LEFT LANE
Charmed by chocolate
Advertiser Staff and News Services
If the question is chocolate, the answer is generally yes. So the subject of the Bishop Museum's next major traveling exhibit should stimulate interest (or at least a hungry longing) in people of all sorts.
"Chocolate," assembled by Chicago's Field Museum with aid from the National Science Foundation, explores the process by which the comic-looking cacao bean becomes a figure of romance, seduction and — some even say — addiction. There will be chocolate artifacts on display and interactive opportunities to learn about its use and history. Opening Oct. 18, the exhibit will run through Jan. 4.
Reveling in roses
Everything's coming up roses this morning at the Picket Fence in Kailua and several other community florists.
For the eighth consecutive year, Sadie Akamine, owner and founder of one of Kailua's oldest florists, at 111 Hekili St., will hand out 5,000 free roses (first come, first served, and they'll go fast) during a Good Neighbor Day observance, starting at 7 this morning. It's a ritual adopted by Akamine for to foster neighborliness.
Each person receives a dozen roses: one to keep, 11 more to hand out to friends or strangers.
"Responses in the past have been wonderful," says Akamine. "I have heard testaments of old people who have never been gifted with a rose in their whole life, and then received one for Good Neighbor Day. This brought tears of joy to their eyes.
One person said that it even helped mend their relationship with their neighbor over a fence dispute in the past years. Information: 262-7727, www.PicketFenceFlorist.com.
A winner with L. Ron
Honolulu writer Steve Bein is back in town after receiving an award in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future competition for his story "Beautiful Singer," which will be included in the collection "L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XIX" (Galaxy Press, paper, $7).
Bein, who is completing his doctoral dissertation in comparative East-West philosophy at the University of Hawai'i, wrote it while studying philosophy in Nagoya, Japan, and Tokyo. He has completed his first novel.
He appears alongside author William J. Widder ("Master Storyteller: An Illustrated Tour of the Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard"), 1 to 2 p.m. today downtown at Hawai'i Pacific University; 3 to 4 p.m. tomorrow in Kuykendall Hall 410, at UH-Manoa; 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Friday at Bestsellers Books downtown; and 7 to 8 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble, Kahala Mall.
