GALFROMDOWNUNDER UPOVER

Pictured: Ann Kobsa preparing to 'plant' some seeds on my sliver of Hawaii (which I merely borrowed from mother earth for a fee of $20K) using the Fukuoka method of natural farming - basically tossing it to the winds ... read more It's been hot as Hawaii in high summer here in NYC. Yesterday I partook of a 60 mile round trip bike rider to Garden City led by 5bbc member and NY history wiki-on-wheels Danny Liebermann. Many of us were wiped out by the time we'd done 45 miles of basically flat urban riding. There we were, slumped against the walls of an 'Amish (hardly) Market', sipping fancy cold drinks and talking of taking the subway back. Of course, any bike rider will tell you that extended flat bike rides are in may ways more fatiguing than hilly ones - it's one long steady grind, rather than some butt-relieveing downhills. My last post, an extended tirade about global warming (ah, thank god for blogging, better than paying a $120 an hour therapis

The view from my homestay in Kaneohe, Oahu First, a mini movie review ... I'VE JUST crawled out from under a crocheted cushion after 'viewing' the Wachowski Bros (Matrix) 1996 movie, '"Bound." I don't think I'll sleep tonight, I'll need a stun gun and a Valium to close my peepers... which were closed for probably 60% of the movie. Extreme suspense, violence, Joe-Pesci-at-his-damndest dialog, a severed digit (or ten) thanks to a pair of garden clippers, plus a rather topical twist: a lesbian couple star as the glam Bonnie and Clyde. Topical, because I've just seen "Brokeback Mountain", this year's darling gay western flick. 'Bound' has terrific acting and plotting, highly recommended. Warning: it contains some serious Vaseline-covered lens action. I'm now holed up in Oahu, via the Big Island, Kaui and Maui, as the guest of Bike Friday customers Ralph and Bernice. Ralph is the Bike Friday Club of Hawaii leade

This story originally appeared on the Bike Friday website (now on the Internet Archive) MOVIE CLIPS UDPATE Dec 2006: See this interview on ... YouTube - click on the movie below. “I MAKE an instrument for the future, but alas, in the present,” laments David Hannauer, pulling various egg-shaped pieces of clay from their protective socks. Laid out before me is a small ensemble of his vast ocarina collection, “small egg-shaped wind instruments with a mouthpiece and holes for the fingers”, according to my laptop dictionary. All but two are the careful handiwork of David himself, who dreams of the day he can get enough people interested in this quirky, glorified whistle to form an ocarina “choir”. David hails from a family of musicians – he was a child cellist, his mother is a volinist, his sister plays with the Brooklyn Philharmonic orchestra and his dad sings. Happy birthdays and Grace at the Hannauer house were always rendered in pitch-perfect six part harmony. Born to

Galfromdownunder in Hawaii 2006 PHOTO GALLERY AND MOVIE CLIPS The Gal's Hilo Photo Gallery First week in Hilo (5 Mb Quicktime movie) Biking Hilo's Old Scenic Highway (8 Mb Quicktime movie) Sorry to rain on your mental image of Hawaii ... Gray skies. Rain every ten minutes. I'm wearing a pair of long johns. A-ROH-HA! (as my Shanghainese father would say). I hallucinate that I never got on a plane at all, that I'm still in 34 degree Eugene, Oregon, about to put on five layers of hi-tech thermals to go check the mail. No wait ... the windows here are wide open. All eight of them. I'm mincing around in a floaty islandy dress I splurged on just yesterday (30% off – how could I refuse).There's a cacophonous bleating of small, rubbery critters - coqui frogs, I'm told - coming from the bowels of the jungle outside my window. I'm scratching a moonscape raised welts on my arms and legs despite the fly screens and my chemical warfare repellent. I am on Hilo, on t