Collaboration good for the arts

Boosting the odds for success in a down economy — even for Honolulu’s two premier private galleries — is itself a fine art.

Friday’s news that The Contemporary Museum and the Honolulu Academy of Arts would merge should be greeted with hope that both of them will survive. A combined board governing both of them surely will be able to leverage fundraising resources better than the two museums could separately.

Perhaps this is a model that the performing arts organizations could follow as well. Symphony boosters: Are you listening?

There’s no app for crack seed jar

At least they’re not going out of business.

High rent, renovation and operating costs and impending retirements will cause Crack Seed Center to close its Ala Moana store on May 28. But it will keep its presence on the Internet, so you’ll still be able to buy the rock salt plum, shredded mango, wet li hing mui and those other favorites that made the shop, an original tenant at Ala Moana, a local institution at the mall for more than 50 years.

Still, we’ll miss browsing through the big glass jars, pointing and squinting and saying, "What’s that?"