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Sharing Mana‘o

It was a good week for words. Words and stars and love.

When Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature last Thursday, critics had some choice words on the subject, including “silly,” “misguided” and “contemptuous of writers.” Novelist Rabih Alameddine tweeted, “Bob Dylan winning a Nobel in Literature is like Mrs. Fields being awarded 3 Michelin stars.”  A few writers have suggested that Dylan should turn down the award, in accordance with the argument that song lyrics are not true literature.

The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobels, obviously disagrees. Academy Permanent Secretary Sara Danius commented, “The times, they are a-changing, perhaps.”

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins said, “Bob Dylan is in the 2 percent club of songwriters whose lyrics are interesting on the page even without the harmonica and the guitar and his very distinctive voice. I think he does qualify as poetry.” Other prominent writers also praised the decision. Salman Rushdie called Dylan “the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition.”

The man at the center of the controversy had no words at all for the critics or the fans, not even for the Nobel panel. Dylan made no mention of the honor during concerts Thursday and Friday, and, as of early this week, had not responded to the academy’s invitation to the Dec. 10 awards ceremony.

Thursday was also the night of a concert that I had been eagerly anticipating for several months: Air Supply at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. Generally, I prefer danceable funk and hard-driving rock ‘n’ roll over sentimental love songs, but Air Supply has always been the glaring exception. “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” is one of the few songs that choke me up whenever I hear them.

Every time I see you,

All the rays of the sun are streaming through the waves in your hair,

And every star in the sky

Is taking aim at your eyes like a spotlight . . .

You can take the darkness from the middle of night

And turn into a beacon burning endlessly bright.

I gotta follow it, ’cause everything I know,

Well, it’s nothing till I give it to you.

Graham Russell, the songwriting half of the duo, captivated me with a brief solo moment in which he explained that he has loved words and poetry since childhood. To a hushed and appreciative crowd, he recited “Softly,” one of 99 poems contained in his second book, “Nearly Beloved.”

I softly speak your name

As though you’re here with me.

So funny how a single word can change the way we feel.

One moment we’re drifting inside eternity;

The next, looking at Heaven

From the center of the wheel.

It was one of my favorite moments of the concert, second only to the “Making Love” finale. And yes, I got teary-eyed, both times.

Two nights later, I was in Honolulu for the annual Talk Story Festival, professing my own love for words and the poetic beauty of pidgin, which is, after all, the true language of aloha. Luminaries like Hawaiian language and literature scholar Puakea Nogelmeier and master storyteller Jeff Gere, who founded the festival 28 years ago, shared stories of personal journeys and starlit skies. Longtime Polynesian Voyaging Society member Bruce Black related his experiences as a crew mate aboard the iconic voyaging canoe Hokule’a.

The next morning, I settled into a reclining seat in the Bishop Museum Planetarium, among a crowd of excited children and families, for Jeff’s current production, “The Boy Who Fell in Love with a Star.” Billed as “a preschool musical with stories, science, songs, fantasy and effects,” the 50-minute show is an engaging mini lesson in astronomy. Singer/songwriter Adela Chu, as the Star Lady, explained that Hokule’a (Star of Gladness) is the Hawaiian name for Arcturus, the brightest star in the Northern celestial hemisphere. With the aid of the planetarium’s stunning visual effects, she told the story of Makali’i, also known as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, and pointed out Maui’s great fish hook within the constellation Scorpio.

If you’re on Oahu any weekend from now through Nov. 13, you can catch “The Boy Who Fell in Love With a Star” on a Saturday or Sunday morning. It is a delightful tribute to the stars above and the child within each of us.

As our newest Nobel laureate wrote:

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung.

May you stay forever young.

* Kathy Collins is a storyteller, actress and freelance writer whose “Sharing Mana’o” column appears every Wednesday. Her email address is kathycollins@hawaii.rr.com.

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