Post #576401 by JOHN-O on Wed, Feb 16, 2011 11:58 AM

On the other hand...

Phillip, you know I'm a fan of your work but here's my concern about the expanded availability of the book. Based on it's convenient size and catchy graphics (was that part of your marketing strategy? :)), I can see many tourists casually purchasing "Waikiki Tiki" either as a good read for the beach or as gift to bring back to the mainland.

Now while this definitely will "spread the faith" to the neophytes, I fear it may add to the misperception that mid-century Tiki-style actually originated in Hawaii. This is very similar to how the average person thinks the Mai Tai was invented in Hawaii.

Don't take this as a criticism so much as an observation. I know your objective was to graphically capture a part of Tiki history that was still relatively undocumented, rather than re-cover the work in "Book of Tiki".

This might be a good problem to have though. The proliferation of your book will only initiate more awareness and conversation about Tiki-style in mainstream America.

The coolest thing to me about Tiki-style was that it originated on the mainland (inspired by "Hawaii"). The surreal thing about Hawaii Tiki-style was that it was this same fabricated aesthetic come back full circle. It had to meet the expectations of mid-century tourists weaned on mainland Tiki. This is the irony that we on Tiki Central need to share and communicate with the general public. :)

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2011-02-16 12:49 ]