Makana

All week, it's been news about Iraq. Four years now since the US invasion and still no end in sight. It's ironic that now we have all this technology to bring sounds and pictures of battles in far off lands into our living rooms, bed rooms and desk tops, and yet we feel more distant.

Thinking about the stupidity of the human race was really starting to depress me, but today, we took Mom to Kapiolani Park at the Diamond Head side of Waikiki where they were having the Folk Life Festival. As we walked deeper into the park, towards the little outdoor stage, beautiful slack key guitar sounds drifted my way and if it were a cartoon, you would have seen the music like smoke fingers, wrapping themselves around me, pulling me towards the source.

It was Makana. We had heard about him from a woman we met at the bus stop on our way back from seeing the DogFather off at the airport.

"He was playing at this club called Indigo and he was just amazing," she told us. "I couldn't believe they weren't charging a cover."

I couldn't believe they were doing these performances free at the Kapiolani Park, either! I've always loved slack key guitar, but today, Makana's lovely, peaceful, mellow sounds were a salve for my soul. Who could stay angry? Depressed? Who would want to kill anyone after hearing this? I pictured air lifting a troop of singing/playing Makanas onto a battle zone, the music mesmerizing the soldiers who would fling down their weapons and start hugging each other.

The odd thing was that the Park was not swamped with people because Waikiki certainly has been, with spring breakers from the mainland and Asia. Guess the mainlanders were all out there on the beach (I have never seen so many beginner surfers in the water at one time!) and the Asians were all shopping.