by Lisa Linn Kanae
Islands Linked by Ocean is more than a collection of Hawai‘i-based short stories: It’s the verbal equivalent of a heavy, glossy coffee table book full of in-the-moment images imbued with a unique elegance and wonder by the artist who captured them. Lisa Linn Kanae conjures frame after frame, many familiar to most of us, but in a light that brings out a grace we never knew existed: a veteran steersman berating his novice stroker, the banter and gossip of women in an office breakroom, a starving dog tied to a chain-link fence behind a dumpster. My own favorite is the title story which ironically contains the least amount of fiction maybe because I, too, had a McKinley-alum dad who could croon like Dean Martin. And I never realized how beautifully he did so until I read Kanae’s work about her own father.
New Bookshop for Creatives, Collectors and Keiki Opens In Honolulu
All about that Bās.
What’s more tragic than a Shakespeare love story? The number of local bookstores we have in Honolulu. You can count them on one hand. Well, two now. Thanks to wife and husband, Aly Ishikuni-Sasaki and Travis Sasaki, the owners of recently opened Bās it’s pronounced base and refers to the core part of something Bookshop. “We founded the shop together with the belief that reading is fundamental,” shares Aly.
If you’re familiar with the design-lovin’ duo, you’re familiar with their wholehearted commitment to fill spaces (physically and metaphorically) in the local art community. Take Bās for instance. The shop, next to Roberta Oaks on Nu‘uanu Avenue, is home to literary works that are rich in fashion, architectural design, music, photography and other colorful topics that spark vision, imagination and excellence.