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Artmail 109

June 30, 2004

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From the past:

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The future "Boomerang Art" and Julie, who sat behind me in trigonometry class at Alameda High.

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For the future:

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Polynesian Purple Feather People

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Aloha all...

I'm starting this Artmail in the morning of the 28th. I'm going to Tashi's for a swim, now. This Artmail is going to be different. Stay tuned.

It's June 29th. I've been distracted from my usual projects by a book. You know already that my Purple Feather People project involves Polynesian islands...and my travels there.

For a very long time I've been particularly interested in Polynesia. My grandfather, then living in Manhattan, sent me a novel, The Far Lands, by James Norman Hall shortly after it was published in the early 1950s. From the time I read it, throughout my life, I've studied (and read a lot, including Hall) about...and traveled in the South Pacific. I now live on a Polynesian island...Kaua'i. Right now, as I type this, I am three miles from where Captain Cook first landed in Hawai'i...Waimea. Yes, I've read a lot of books and journals about Capt. Cook and his three famous voyages of discovery in the Pacific.

Here's what happened:

Last Friday, the 25th, I returned two books to the Waimea Library...and took time to look at the Recent Titles Rack. I saw this book squeezed between other books:

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So, I pulled it out of the rack:

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No doubt about it.....

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...I knew that I would be checking it out...and studying with it.

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One of the main things to be learned via the school system is how to acquire knowledge. I really learned how to do that when I started classroom teaching. I certainly didn't want to get up in front of classes and not know what I was talking about. I studied the texts that I used (and more) like I never studied as a student. When I took graduate classes, I would study as if I would have to get up in front of a class and "teach" the subject. I learned more that way.

Now, I'm no longer a classroom teacher, but I still acquire knowledge about various interests. I knew a long time ago that the Internet would allow individuals to do that from any desirable place on the planet. (I started plans way back then to live on an island in Polynesia that has ideal climate and beaches for my tastes and to travel).

So, now in my life, "me the teacher" must create a special course so that "me the student" can gain additional knowledge about Polynesia and its cultural foundations using Salmond's book.

I'm not going to teach the course (or pathway) that I am pursuing using the Internet. One can obtain a copy of the book/text and read it...thoroughly (including appendix, bibliography, notes from each chapter and use the index)...as if you were going to teach an adult class using it as a text. (No way I would do that, tho').

What I do is use the Internet, some maps and a dictionary here in 15B. I look up the words from the "text" that I don't already know or I go online to Dogpile Search and put the name of person, place or whatever I want to find out about in there and go for it. (I would much rather spend valuable hours of my life time doing this kind of thing than accumulating a lot of repeat hours of watching TV commercials, etc. Not having a TV is a matter of choice...mine).

Anyway...I'm in the process of reading and learning from this book. Mahalo, Anne Salmond, for your excellent work. I also take a swim about daily and cook (but, I haven't gotten to my monthly housecleaning, yet). I'm only on page 325 in the book!

Later:

Why am I interested in exploring, discovery...and, of course, the unexpected...the Crummo Tour?

It's always a creative exercise for me, as an individual.

Back in March of 1957, I was a marine technician with Scripps Institution of Oceanography. the Fish & Wildlife Service's converted-yacht, marine research vessel, the Black Douglas, was heading for The Sea of Cortez or The Vermilion Sea or The Gulf of California (take your pick) and I was on that cruise. I was on deck...forward, sitting, leaning against the bulkhead, in my bathing suit, reading Jack London. We were south of Cedros Island off Baja California, but still north of Magdalena Bay. I put the book down, looked around me...and got into the Now. I was actually getting paid to go on this exploratory cruise!! I was actually getting paid to live one of my dreams!!

I have a lot of good memories from that cruise. One is when, in the Gulf, we arrived off Mulege's beach with its palms and no buildings to be seen. I like to remember that the boats that came out to trade, some with families, as being dugouts. Maybe a few were (but they were probably all row boats. But, still...I liked that feeling. (We ended up anchoring off a very small island near the mouth of Conception Bay).

When I am reading about discovery, as with Salmond's book, my imagination does a very good job "making pictures" for me. I like it a lot.

Here is a perspective of what was going on with the well-known Polynesian "thefts" from one of the Resolution's crew...it is not stressed in European texts:

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Even though certain practices of the early Polynesians are found to be reprehensible by Europeans (and now by Polynesians), they are emphasized in histories, but read the conclusions of two of the European explorers when leaving the Society Islands during the second voyage:

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I eat some healthy munchies while reading....tako (octopus) poke...Mmmmm.

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"Weather photos" from the beach:

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Here are a few more photos:

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We can watch their work from Tashi's swing.

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One day, I came home to this. It needed to be done...mahalo.

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Kolo's carving.

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The back of a breadboard he carved several years ago.

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That's it for that week. I'm back to reading The Trial of the Cannibal Dog.

Aloha, Art

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Next one

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