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anyone know if this book of tiki is worth getting??

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what's up with this and does it have alot of pics of various tikis??

http://www.tower.com/details/details.cfm?wapi=101953154

On 2008-01-17 19:19, Tipsy McStagger wrote:
.....does it have alot of pics of various tikis??

Why yes Dave! Lots of photos of the well known City Of Refuge Tikis, and then some like this:

(full page illustration)

...and this:

(full page illustration)

and THIS:

(full page illustration)

Just like in the Don The Beachcomber recipe book, the art director at Mutual publishing had no quarrel with laying cheap dollar store Tikis over cool old vintage material:

....and the cheerful writing made my skin crawl, and is sometimes plain wrong:

A quickie job for the Hawaiian tourists that don't know any better (and don't know TC), and buy dollar store Tikis. The writer was well-meaning, but while well versed in Hawaiiana, did not get it in terms of Tiki culture. To try to bring authentic Polynesian traditions, mainland Polynesian pop, and Hawaiian tourist culture all under one hat in a fluffy under 100 page book(let) does not work. That is exactly the kind of stuff the Hawaiian traditionalists will hate....and I gave the publisher permission to use images from the BOT. :(

The GOOD aspects are: A list of the locations and brief histories of all the heiaus on the islands.
And THIS one photo is supercool:

Yep. I picked up that book.

It's got lots of photos. Almost as much area is dedicated to photos as to type. So, visually it's very nice.

It's a cute little book, for not a whole lotta dough. Nicely printed, stylishly laid out.

Not with a lot of detailed background info. It could be a good intro book into tiki culture for kids, or people who only do their reading while in the bathroom.

They got a bit about ancient Polynesian religions, the Kapu system and how it fell apart. Then a bit on the America and the Hawaiian craze of the 50's and 60's. Then a bit on the "Tiki of Today". Then, a little bit on the places of interest in Hawaii, where you might still find some tikis, or where tikis used to be in ancient times. But, like I said, not a lot of detailed info. Just snappy copy that is easy to read while your on the toilet.

And that is a VERY cool photo!

The book is OK, it's upsetting that they use my artwork and photos (from my Hawaiian clip-art CD) on nearly 1/2 the pages (including the cover), and even though they have a detailed photo credit appendix, my CD and I are never mentioned once.

Oh well...

Pages: 1 4 replies