A couple years ago, sleek oxygen bars were all the rage. Here, a new trend has arrived — the water bar, as evidenced by the MaHaLo Water Showroom in Waikiki. Don't brush it aside as extravagant just yet. This deep-sea water, pulled from the depths along the Kona Coast, has been on a 2,000-year journey from Greenland to the Big Island, where it's extracted and bottled by the MaHaLo factory. The water is desalinated, but its 70 minerals are retained. And considering the ultra-modern surroundings where the water is served, it's not so expensive: The bottles cost $2.50 (710 ml), and $3.50 (1.5 l). Add $1, and try their tea service, or experience an 1800s version of a coffee balance syphon serving pure Kona coffee. Waikiki Shopping Plaza, 2250 Kalakaua Ave., Suite 109; 808-926-5696; www.hawaiideepseawater.com.

— Lacy Matsumoto

HAPPENING

THROW YOUR MIKES UP

It's pretty rare to attend an event where the sounds of mainstream and underground hip-hop coincide. At FLOW, the monthly local hip-hop showcase, artists are encouraged to bring their best performance, no matter if it's under- or above-ground.

"It's primarily for the local hip-hop scene; we're trying to provide a platform for local hip-hop with a concert setting," says promoter and The O Lounge manager Hanson Nguyen. One of the main attractions is the live MC Battle, where MCs freestyle lyrics to either attack their opponent or highlight themselves. "There were a couple of months that were superheated, where there were some pretty intense battles," says Nguyen. The winner of the freestyle battle gets to walk off with a gold championship belt, and hold the monthly title of FLOW Free Style Champion.

FLOW takes place the first Friday of each month; doors open at 9 p.m.. On Friday, join the live showcase with MCs I.A., Chilo, Wun and the Local Boyz Eternally. Admission: $5 for those older than 21, $7 for those 18 to 21 before 11 p.m., $10 and $15 after 11 p.m. The O Lounge, 1349 Kapi'olani Blvd.; 944-8436.

— L.M.

TAKING STREETS INDOORS

"Street art" draws from the patterns and styles pioneered in graffiti, but now you are as likely to find it on T-shirts and shop walls as outside. Jason Ulep, aka Newkon, realized his passion for it after winning a Street Art Battle at Prototype, a Pearlridge clothing store, in 2006. Now he's applied it to canvas, clothing, skateboards, and painting live on models, crediting Hawai'i-based street artist Koak as an inspiration and a mentor. You can view his 40-foot mural installation at Skin Industries in Windward Mall, and the collaborative clothing collection with designer Manovich, "Painted Threads," online at manovich.bigcartel .com. And catch Newkon painting live models on Friday at the Beautiful monthly, Chai's Island Bistro, starting at 9 p.m.; $15.

— L.M.

MUSEUM FIND

On the Web site of The Contemporary Museum, artist Richard Misrach states, "I've come to believe that beauty can be a very powerful conveyor of difficult ideas." What better place than Hawai'i to put that theory to the test? In "On the Beach," at the museum's main galleries in Makiki Heights through March 9, Misrach photographs beaches, the ocean, sunbathers and swimmers from above. His dramatic, large-scale digital prints, some as large as 6 by 10 feet, are awesome and disorienting, and evoke thoughts of monstrous, and very human, scenarios. As art critic Marie Carvalho wrote in her Jan. 6 review in The Advertiser, "Historically, the word sublime ... positioned the human being — frail, vulnerable, small, isolated — in an enormous, perhaps indifferent, even terrifying universe. ... It's impossible to take in Misrach's large-scale color photographs of tiny people enveloped by vast, horizonless landscapes without recalling that full sense of the sublime, and all its ominous, historical associations." 526-1322, www.tcmhi.org.

— Advertiser Staff

SALES & BARGAINS