No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. The King Kamehameha statue fronting Aliiolani Hale on King Street has been draped with majestic purple lei this year, a colorful departure from the traditional golden plumeria. The Mayor’s Office of Culture and Arts said the bougainvillea was chosen to convey the royal color of purple, and since Kamehameha was the greatest warrior, the lei symbolized his purple heart.

Today, of course, is Kamehameha Day, honoring the Hawaiian king who unified the Kingdom of Hawaii. While this annual holiday is unique to the state of Hawaii, duplicates of the iconic Kamehameha statue stand in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in D.C., as well as in Hilo.

Bourdain in Hawaii: Insightful and witty

It was with shock and sadness that news broke Friday of the death of Anthony Bourdain, at age 61, of an apparent suicide in France. The celebrity chef, author, globe-trotter and host of CNN’s “Parts Unknown” had legions of fans, many of them since his earlier “No Reservations” show and his best-selling book, “Kitchen Confidential.”

Colorful and literate, Bourdain stopped in Hawaii a few years ago, where he filmed a segment and mixed it up with local chefs at Side Street Inn. Bourdain wrote, in part, of his Hawaii impressions (www.explorepartsunknown.com/hawaii/bourdains-take-hawaii/): “This is a glorious, deep gene pool stew where two people meeting at a party have to inquire who each other’s’ parents were and where they might have come from to untangle the question of exactly who’s who — everybody is too mixed up to hate anybody in particular.” Insightful, witty. What a loss.