THE LEFT LANE
Lucky boutique

Advertiser staff and news services

A Hawai'i boutique is first in a list of Lucky magazine's "Best New Boutiques" in the January issue. Adasa, 25 Maluniu Ave. (next to Kailua Fitness), is written up as "a boutique that combines groovy, retro-Hawaiian decor with clothing finds you'd expect to discover in only the most urbane cities."

The reporter, Gigi Guerra, lists Marc Jacobs and Ash Francomb as cool designers chosen by owner Donna Loren. What would Guerra buy at Adasa? Flavio Olivera's gold leather clutch, $220.

Baby drop

Madblast.com, a comedy Web site owned by Los Angeles-based eUniverse Inc., has created the Michael Jackson Baby Drop game, in which you use your computer mouse to move a basket to catch falling infants as quickly as daddy Jacko tosses them down. The more babies you catch, the more time you get and the higher your score.

But watch out: Jacko also throws spiders, which cause the basket to overturn (a reference to Jackson's recent encounter with the arachnid kind — he skipped a court date because of a spider bite, he said).

Power of pidgin

Lee Tonouchi is living proof that speaking pidgin (or writing it, giving lectures in it, applying for grants in it, scribbling poems in it and teaching college courses in it) is no barrier to sophisticated thought. His latest publication, "Living Pidgin, Contemplations on Pidgin Culture" (Tinfish, paper, $12) is a collection of talks he's given and poems he's written in recent years. The writings are perceptive, well-reasoned and enlivened by Tonouchi's trademark humor, warmth and sensitivity.

Tonouchi takes on the forces ranged against pidgin in creative ways, including a poem written collectively by a Kapi'olani Community College class, "Dey Say if You Speak Pidgin You No Can."