Hawaii - Buildings and Decay

I continue to post pictures from our Hawaii trip over at Flickr. Here's a link to all of them.

There's a set of panorama shots - mostly from Kiluaea volcano - stitched together with a program bundled with my new camera..

And here's a set of pictures of buildings - both from Hilo and Honolulu.


Hilo seemed like a bizarre combination of small Iowa city and lush tropical paradise. My first visual impression was of rust. The climate causes things to decay in a fashion unfamiliar to someone who has lived in an artificially irrigated desert since 1974.


Although Hilo is having a drought, an average month of rainfall there is still more than the total precipitation in Los Angeles for all of last year. When I mentioned to a local gentleman that this seemed like a good place to be in the roofing business he said "Termites are even better."

In Honolulu we stayed in just another of a zillion large tall hotels. Although I'm sure my first impression was of bluer water and whiter sand, my lasting impression of Waikiki will be of tall monotonous architecture.


Yeah, it's a beautiful view. And in an effort to share the view with as many people as they can, developers seem to have told their architects to produce lots of ticky-tacky thereby cheapening the view. Touch the sky with a grid of balconies.

I spent one morning wandering a maze of Japanese-tourist-fueled Rodeo Drives, photographing an endless geometric progression of minimalist skyscrapers. And new buildings are still going up - so the post-minimalist period may not have yet begun.


These and other pictures are in my Buildings and Decay set at Flickr.
A few of my favorites were a rusty corrugated roof at the Hilo Jail and some deco buildings in Honolulu.


Meanwhile, this trip was the first time I've traveled with an iPod. I found the experience largely wonderful. On long solitary walks (while Leslie slept or shopped or shipped out), on long airline flights with lousy movies, during interminable airport waits, or just about any other time I was alone, having a choice of my own "hand picked music" was "priceless".

I listened repeatedly to two albums which consistently fit any situation and amplified my good moods: Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air and Glenn Gould playing English Suites by J.S. Bach. Scarlatti sonatas deserve an honorable mention for breakfasting by the bay in Hilo. Music by Nancarrow and Feldman however struck out big time and have been banished from my little red Nano.

Ticky Tacky Tags: Hawaii. . . Waikiki. . . Honolulu. . . rust. . . ticky tacky. . . hotels. . . Glenn Gould. . . iPod. . . Terry Riley. . . decay. . . architectural pictures. . . high rise

Every Mixed Meters post about our trip to Hawaii.
Click picture = see it larger.