Civil Beat Entertainment

It’s that time of year, when ghost stories from around Oahu are re-told to get people into the spirit of Halloween (October 31) and the Mexican Día de los Muertos (November 1 and 2), also known as the Day of the Dead.

You’ve probably heard the same tales of haunted spots time and again: The Kasha of Kaimuki, the Kakaako fire station, the old Waialae Drive-In, the barracks at Barber’s Point. Have you heard of some of these other stories? These are just a few that I’ve collected from friends and acquaintances:

Ricky L.’s friends lived in the Moana Pacific condominium and would see handprints on the glass outside, but figured it was from the window washers. They sometimes saw a shadow in their unit, but hoped it was their imagination. The last straw in a series of incidents happened one night, when their baby was crying, the wife went to the room to check on it, and saw a shadow standing over the baby, clearly a local guy, trying to calm it down. They moved out the next day.

— Honolulu Magazine

“A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” is pretty much what audiences have come to expect from the H&K franchise. The third film in the series, which opens Friday and features the adventures of Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn), is a stoner comedy filled with R-rated language, semi-naked women, scatological humor and lots of drug usage. Lots.

But in its own raunchy way, the series also marks an interesting direction in the ways Asian Americans are depicted on-screen. Harold and Kumar are just regular middle-class Americans, with non-Asian girlfriends (in this film, Harold is married to a Latina), and are not in any way related to the Asian male stereotypes that have proliferated on-screen for years: the sexless nerd, martial artist or Chinese delivery guy.

— Washington Post

An underwater photo taken of a professional surfer from Hawaii is making waves on the internet and has the full attention of federal authorities.

“Our initial reaction is like woah what’s going on!?” said Pat Opay, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Endangered Species Branch chief.

Professional surfer Jamie O’Brien appears to be riding on a Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle.

“You have to maintain your distance and we have guidelines stated guidelines that suggest don’t feed the animals, don’t pet the animals don’t ride the animals,” said Opay. “In this particular instance this individual was actually riding the animal.”

— KHON

Keanu Asing has been around Hawaii’s North Shore scene pretty much his entire life. He caught his first wave on the inside combers at Haleiwa when he was just 4 years old. Since then, he has developed into one of the brightest up-and-comers in Hawaii. He has grown up sparring with the likes of John John Florence and Carissa Moore, both of whom have had immediate impacts on the ASP World Tour. And while Asing won’t dispute that he came of age in paradise and has been lucky to know the ocean as long as he has, he is somewhat discontent. The son of a father who practiced karate for the better part of 30 years, Asing understands full well he has got a battle ahead of him, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. Here is the 18-year-old in his words.

— ESPN

Asian-Americans have seen their ranks swell over the past decade not only in coastal immigrant enclaves but also in new places such as the southwestern states of Texas and Nevada, according to a report released Wednesday by a coalition of Asian-American organizations.

The report shows the largest Asian-American populations have remained in California and New York, but traditionally smaller communities shot up between 2000 and 2010, more than doubling in Nevada and growing 95 percent in Arizona.

Over the decade, Asian-Americans grew 72 percent to more than 1.1 million in Texas, giving the state more Asian-Americans than Hawaii, according to a report released by the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, a coalition of four Asian-American advocacy groups.

— Wall Street Journal

It’s official: Hawaii now has an upscale cruise operator.

Seattle-based American Safari Cruises, long known for its intimate, wildlife- and nature-focused sailings in Southeast Alaska, is kicking off its first Hawaii trips today on one of its three small yachts.

The line’s 36-passenger Safari Explorer will operate a series of 24 voyages between Lanai and the Big Island through May 2012 before heading back to Alaska for the summer season. The seven- and 10-night trips include stops in Maui as well as the little-visited Hawaiian islands of Lanai, Molokai and Molokini.

American Safari is promising an off-the-beaten-path and culturally-rich experience as the Safari Explorer ties up in places that see just a small fraction of the tourists that travel to Hawaii’s big resort areas.

— USA Today

The 11th annual “Art from the Heart” event celebrates the creativity of patients who have participated in a therapeutic art program at Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific. This highly anticipated event for REHAB’s Louis Vuitton Creative Arts Program is an art sale and exhibit that is open and free to the public. Professional Hawaiiartists will also be contributing work to the fundraiser.

— Hawaii Business

For more than a decade, small decorative art have been featured in art galleries and fairs in major cities such as New York City, Chicago and Santa Fe. And finally, this movement has reached Hawaii’s shores.

The Fine Art Associates, a local art consultation firm, will be showcasing unique, one-of-a-kind decorative arts and design — like the blue glass ball in curve, above, by Tonia Moreno — in the first-ever mini-SOFA show and sale in November.

— Haute Living

Hold Steady word-slinger Craig Finn has announced that his debut solo single “Honolulu Blues” will be released via Vagrant on Nov. 29 as part of Record Store Day’s “Black Friday” event.

— NBC

Maui is a dream for the active traveler. There are adventures to outlast even a month-long stay. Here are some starters:

1. Watch whales. From November through May, Maui welcomes the humpback whales, our largest seasonal visitors. They are Maui’s other honeymooners, arriving to mate and give birth and provide joy and entertainment for their viewers. Maui’s south and west coastlines provide abundant opportunities for watching this endangered species, and various operations offer whale watching excursions aboard both power and sail boats. Among the shoreline sites offering vantage points are Puu Olai at Makena; the hotels of Wailea, Kaanapali and Kapalua; the Papawai Lookout on the road to Lahaina, near Maalaea Harbor; and the waterfront restaurants in Lahaina. There are three whaling museums: The Lahaina Whaling Museum, the Pacific Whale Foundation, and the museum at the Whaler’s Village shopping complex in Kaanapali. Lahaina is one of the largest marketplaces for scrimshaw, the indigenous American art form developed by the whalers

— PGA Tour
.

Guy Laliberté, 52, started as a fire-breather and stilt-walker in Quebec, where he organized street festivals. He ended up running an entertainment empire with nearly $1 billion in sales, Cirque du Soleil, known for spectacular artistic and acrobatic shows seen around the world. Here’s how he did it.

My first dream was to travel. I was attracted to different places, different colors of skin, different food. When I was 18 in 1977, I went to Europe with my accordion and discovered the pleasure of entertaining people. I come from a middle-class family whose parents dreamed of their children becoming doctors or lawyers. When I came back and told my parents [Blandine and Gaston Laliberté] I wanted to be a creative producer and artist, and would not go to university, there were a lot of tears.

— CNN

The UH Hilo Performing Arts Department presents the Fall 2011 Great Leaps Dance Concert ONE NIGHT ONLY on December 6, 2011 at 7:30pm.

UH Hilo, Hawaii Community College, and CCECS Dance classes perform original choreography in Ballet, Modern, Aerial, Tap, Jazz, and more!

The popular “Great Leaps” Dance Concert will be a one night event this semester on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 7:30pm. This is a culminating event for over 150 dancers from the UH-Hilo Performing Arts Dept., Hawaii Community College dance classes and invited guests from the community. This concert will offer many surprises and something for everyone.

— UH Hilo

We throw around the term “well-rounded” pretty loosely. But in these rapidly progressive times, it’s harder than you might think to find a truly well rounded surfer. Some are highly technical, but their styles are wack. Others absolutely drip style, but only do so through rollercoasters and floaters. Still others have uncanny technique and timeless style, but they’re sissies when it gets overhead. Or they can’t make a heat. Or their technical blemishes manifest every time they get in front of a camera. 

Finding a surfer who possesses that rare pentad of waveriding flair is tedious enough. Finding a whole community of them is even tougher.

Unless, of course, you happen to be looking in Maui.

— Surfline

Duane ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Chapman has spoken of the moment he heard a disturbing recording of his young grandson allegedly being beaten by his son-in-law.

Mr Chapman revealed he was engulfed by a wave of anger and wanted to strangle Travis Mimms, who can apparently be heard in the audio striking nine-year-old Travis Jr 13 times.

In tonight’s episode of Entertainment Tonight reality star Mr Chapman, who has been granted temporary custody of his late daughter’s child, says he was ‘overwhelmed’ by the audio.

— Daily Mail

A Makakilo couple lives in shocking and extreme conditions most would consider unlivable, unsanitary and dangerous.

Compulsive hoarding is a psychiatric disorder and people who live like this can feel swallowed up by their own possessions.

Earlier this year, the Arts & Entertainment network show “Hoarders” went inside the home of the Makakilo couple and tried to clean decades worth of things she couldn’t throw away.For years, Arline and Richard West lived in between piles of what most people would call junk.

— KITV

One of MovieMaker Magazine’s “25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” and “25 Coolest Film Festivals”, Big Island Film Festival (BIFF) 2012 is now accepting entries for the May 24-28 events at The Fairmont Orchid, Hawaii and The Shops at Mauna Lani.

A celebration of narrative filmmaking, BIFF 2012 includes screenings, social events and networking opportunities, celebrity receptions, screenwriting workshop and a closing night “Best of the Fest” with a top Hawaiian music concert and movies chosen from Festival entries.

Last year’s celebrity honorees included Hawaii actresses Kristina Anapau (“Black Swan,” “True Blood”) and Sarah Wayne Callies (“Prison Break,” “The Walking Dead”).

— Hawaii 24/7

The 4th Annual HALLOWBALOO Music + Arts Festival (www.hallowbaloo.com) presents a kaleidoscope of stimulation as diverse as the 20+ clubs, restaurants, galleries and boutiques that comprise its host neighborhood, the Honolulu Arts District. Entering its fourth year, the festival has already become one of the most anticipated and celebrated events in Hawaii with over 16,000 residents and visitors participating…and that’s just the beginning.

At the heart of HALLOWBALOO is an incredibly propulsive jet fuel that burns hotter than anything NASA ever created: Hawaii Halloween passion. For as long as most can remember, Hawaii has celebrated Halloween with as much or more fervor than anywhere in the world, and now, Hawaii residents direct their fantasies, dastardly digressions and zany illusions to HALLOWBALOO. When their creative escapades come to fruition in the form of other worldly costumes, and they walk the festival grounds, they’re greeted by the most popular and alluring entertainment district in all of Hawaii, the Honolulu Arts District. The neighborhood has nearly single-handedly turned Hawaii’s cosmopolitan culture into something as alluring as the island’s most pristine beaches.

— Hawaii News Now

In celebration of Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead, where friends and family remember loved ones who have died), Friday’s Eat the Street will showcase Mexican and other Latin cuisine — everything from ceviche to carnitas to a Chupacabra smoothie. This month’s event features a record 43 food trucks and vendors — five of them new to ETS, including EAT Cafe with Chef David Passanisi, Hokulani Bake Shop, Luscious Desserts, Island Sandwich Creations and the Mercado de la Raza store.

— Nonstop Honolulu

Amigo’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant is touted as one of  the most authentic Mexican restaurants in Maui. We dropped by the Kahului location to find out.

The carne asada chimichanga was seriously the best chimichanga I’ve ever had…period. The flour tortilla was fried in a way that I’ve never had it before. It was seriously extra crispy, but still light and flaky. There was also a bit of chewyness left from the tortilla, but was only located on the inside of the chimichanga. The plate also included refried beans, Mexican rice, and some guacamole.

— Aloha Update

Though nearly two decades have passed since Ariana Richards was chased through rain-drenched Hawaii by fearsome animatronic dinosaurs, her memories of the “Jurassic” era are startlingly clear.

For instance, she remembers striding into Steven Spielberg’s office as a pre-teen, her hair in a ponytail tucked under an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap, to receive the news that she had been cast as plucky Lex Murphy in the popcorn blockbuster “Jurassic Park.”

Of course, she was appropriately intimidated by the legendary filmmaker. At first, anyway.

According to a study done by the Rocky Mountain Institute, beef consumers in the islands eat upwards of 250,000 whole beef cows annually. Hawaii Department of Agriculture reports that all but 11,000 cows come from somewhere else.

It’s not that Hawaii can’t raise cattle; it’s been a viable industry for 175 years, and ranchers currently tend an estimated 150,000 head. The bigger problem is getting the animals from field to table in a state with a dearth of slaughterhouses.

— Honolulu Weekly

f you read HawaiiMagazine.com regularly and follow us on Facebook and Twitter,you likely know about the 2011 Taste Hawaii Tour—a week of food-related events in the San Francisco Bay Area featuring James Beard Award-winning Hawaii chef Alan Wong and Hawaii food historian Arnold Hiura. 

HAWAII Magazine is a co-sponsor of the tour—which runs from this Thursday, Oct. 27, to Nov. 2—and its schedule of cooking demos and lunch and dinner tasting events with Wong and Hiura.

— Hawaii Magazine

In Marcia Pelchat’s family, every festive meal begins with chicken soup. And her grandmother’s sweet-and-sour meatballs.

“We always have chicken soup, even on Thanksgiving, then we have sweet-and-sour meatballs,” says the sensory scientist at Philadelphia’s Monell Chemical Senses Center. “Who knows why. We just learned that they go with Thanksgiving.”

Montclair State University’s Peak Performances series has a reputation for presenting avant-garde dance, frequently imported from abroad and for some reason unavailable in New York. What took the stage of the Alexander Kasser Theater on Thursday, however, was more like a holiday pageant suitable for a high school auditorium. Diorama groupings, a mismatch between mythic subject matter and amateur performances, even a skittish narrator giving a halting reading of stilted text — it was all there. Plus the hula.

The Na Kinimakalehua company, from Maui, led by Hokulani Holt, is to be commended for offering alternatives to the pandering tourist versions of its island traditions. Yet its program “Kulanihako’i: Living Waters” didn’t translate well, either into English or into communicative theater.

— New York Times

Favourite flavours

Surprise No.1: there’s a lot more to munch on than just ham and pineapple pizza. Surprise No.2: there are plenty of Asian flavours on offer. (Tokyo and Los Angeles are about the same distance from Hawaii).

Director Alexander Payne will receive the Vision In Film Award during the closing night of the Hawaii International Film Festival.

Mayor Peter Carlisle will present the honor to the director and screenwriter of “Sideways” and “About Schmidt” during the festival’s closing night Sunday.

America has gone gaga for Pan Am and the history of flight. Blame it on the ABC television show debuted last month, chronicling the highs and lows of aviation in travel’s heyday.

With its debut, former flight attendants have come out of the woodwork to discuss their experience and HuffPost readers were able to admire vintage photosof flight attendants in action.

— Huffington Post

Elton John and his band will return to Honolulu’s Blaisdell Arena on Friday, January 6th at 8pm, performing their “Greatest Hits Live” concert, featuring number one chart hits and classic album tracks from throughout Elton’s incredible five-decade career.

The public on-sale will begin Saturday, October 29th at 9am.

— Hawaii News Now

Apaulo Music Productions (Michael Paulo - Owner/Producer) presents the Second Annual Pacific Rim Jazz Festival on Saturday, October 29, 2011 at The Hawaii Convention Center, Kalakaua Ballroom, 4 til 10 p.m.

This spectacular event will offer an incredible line-up of international artists, national stars and local favorites. The Festival will be benefiting The Kapolei Foundation: an organization that grants scholarships to deserving students in the Leeward Community of Oahu. One of the goals of the Festival is to raise funds to provide a music scholarship program that will help to promote and nurture Hawaii’s culture and art.

— Hawaii News Now

Travel + Leisure magazine readers voted Maui the ninth best island in the world this year.

Maui usually finishes lower in this poll than in the older Conde Nast Traveler poll, where Maui was first again in 2011, for the 17th time in 23 years.

— Maui News

More than 1,000 ukulele players of all ages and skill levels gathered at the Waikiki Shell on Saturday to attempt to break the world record for the largest ukulele ensemble.

1,056 ukukele playered gathered at the Shell, a few hundred short of the 1,547 world record set on August 20, 2011 in Helsingbord, Sweden.

Although not a world record, the Hawaii ensemble did break the U.S. record of 945.

— KHON

Traditional stir-fries typically are served over rice or noodles. But we decided to think outside the wok.

Instead we went for another favorite autumnal starch — mashed potatoes. The result is a quick and easy stir-fry that’s a bit like shepherd’s pie.

We also stuck with autumn as our inspiration and used produce and seasonings appropriate to the season. But mashed potatoes go so well with so many things, there’s no reason not to mix it up a bit and add whatever produce you crave or happen to have.

— Hawaii Tribune Herald

10/27 TTT Helloween Edition
Oct. 27 at 9 p.m. @ SoHo; $5, 18+
Warm up your Halloween weekend with SoundSex (Audible Emissions | AMP | Asylum) and a full lineup of house music Djs.

Art & Flea: Vintage Vamps 
Oct. 27 at 5 p.m. @ Fresh Cafe; $2, all ages
Dress to kill for vintage shopping, live music and a talk story session with Hallowbaloo artists
Baths, The New Mastersounds and Gaudi.

Hallowbaloo Music + Arts Festival Night 1: Baths concert
Oct. 27 at 9 p.m. @ NextDoor; $15, 19+
Hallowbaloo kicks off four nights of sounds and masquerade mayhem with Baths live in concert; also featuring Lapwing and DJ Packo.

October MUNCH: Belly of the Beast 
Oct. 27 at 6:30 p.m. @ Apartment3; $45 per person, reservations required, 21+
Dive into the belly (of the beast) with Munch’s monthly dinner, paired with specialty cocktails.

— Nonstop Honolulu

A Native Hawaiian group is suing to stop Maui County from going forward with plans for a Halloween celebration in Lahaina.

Na Makua O’Maui and Kula resident Richard Dancil filed the lawsuit in 2nd Circuit Court Friday, claiming Mayor Alan Arakawa improperly circumvented the county Cultural Resources Commission and that holding the party in a culturally scared site is a violation of Native Hawaiians’ civil rights, the Maui News (http://bit.ly/sFUvtu) reported.

“This kind of event is killing us spiritually, culturally and psychologically,” Dancil said in an email to the newspaper. “There is no valid justification for it.”

Rachel Meyer, New York City

Indeed it does. The key is narrowing your options.

Given your desire for outdoor activities, winter weather will rule outEurope and most of North America. Instead, look eastward. Though it is Hawaii’s high (and sometimes rainy) season, Oahu could be an ideal destination for both relaxation and active fun. In her recent “36 Hours” column (July 7, 2011), Jocelyn Fujii said Honolulu, on Oahu’s south shore, “has never been hotter,” with plenty of music-filled oceanfront lounges and new restaurants, like Masaharu Morimoto’s Morimoto Waikiki(morimotowaikiki.com). About 10 to 20 minutes south of the city, you canhike or jog in Kapiolani Park (honolulu.gov/parks), at the foot of Diamond Head, a volcanic tuff cone, or surf Waikiki Beach (waikikibeachservices.com).

— New York Times

Leading man George Clooney doesn’t have many smooth one-liners or movie-star moments in “The Descendants,” a film about a spurned husband of a comatose wife, who must reconnect with his daughters while deciding whether to sell his family’s land in Hawaii.

Set in Honolulu, “The Descendants” is directed by Alexander Payne and is his first film since “Sideways,” which won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay in 2004. About two years ago, Mr. Payne phoned Mr. Clooney and the two met in Toronto, where Mr. Payne said he was working on a new film and asked if Mr. Clooney would be in it.

“Honestly, you know actors, if Alexander Payne calls you, you will do his film,” Mr. Clooney said in an interview.

— Wall Street Journal

San Francisco, Boston and Honolulu are the best bets for productive trick-or-treating this year, based on the latest annual index released this week by online real estate company Zillow.

The Zillow Trick-or-Treat Indexis based on four equally weighted data points: the company’s Zillow Home Value Index, which is an aggregation of the company’s home-value estimates for each city area; walkability data by Walk Score (www.walkscore.com); population density statistics, and local crime data from RelocationEssentials.com.

— Inman

Only two of the top 10 child-friendly restaurant chains in the nation, as listed by the International Herald Tribune, have locations in Hawaii.

That’s surprising, considering Hawaii is such a family-oriented restaurant market.

— Pacific Business News

Back in May, the rumor among cinephiles in the Japanese media was that the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) wouldn’t happen this year. The mood was that it was too soon after the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 to hold anything festive, especially in the visual-arts scene. All over Japan, souls were aching from watching the endless news of destruction and sorrow in the Tohoku region — intensified for many by the amount of first-hand footage of the disaster posted on video-streaming websites. However, it just seemed disrespectful to want to watch anything else.

— The Japan Times

On leeward Oahu, it is 85 degrees and the trade winds are blowing. Beyond a towering volcanic outcropping, the Pacific Ocean, at a steady 70 degrees, beckons. Honeymooners sip tropical drinks under a thatched-roof hut as the afternoon sun begins its lazy descent.

This is Hawaii. Do you really need Disney?

My wife, Nancy, and I and our 11-year-old daughter, Hannah, journeyed last month to Disney’s new Hawaii resort to see whether Mickey Mouse & Co. could improve on near perfection. Aulani sets out to replace the clichés of tiki torches, totem poles, bamboo furniture and tacky luaus with a resort that celebrates Hawaii’s history, legends and cultures with just a sprinkling of Disney’s trademark pixie dust.

— LA Times

Whenever I write about fine dining or simpler fare in Hawaii, those comments are the ones I’m most likely to hear. They’re also the type of misconceptions that James Beard award-winning chef Alan Wong — one of the pioneers of Hawaiian Regional Cuisine — and Arnold Hiura, author of the well-received “Kau Kau: Cuisine & Culture in the Hawaiian Islands,” will try to correct when they visit the Bay Area over the next two weeks.

The chef and author, who recently collaborated on Wong’s newest cookbook, “The Blue Tomato: The Inspirations Behind the Cuisine of Alan Wong,” will appear at six events on their Taste Hawaii tour, which includes book signings, cooking demonstrations, tastings and, on Nov. 2, lunch and dinner birthday parties for Wong. In their own way, each is an evangelist for preserving the best traditions of the past while promoting the rich opportunities of the present and future of Hawaii’s food.

After hiking downhill 90 minutes on a three-mile trail with 26 switchbacks, we came to a clearing with a long, peaceful stretch of sandy white beach juxtaposed against the aqua ocean.

Almost anywhere else in Hawaii, this majestic site would be an indication of a five-star resort around the corner. But here on the remote peninsula of Kalaupapa, on the island of Molokai, the end of the trail had only a small collection of worn, sun-washed wooden bleachers on which we sat and waited for a yellow school bus to arrive and take us on a tour of this critical piece of Hawaiian history.

— LA Times

A Kihei teen will join world leaders, business executives and other notables from the Asia-Pacific region when he attends the APEC 2011 CEO Summit in Honolulu next month.

Matthew Matasci was among five Hawaii students named as winners of the Hawaii High School Essay Contest, earning him a seat at the summit, where he may get a chance to hear from President Barack Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao or other high-profile speakers.

The 17-year-old St. Anthony Junior-Senior High School senior’s essay was selected out of around 500 entrants in the contest sponsored by the APEC 2011 Hawai’i Host Committee, state Department of Education and Hawaii Association of Independent Schools. He was the only winner from Maui County.

— The Maui News

Hawaiian Art enthusiasts will have the chance to see the last work of master painter Herb Kane on Friday.

“Kamehameha Landing” will be unveiled at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel Friday night.

— Hawaii News Now

In the 1980s, artist Tom Sewell moved from Venice, Calif., to a rented room on Maui’s North Shore to study yoga. On one of his early morning runs, he discovered an area lush with guava, Christmas berries, flowers and bamboo. “I literally fell in love with the smell of the street,” he recalled.

He bought five acres from the attorney of a well-known yogi and a further 10, along with a partner, from a local Boy Scout council. The last two acres he bought from his neighbor, a native Hawaiian. Altogether, purchasing the combined properties cost him about $1.2 million and took him two decades

— Wall Street Journal

In the 1990s, during a canoe race, Nancy Gove unthinkingly licked her arm, where an unusual amount of salt spray had dried. “It tasted better than any salt I’d ever tasted, so I decided to investigate why,” she says.

Gove learned that real sea salt is only about 84 percent sodium chloride, with the rest made up of a brine containing trace elements of other minerals such as potassium, calcium and magnesium. She also discovered that what is commonly sold as table salt has had all of the other minerals removed, with iodine and anti-caking chemicals added, “for free flow when the air is moist–and it’s 99 percent sodium chloride,” Gove says.

Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose will headline an upcoming USO tour in Hawaii, the organization announced Tuesday.

The NBA’s reigning MVP will be joined by Atlanta Hawks guard Joe Johnson, Hawks forward Al Horford, Charlotte Bobcats guard D.J. Augustin,Sacramento Kings guard Tyreke Evans, New Jersey Nets center Brook Lopez, Phoenix Suns centerRobin Lopez, Washington Wizards center JaVale McGee and Miami Heat guard Mike Miller as part of the “Hoops for Troops” program. The group will take part in different events, including conducting clinics and visiting military bases.

— ESPN

The estimated 20,000 international attendees coming to Honolulu for the 2011 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting (APEC), November 7-13, will be doing their business in a place that embraces multiculturalism, and lives it every day.

“Hawaii’s strategic location in the Pacific, our multicultural history and the aloha spirit of our people make our state the ideal place to host 21 leaders from the Asia-Pacific region for the 2011 APEC Leaders’ Week,” said Mike McCartney, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA).

“Furthermore, our world class facilities supported by our highly experienced tourism professionals will showcase Hawaii and our visitor industry to the world. The HTA, together with the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau and Hawaii Convention Center, remain committed to promoting the Hawaiian Islands as an ideal place to conduct business and host meetings and conventions.”

— Market Watch

Over on the Kohala Coast, the 2011 Conde Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards survey shows Hawaii Island is well represented in the Top 20 Hawaii Resorts list.

At number 4 on the statewide list is the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai – scoring a 93.4. Its a particular honor for the resort, marking a strong comeback after the March 2011 tsunami damaged the grounds and forced the temporary closure of the resort.

We aired this interview with CEO Patrick Fitzgerald when the resort re-opened a few months after the disaster.

— Big Island Video News

We’ve all been exposed to the wonderful world of Disney through visiting a park, watching a movie or experiencing a traveling show. What goes into those experiences is the work of the imagineering team. Joe Rohde, senior vice president and creative executive for Walt Disney Imagineering, gave us a peek into what is involved during the final General Session of the 2011 PRSA International Conference.

Rohde walked us through the value and power of storytelling. This is a familiar topic for many a PR pro but Rohde and Disney’s perspective was new. He talked about the effect of story telling on the human mind and how Disney transforms our experiences to make us think about our world and social events.