AReview by Joseph Bean Maui Weekly December 22 2005
If you don't already know the to da max books where have you been? Not in Hawaii I'm guessing. They've been around for a while. You'll love all of them.
The whole phenomenon began in 1981 with Pidgin To Da Max - out now in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition - and readers haven't stopped laughing yet. That was followed by Pupus To Da Max in 1986 - the book were still talking about today in 2005. Then in 1992 Pidgin To Da Max its long-awaited sequel Pidgin To Da Max Hana Hou and a new sibling Hawaii To Da Max. Last year the Pidgin To Da Max vocabulary was released on tiny magnets giving fans a fun way to leave messages on the refrigerator door.
The new copy of Pupus To Da Max I just got is crisp and clean on bright white paper and feeling really hefty in the hand. That's why I'm writing to you about em now.
Nothing has changed as far as I can tell in the text or the cartoons. That's good couldn't make em better. Well maybe it would be good to add a few modern terms. Could be that not many people in 1986 thought of cilantro as cilantro that often but it might be good to have the word cilantro added to the Chinese parsley entry in the 21st century. And maybe a few products no longer available anywhere could be removed or footnoted or something. Or it could just be that letting the book age gracefully is the right way to go. In any case that's the way the authors and publisher have gone. Nothing changed.
If you like to smile and laugh and wouldn't mind learning a little something about local food while you're laughing too hard to eat it you need Pupus To Da Max.
Douglas Simonson is the central genius behind these books. He calls himself Peppo sometimes and he credits Pat Sasaki and Ken Sakata as his co-authors for Pupus To Da Max. Unlike some of the books Simonson takes full credit for the cartoons in this one. Cartoons drawn re-drawn and re-drawn again by Douglas Simonson Peppo is the exact credit.
The humor is bitter and strange and delightful. Right under a recipe for chicken katsu there's a cartoon. Two little kids looking into a home kitchen that is barricaded with nailed-up boards marked condemned. One kid says to the other the man from the health department said it was Mommy's chicken katsu that did it.
Other cartoons I remember without opening the book include a kid trying to make shave ice by dumping ice cubes into the garbage disposal a little kid whose mother is shaking a finger and saying No tell me dat pizza vanished into thin air. Behind the irate Mom a smiling dog is unable to move because he has a pizza-shaped thing stretching his midsection out in all directions.
You gotta see em to get the laugh I guess.
Some definitions are very funny. Some are only really funny if you know what they mean. Here's one I like. Wedding: Good opportunity to eat lots of local food. Unless both sides haole of course. Or how about this one: Kau-kau: Old fashioned local way of saying grinds.
You gotta be readin em to yourself to get the laugh I guess.
So get your own fresh clean new copy of Pupus To Da Max and get the laughs yeah. Do it. While you're out there grab up new copies of all the to da max books including the special edition of Pidgin To Da Max. |
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