Friday, September 29, 2006

"Monolithic" pop culture references #13

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Northern Light:
Other astronomers note that the Plutonians have made few contributions to the development of human culture, unlike the Lobster People of Alpha Centauri, who helped construct the stone statues of Easter Island, or the Xanthropods of Andromeda, who designed the pyramids.

Guardian Unlimited:
His face is as gaunt as an Easter Island statue, and yet when he breaks into a broad smile, as he does, just once, it is an incredibly dramatic event.

Film Threat:
“Gamera vs. Monster X” is a rather curious affair because it was pegged to Expo 70, the World’s Fair being held in Osaka. Clearly this was a major event for Japan, and in that pre-al-Qaeda era the only genuine major threat to a major international gathering was the untimely appearance of a grumpy monster. In this case, the grumpy monster came from a Pacific Island where a large Easter Island-worthy statue was dug up for shipment to Japan for Expo 70 display.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

"The graveyard of Polynesia"

Mystery, wild rats and avaricious whalers
Alkan CHAGLAR (
alkan@toplumpostasi.net)
toplumpostasi.net
September 28, 2006

Windswept volcanic rocks assaulted at every angle by the ferocity of the Ocean in which it lies, Easter Island has kindled the imaginations of Europeans with its unexplained humanoid statues since it was given its name by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen who sighted it in April 1771. The mysterious megaliths on Rapa Nui (the Polynesian name for the island), which admittedly reassembles silent Gods watching over their subjects have been a source of shrouded mystery for many European writers. Long trying to locate answers for the megaliths and the foreboding ecological disaster that left the island a desert in the ocean, Europeans have thought up many possible theories, some bordering on the extremes of human imagination.

Click
here to read the complete article.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

"Monolithic" pop culture references #12

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Seattle Times:
Pop-Polynesian style rears its (Easter Island) head again

New Zealand Herald:
The repetitive hard stuff is meant to convey that the Triton is still tough, backed up by a Get Hard strap line and a couple of Easter-Island-type figures called "Rock" and "Hard Place" who talk to each other in a Kiwi working-bloke sort of way.

Capital Press:
There were past civilizations that did not adapt to climate changes or may have fostered disasters - the Vikings in Greenland, the Mayans in Mexico, the inhabitants of Easter Island, and others.

Independent:
By the Sixties he was a major star, living in Chiswick (with a seaside retreat at Eastbourne), happily married, and the nation's most imitated performer, loved as much for his Easter Island face as his daft jokes ("I went to the doctor.

New book documents Rapa Nui over past 25 years

Rapa Nui, Island of Memory
by David Stanley
South Pacific Travel Blog
Saturday, September 23, 2006

The Easter Island Foundation has just brought out a new book by Georgia Lee, Rapa Nui, Island of Memory ... documenting island life over the last 25 years.

Click
here to read the complete post.

Click
here to visit the Easter Island Foundation's website.

Click here to visit the Amazon.com listing for Rapa Nui, Island of Memory.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

"Monolithic" pop culture references #11

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

United Rant:
Sadly though it won't be the last time we see O'Shea in the centre of the park, nor his love-child on the wing, nor Easter Island Head at left back despite the overwhelming evidence that these players are not, have never been and will never be good enough for the club.

Olive Press:
Not that he's a miserable person when you get to know him - far from it - but the faces of the Easter Island statues are positively mirthsome in comparison to his.

Des Moines Register:
Derrick Ogden's art students are working on challenging projects. Eighth-graders are completing their Moai cedar sculptures in homage to the monolithic sculptures found on Easter Island.

Moai threatened by corrosion


CHILE’S EASTER ISLAND MOAIS STATUES THREATENED BY CORROSION
By Laura Gillis (
editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Santiago Times
SOURCE: EL MERCURIO
(September 21, 2006)

The iconic Moais statues of Easter Island are deteriorating at an alarming rate, and experts fear that without a large scale restoration effort, these emblematic figures could be irreparably damaged and eventually lost.

Click
here to read the complete article.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Sailing to Rapa Nui and around South America

Jimmy Cornell's South American Vacation
By Jimmy Cornell
More articles by this author
Cruising World
September 19, 2006B

On the next leg, from the Galápagos to Easter Island, the prevailing winds will be from the south east, which means that much of this leg will be close to the wind. However, getting to the island of the giant statues is well worth the effort, as there are few more interesting places in the entire world.

Click
here to read the complete article.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

"Monolithic" pop culture references #10

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Variety:
By contrast, Cynthia Nixon's award-winning Becca was a woman turned to stone. She loomed over the other characters like one of those heads on Easter Island, and her refusal to even consider any offer of comfort was her particular hubris that turned her melodrama into true tragedy.

Guardian:
It will have come as no consolation to the departing titan to learn he was not alone on a day of sport that resembled nothing so much as the felling of Easter Island statues.

Blade:
His head appears chiseled from a chunk of granite - it's an Easter Island noggin, without a doubt - and his way of speaking carries the stern, sincere tone of a recidivism brochure.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Popular comic strip features moai

Today's Cartoon
by Mike Peters
Mother Goose and Grimm
09/13/06









Click
here to visit the Mother Goose and Grimm website.

Rapanui surprise at Utah "dance spectacular"

UHDA charms Kingsbury Hall audience
Utah Hispanic Dance Alliance educates audience with flair
By
Scott Iwasaki
Deseret Morning News
Tuesday, September 12, 2006

One surprise was the inclusion of the Easter Island culture with a mix of Hispanic and Polynesian dancing, which was a welcome addition during the Chilean "Isla de Pascua" (which means "Easter Island").

Click
here to read the complete article.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

"Monolithic" pop culture references #9

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Chicago Tribune:
Yet for years, a parking garage at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building has inexplicably hosted these half-dozen or so vehicles that sit like the statues of Easter Island, vexing the curious.

Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog:
Nothing happened on Easter Island without trees: no fires for cooking, no materials for building houses, no canoes for fishing, and no wooden poles for raising the enigmatic giant stone statues which stand to this day with their backs toward the sea.

Austin American-Statesman:
A small museum at the northeast corner of the Municipal Building has reproductions of human figurines with folded arms found on Syros dating back as far as 2,800 B.C. They look a little bit like the giant heads found on Easter Island in the Pacific and a little bit like the Oscar award. There also are other artifacts from the island.

Following the paths of Cook and Bligh to Rapa Nui

Keeping the summer going
BY ARLINE and SAM BLEECKER (Chicago Tribune)
Providence Journal
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 10, 2006

... you can nab free air on a Discovery cruise/tour in February, when the line’s 650-passenger ship Discovery will follow the paths of captains Cook and Bligh, making South Pacific calls at Robinson Crusoe Island, an overnight call at Easter Island, and then heading to Raiatea and Bora Bora.

Click
here to read the complete article.

Click
here for a previous Rapa Nui News post about this cruise.

Friday, September 08, 2006

British Museum to exhibit Rapa Nui items in upcoming exhibit

Power & Taboo: Sacred objects from the Pacific
28 September 2006 – 7 January 2007
British MuseumRoom 5
Admission free

Power & Taboo explores the power of the gods in the Polynesian islands of the eastern Pacific. Displaying part of the British Museum's remarkable early collections from this region, and illustrated with images made in the early part of European settlement (1760-1860), the exhibition investigates Polynesian ideas about the gods and how to manage their powers. Many of the objects have had a lasting influence on 20th Century artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore. Lectures, films and events, which tie in with the themes of the exhibition, will begin later this month.

Click
here to visit the British Museum online.

Fresh light on the new world in pictures that helped inspire first English settlers
Mark Brown, arts correspondent
The Guardian
Friday September 8, 2006

Drawing on the [British Museum's] unparalleled collections in this area - there will be 82 exhibits from an astonishing collection of 45,000 items held - it will show how people lived in this vast island group between New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island.

Click
here to read the complete article.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

New7Wonders countdown begins; Rapa Nui among finalists

Countdown in Athens to select world wonders
India News
Thursday, September 7th, 2006

Athens, Sep 6 (DPA) With the launch of a hot-air balloon over the ancient Acropolis, the campaign to select the new seven wonders of the world reached its final countdown in Athens ... Among the contestants are ... the Easter Island Statues ...

Click
here to read the complete article.

Rapa Nui has "shot" to be new world wonder

CHILE’S EASTER ISLAND AIMS TO BECOME WORLD WONDER
SOURCE: LA TERCERA, THE BRADSHAW FOUNDATION
By Liz Yates (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Santiago Times
September 6, 2006

In the 2nd century BC, mathematician and travel writer Antipater of Sidon named the seven best destinations to visit in the Mediterranean world. He called them the Seven Wonders. Thousands of years later, seven new wonders will be added to the list, and Chile’s Easter Island has a shot at obtaining the prestigious honor.

Click
here to read the complete article.

Monday, September 04, 2006

"Monolithic" pop culture references #8

Ever searching for news about Rapa Nui, this blog's administrator comes across many references to Rapa Nui and its famous moai. Often, these references are quite comical and have nothing to do with the island or the culture of Rapa Nui. Other times, they appear to be speculative, based more on misconceptions than reality, or downright bizarre. Here are some of the more recent references:

Sydney Morning Herald:
Denton then described Mr Chipp's impression of government censors and what they might do with pornography magazines, his lust for the Queen and the similarities between former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and an Easter Island statue "with a poker up its arse".

Australian:
THROUGH the decades a passion for archeology has given me special and profound insights into Australian politics. Thus my visit to Easter Island in 1975 revealed a place littered with dirty great statues of Malcolm Fraser.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Abercrombie & Kent tour to visit Rapa Nui

Tour touches down on nine world wonders
Associated Press
canada.com
Saturday, September 02, 2006

Most of us can't afford the $70,000 US price tag of a 23-day trip being offered by the tour operator Abercrombie & Kent. The trip takes you around the globe on a private jet with 48 other travellers to visit nine world wonders.

Click
here to read the complete article.