Kip Austin Hinton

this week i had so much -- finished analysis of my Alamo tour guide ethnography. i had 11300 words of data. that's quite a bit. in a nutshell, the Alamo is struggling between two paradigms: to celebrate the heroism of white people (the old model), or present accurate evidence while promoting inclusion (the new model). they truly used to avoid things like "history." and now, some people are trying to avoid racist (anti-Mexican) language while pronouncing the spanish words correctly. especially with Latino tourists. interesting situation. i'll put my powerpoint up here. also got Ph.D. applications turned in this week. surviving the process should be worth course credit. to three programs so far. they're all interesting, y con clima razonable, but i can't go unless they offer some funding. i need to look at contingencies. i like teaching, i could be happy as a public school teacher-- were it not for the standardized tests. no hay que hacer. es tan facil endura...

just back from a planned, yet unannounced, trip to florida. my parents house, to introduce them to my girlfriend (y vice versa). lots of fun, middle of the swamp palatka crescent beach san augustine (mobile) ocala -- my grandparents' farm. "stancil's pineywoods farm." the road that was a dirt road until a few years ago, named "stancil avenue." cuz it only went to grandpa's sandpit and my cousins' trailer, nothing but stancils. anyway, they're widening it to four lanes, eminent domaining a large chunk. the future se viene. uncle harold had to run fence along the new edge. and the entrance, with a wooden sign my grandpa hung there 60 or 70 years ago. being moved. because too much traffic. they (my mom, her brothers) don't want to sell the farm./ but it makes no money, no money in florida cattle anymore. no money in hay, all the farms do horses now. import special stuff from canada. and the city is coming. every month more. every year the ta...

i read at Amalia's new " Urban Verses " poetry night. at urban-15, my neighborhood. it was fun, i heard stuff by a few new people. i even liked eduardo's stuff. and oliver grimball was lots of fun to hear (but no, i cannot agree that he's the absolute best in the city). there was a casual slam, i won. a travel litebrite. actually, i had a real busy day. got a new website database idea to work for the bicultural/bilingual website. started the new afternoon class with unam, worked on writing ideas (mythology vs. history) for my thesis. then evening class at unam. tried to sort out some financial stuff for when i gotta pay for my computer and tuition next month... not looking forward to that. in fact, i'm uncertain how i'll make it work, maybe another student loan?

talent or lack thereof aside -- i'm performing in MadMedia's theater production Revolution/Revelation at the guadalupe theater . saturday 25th of june. i'm doing some social issue "poetry". and an extended solo piece -- called "revolutionary pedagogy: the psychometric invalidity of high-stakes testing in Texas". it's a comedy. yes that's true. i play an educator giving a cheesy powerpoint at a conference. then kind of goes off -- about systemic ethnocentrism and overthrowing the testing corporations. it gets pretty weird, should be fun. meanwhile i'm working 3 jobs while theoretically starting my thesis.

thats what i gotta pay to work on my thessithis summer. just to work on it. meet with a professor once a week. get guidane. la profe would do it for free, but if i'm not enrolled, i couldn't graduate in december... i need to take 2 semesters of thesis, and sequentially, not simultaneously. and i couldn't keep my G.A. position if i don't enroll at least 3 hours. that's so they know they're getting the cash back from me. working as a graduate student, its not so good. better than trying to not work, cuz this shiot is expensive. but i feel taken advantage of. i was recruited to work of an academic paper (Arts education) turned out i was ineligible,i end up on a relate project but doing a website. that's kool and all. but if i'm doing a website i can go private sector and earn twice as much per hour. i just hope it can balance. thing is, i'm going to be short of cash. not just a little, either. my tuition will go on a credit card i will hopefully pay off...

...in fermatas of longing and passion and desires both fulfilled and desires soon to be when heat gets intense when we burn in glorious anthem of senses sound touch sight but an unknown too that scares us and sears us and drives our hearts and we repeat from the top

why does utsa have no school spirtit? football team is an obvious one, as they said. but that isn't all. many schools with no football (gonzaga, william & mary, case western, seton hall, university of chicago, uc san diego) have plenty more "School spirit". other differences: 1. time - utsa will never, no matter how much time passes, be as old as yale, columbia, or even young schools like a&m or ut austin. can't catch up in time. a pemanent obstacle. 2. location - the campus is too far from the city. this makes it hard for non-students to connect with events (like they do when the spurs win a championship). nearly every "patriotic" school is right in the middle of the city or small town. 3. housing - students don't live on campus. only a handful, really. so there is not a core of fans who are saturated in utsa life 24 hours a day. any "spirit" schools has a huge number of on campus students, faces with spirit building activities multipl...

balancing plates i'm trying to do so many things. and a few get lost by the wayside. i needed to have this book review turned in on april 5, but i couldn't get it. too complex. too long. too much to digest, i didn't feel i understood ("reclaiming the local in language policy and practice", suresh canagarajah, ed.). so how the hell was i gonna explain it to others? in a peer review journal, especially? they would send it to some profe to read, she's just gona send it back and say "what is this, written by some grad student?" and it will turn out that, yes, it was written by some grad student. on deadline. balancing many many plates. a few well balanced, a few about to spin off and smash, huevos rancheros and all, onto the grimy tile floor. that's the floor of the screen of the kitchen of the restaurant of my brain, in case you aren't psychic and had not divinado my metaphor. i'm thinking of the tables as my projects, i keep putting in orde...

watching DMBQ last night. at tacoland. they are in this continent, this state, for SXSW. and graced us san anto residents (we who are too lazy to make the drive to austin and tolerate the masses) with a show. and kicked my ass. they rocked like they didn't care. but i could tell they did, because the drummer was so focused. serious. stern. and she bowed so gratefully when they had finished playing, when the last song terminated with a sort of ad hoc drumset surfing over the crowd. the drummer in her chair, bending over as not to hit the ceiling. the snare, tom, cymbals arranged and floating in front of her, each guided by different hands. me, i became the vocalist with the microphone that didn't work right but had enough reverb to not matter (and even if all their equipment had failed, going a capella they would have still stunned us) the mop-hair ceiling-kicking guitarist strapped his gas mask on my face. with some sort of weird ass metal implement where the air filter goes, c...

too perfect i know you know that feeling of something too good to be true, but you don't want to question it because you know, if you do, you'll find it's all just bullshit and that ain't so appealing, it ain't good to try and push it 'cuz revelation gets us reeling, so i don't question just who i am or if this could be it, all is taken at face value when everything's too perfect. abcbcacabcbc but that's not exactly right. it is a sense of understanding truth beneath prima facia. that i, we, perceive perfection because our "realistic" expectations weren't high enough. way i see it, we put up with too much bullshit in the past (flip side of that, i handed out too much of my own bullshit, too). the constant bullshit numbed our senses. desensitized insensitive senseless. so the matter is just recalibrating, readjusting the scale. to accomodate (sp?) the fact that this is off the charts. perfect? heck no. just damn near it, and getting even...

[myspace] this thing lists me as an "aquarius." and yes, according to some arbitrary designation, my birthday is within the time period that fatalists call "aquarius". thing is, it's right there with actual basic information, like my name and age and gender. aquarius is nothing about me. that's not an absolute identity, it's an imaginary word about an imaginary constellation of stars. stars that are millions of light years from each other. and which already have burned out by the time their light reaches us. yet there it is. as if it were important. as if i chose to inform the world (or the virtual world, anyway): that among the most basic information on me, you MUST first know i am an aquarius! nevermind my personality, hobbies (cooking, guitar, poetry, politics, languages, mexico, beer), passions, job, school, or whatever. before all that, more important than everything else, i am aquarius. i can't even remember what imaginary character traits are ...

[excerpt from email to my sister] about the idea of friend, this kind of forum makes a re-definition of it. reminds me a bit of summer camp, when yo become a "friend" of someone, spend practically every waking hour together, then never see each other again after camp is over. of course that doesn't happen with everyone, and there are exceptions, but many people go through such relationships. and yes, there are people on here who (the page announces) have "200 friends!" and according to the definition used on MySpace, sure, any of these people are my "friends". but in reality, we are not enemies, but we don't hang out together. to me, a friend is... if i would give her/him a ride to the airport on my lunch break, she/he is a friend. so my point is, i remember ty's friend jason. but i'm not giving him a ride to the airport. -------------------------------------- after reflecting, i actually decided i probably would give ty's friend a ride...

[myspace] so this seems like a cheapening of the word "friend." unlike in reality, to be a "friend" on this website requires disturbingly little commitment. or recognition. just click here and -- boom, you've made a new "friend." someone i've never seen, spoken to. like walking up to a stranger and starting an intimate conversation, calling her/him a friend. to do that in reality, well, you'd count as the freak on the bus, right? the one nobody sits next to. but do it on MySpace? you're "popular." like magic, like Brak (on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, circa 1995) telling everyone about his "imaginary girlfriend."