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Saturday |
| A pianola is an instrument that plays perforated rolls; it's also known as a player piano. You see them in movies set in the "wild west." It's amusing when the seeming pianist is shot yet the music continues tinkling along, the keys going up and down as if played by the newly departed's ghost. Even before cowboys rode American southwest range, Spanish vaqueros, known locally as paniolos (derived from espaņol), plied their trade on Maui, where you still see them on horseback giddy-upping and all that. The history of Hawai'i is as mixed up as anywhere else-- and probably more so being at crossroads of the Pacific-- so it was only fitting we were invited to a party at a working ranch where the theme was Gay Cowboys and Indians, the latter referring to the inhabitants of the world's most populous democracy. Chaps, boas, bindis and more abounded in peculiar combinations. The rustic structures, ornate wood stoves, and RYO smokes took us back in time, a journey for which we could've had no better guide than Brooke Mahnken. |
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