Kaila Hawai'i

You may perhaps call this an ultimate expression of dorkiness, but with the recent release of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek on DVD, I have found myself wondering how to say some of the series classic lines ma ka ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i. While this may seem entirely purposeless, one way that the Hawaiian language will survive centuries into the future is for it to embrace pop culture and therefore make it its own. Futhermore, let me add that after I caught a student-dubbed version of the 90s cult classic To Wong Foo earlier this year at UH-Mānoa, I can’t imagine Huaka‘i Hōkū, or Star Trek, would do any harm.

Of all Star Trek’s one liners, my favorite by far is Spock’s classic farewell greeting, “Live long and prosper”. As farewells go, it’s hard to be the positivity in this one, at least, in my opinion.

Going through the Hawaiian Dictionary, I thought the word pōmaika‘i would be best as it conveys multiple eyes I think Spock would approve of: “Good fortune, blessedness, blessing, profit, prosperity; prosperous, fortunate, beneficial, blessed, lucky; good luck, improvement (of property), welfare, benefits”.

It felt strange to just say “E ola loa a pōmaika‘i”. So I went ahead with “E ola loa me ka pōmaika‘i!”, which would reverse translate along the lines of “Live long with prosperity or good fortune”.

There is the secondary greeting that Star Trek’s Vulcans have used, probably not to sound redundant: “Peace and long life”. For this one, I went for a similar phrase as the one above: “E ola loa me ka maluhia.”

On a more humorous note, there is the plethora of Dr. Leonard McCoy’s “Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor, not a….”

I took the oft repeated “I’m a doctor, not an engineer”, an added a few emphatic phrases for extra oomph. What I arrived at was “Tsa! He kauka nō au! ‘A‘ole ho‘i au he wilikī!”

Of course, I am not a professional translator and my Hawaiian skills are not necessarily the best, so if you have a better translation, let me know. This is always something to pass onto the lexicon commitee!

Tags: Hawaiian language, J.J. Abrams, Karl Urban, Live Long and Prosper, Star Trek, translation, Zachary Quinto

In the web chatter that surrounded Francisco Costa’s recently debuted Spring 2010 collection for Calvin Klein, several references were made to how Costa had revamped Calvin Klein’s famous t-shirt inspired collection from 1994—the same collection that launched Kate Moss as the designer’s muse.

In one of my recent jaunts on YouTube, I happened to find by chance a segment from Elsa Klensch’s Style featuring the same collection. Watching the clip was a flash back into my youth in the early nineties. This was before the Internet explosion, when we all had to actually read the newspaper or watch television to find out was going on. Klensch’s distinctive accent was overly nostalgic for me. Her voice took me immediately back to being a teenager, sitting in a living room in west O‘ahu and watching flashes of an intriguing, glamorous world, as far away from New York as one could possibly be.

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Tags: Calvin Klein, Elsa Klensch, fashion, Francisco Costa, Jenny Shimizu, Kate Moss, minimalism, New York City, nineties, spring collection, t-shirt

This fantastic TV spot (shot by director Kevin Denholm via Exposure Films) has made its way from Aotearoa/New Zealand to all over the world. In an era where flying has become more of a chore than pleasure, Air New Zealand wanted to show they have nothing to hide. So they turned to their employees, including CEO Rob Fyfe, to “show” what they mean. (See the clip after the jump.) (more…)

Tags: Air New Zealand, Aotearoa/New Zealand, hoʻolaha kūʻai / ads