kapolei, Chancellorʻs Office and ʻAha Niu Director.

Find out more about the Niu ohana here ⁠https://www.puuhonua-society.org/niu-now⁠

808-725-0907

indrajit@hawaii.edu

IG at Niu.Now

Mahalo to contributing musicians. Music programming and listing: Kit Ebersbach at Pacific Music Productions

Hope the new year opens like a coconut for you!

Here are a few notes I made about the coconut meat:

ʻōʻio, the unripe, green nut with jelly-like flesh

haohao, as in “ka wai o ka niu haohao,” the delicious water in the maturing nut, with soft, white flesh

ʻili kole, the half-ripe nut, with chewy meat, eaten raw with salt and poi

oʻo, a mature nut, but not brown, ripe, good for milk and cream

maloʻo, brown mature nut, with dry husk, water still inside, best stage for planting

ho’oiho, the spongy pulp in sprouting nuts; choice food (lolo)

ōkaʻa, the dry, brown, old nut with no water and meat

‘āka’a, separated from shell so as to make a rattling

sound; oil is extracted at this stage

A hui hou!

This program is, uncharacteristically, about me. After two shows working with Honoluluʻs unsheltered community, I made some paintings now at Bās Bookshop in Honolulu through 11/26/2023.

Wednesday 11/15, Erin Yuasa and I will be there at 5:30 to talk about work, and making. She’ll demo the handsome lei she makes from repurposed t-shirts. Please do come by. I feel like making the whole night about how we in Hawai’i can contribute to a unified world.🌺

And because of this show, my UH Manoa grad school studio mate, Florence Matsuoka, got the idea to interview me. Argh!

Plus, to make it an episode in my Fresh Pacific podcast.

See her twisting her long mustache…all part of a diabolical scheme! Florence, I find out has ascended to become General Manager at Hawaiian Graphics, the venerable and indispensable art supply store on Beretania. They’re mobilizing their facebook page, hoping to be a link for artists around the state. Hear about that, and reminiscences of Helen Gilbert and Prithwish Neogy in the new Fresh Pacific podcast.

“We’re the last generation that has a chance to solve the climate crisis.” Hear a Hawaiian view of where we are and how to proceed.

Kamanamaikalani Beamer applies a Hawaiian perspective to our future on this planet, incorporating environmentalism, economic justice, and indigenous knowledge. Author, thought leader, professor in the Hawaiʻinuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge and with the Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, Beamer introduced me to the idea of "circular economies" in 2019. Itʻs one of those "duh" concepts that we seem to have forgotten. In this conversation he presents the concept of Degrowth, an expanding movement, especially in Europe. Kamana talks about how solving the climate crisis connects to reforming our economic system. The idea of not pursuing growth at all cost seems anti-capitalist. Yes, every part of the natural world is calling for profound and immediate change.

This episode closes with a song by U’ilani Tanigawa-Lum, U’ilaniʻs song celebrates the taro farmers of Waioli on Kaua’i, who organized to bring their crops and their lifestyle into the 21st century.

Itʻs from Huliamahi Volume I, a recording of contemporary songs celebrating the challenges and legal victories that preserve cherished land parcels and life ways. The entire album satisfies on so many levels. Proceeds from the recording benefit the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation.

http://www.kahulileolea.org/huli257mahi-vol-1.html