Buzz Bin

by Inlander Staff


Picking Up the Slack -- So who doesn't want to get lei'd on Valentine's Day? Sorry. We're juvenile. We can't help it. But we couldn't resist the temptation, given the fact that Hawaiian slack key guitar virtuoso George Kahumoku Jr. is playing a Valentine's Day show of Hawaiian love songs on Friday at the Met. We're not sure what counts as a Hawaiian love song (the Hawaii Five-O theme? "Blue Hawaii"?), but here in the Bin, we're pretty sure Kahumoku could teach that poser has-been Don Ho a thing or two about traditional Hawaiian music!





Oscar Watch 2003 -- We Binsters are such wildly rabid Oscar fans that we were up at 5:30 in the morning a few days ago to catch the nominations on live TV. We're excited to see character actor John C. Reilly finally get his due with three nods, and are hoping that seven nominations might finally be the thing to get The Pianist to Inland Northwest screens. And let's hope The Return of the King comes through for Peter Jackson next spring!





An Oldie But Goodie -- We were highly amused by this item, which hit our e-mail inbox Monday morning: "What with all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote 'The Hokey Pokey' died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in... and, well, you know the rest..."


It's a joke, of course, but we wondered if La Prise was really dead, and if not, if he found the joke as funny as we did. A quick Google search revealed that La Prise was indeed dead, the e-mail joke has been circulating since at least 2001, and you can't trust the veracity of a lot of the stuff on the Web. We found that La Prise was also thought to be the author of "The Hokey Cokey" and "The Poky Hoky" and that he might have actually been 83 when he died. We don't care; the joke still makes us giggle.





Another V-Day Option -- Still wondering what to do Friday night? We like the sounds of the Valentine's Masquerade Ball in Sandpoint, which offers champagne, wine, beer, truffles, a kissing booth, costume contest and "other droll and intoxicating entertainments as planned." They've got the right attitude; the ball is fancy-dress, and proceeds benefit the Pend Oreille New School for the Fine & amp; Performing Arts, a literary/music/performing arts project still in its inception. Tickets are $12 for singles, $20 for couples. Call: (208) 255-4410.





Publication date: 02/13/03