Kip Austin Hinton

I just heard a recording of the story “A Christmas Golem,” by David Grimm . Worth checking out, for its ideas. “A Christmas Golem” is a disturbing take on the Christmas Carol redemption myth. I had never thought of it this way, and now the myth has been shifted forever. - Myths are stories groups of people use to explain who we are and what we believe. Myths do not have to be false – most myths are based on a historical truth and essential human forms of thought ( Barthes , Levi-Strauss ). Myths which are not related to actual people or events are usually related to actual behavior. They express and imitate the choices we make or the circumstances we find. The Christian Bible is very mythical, even (or especially) when the the stories have historical truth. These stories are myths for many reasons: They were passed down by many people before they were ever written, and are shared by a group of people (if you are the only one who believes it, then it is not a myth yet) They have a cor...

______ my cat's new favorite bed is my bookbag. this means she's pissed off every time i study, and every time i leave for ucla. she's pissed off frequently. yesterday went to ralphs on bike. the return trip was somewhat harder, balancing a 12-pack up and down these hills. i waited til Eli arrived in his giant van, showed off his new scars (he's been working "aerial construction," that means he strings cable lines and falls off poles). we headed downtown to ArtShare, hung out with Daniel, Chon, and Jaime in some art studio until the beer ran out. watched Cava - a fun and strong offshoot of Quetzal/domingosiete - and Mad Marionette. i don't know whether they were Chicano or Jewish or neither, but they sounded like a Chicano Jewish variation on Gogol Bordello . the dancing was odd, one guy doing a cossack dance, some couples trying a stuttery cumbia, a few rockabilly dudes jumping or skanking (that's the category i was in). you know how some bands switc...

saw a presentation today on Susan Sontag's view of photography and history. the recent (since mid 1800s) rise of photos as a dominant, determinant way of telling us what our history is. we don't question photos the way we question written words. even though we all know how subjective it is to decide when and what to photograph, and we all know how easy it is (especially in our photoshopped era) to manipulate an image. - Sontag starts with Plato's Cave metaphor. but i'm more interested in the idea that photos, like all history, are editorials. and to take a photo is not only to capture an event, but an event itself. some of this is coded into the vocabulary. frame, lens, crop - these are ways of saying how we limit what is included in the photo. science and journalism want to be objective forms of knowledge: they pretend to have no perspective (sometimes they claim to have all perspectives at once, a perfect form of knowledge). a photograph always has perspective, by de...

spent the weekend in coachella with my sister. but first we went hiking 4 hours through griffith park, climbed up near the hollywood sign. then to get sushi in little tokyo with Anthony, he was in town from san anto, 'cuz his jaina had an interview. picked up Felipe from LAX, and drove straight there, met up and stayed with friends, up until 6am talking about school reform and beer. after swimming the next day, dropped Era at the festival, it was 106 degrees so screw that, i didn't stay. hung out in air conditioning, ate an organic feast my sister bought. - Roy and Felipe got back from the Claremont conference, where they presented their critical media literacy program and their Purepecha students showed a video made in class (should've gone to that conference, but i slept instead). finally drove Roy and my sister to the festival. bought tickets from some guys walking. they make you walk a mile, we were still tired of walking from the 4 hour hike the previous day. but made...

just back from san anto, 4 day vacation. poetry in Market Square. talent displayed, faces hidden: Anel and Maria. i found a ten dollar bill in an HEB shopping basket after the first set, then after everything was finished, i gave that ten dollar bill to a homeless family. though i am a generous guy, this was not my idea. i guess i'd hoped God wanted me to have $10. but now i think God wants me to break even. stayed with Mara & Leonard one night. they rock, and the Mutts rock. and they're coming to visit us in august (the people, not the Mutts). the Museo Alameda opening parade. marched holding a banner, did anyone catch what the banner said? these photos, they're self-explanatory. hotel contessa , where they treated us like they thought we were rich. kinda afraid to touch anything, at least until the hotel pachanga got going. thought we caused the 3am evacuation, hundreds of tourists outside in their pajamas - except us, all fully dressed with cocktails in hand. turned...

roadtrip to La Paz and Bakersfield. Dwight Yoakam and Mika on the iPod. fun and spiritual fulfillment ensue. too grandiose? we visited Cesar Chavez's grave (que descanza en paz) and saw what remains of UFW dream from decades ago: La Paz, the erstwhile (i've never used that word before, i'm a dork) self-sufficient commune - endless fields of vegetables, and interactive, critical education. idealistic and doomed. - it was real, once, we talked to someone who lived it. saw the photos. as a commune, it has fallen into ruin, i guess, though the Chavez memorial and visitor center are beautiful. and one of the old tuberculosis wards (the whole site was once a TB hospital) is to become a hall for retreat events. we climbed hills, pondered drying pools, listened to freight trains and fraught beats . the whole experience gave us a weird sense of loss and peace. - the night before, party at Dolores Huerta's house. That's her in the middle, this was taken at 1:30am, during a ...

mp4 ( iPod video , 52mb) By Richard Van Heertum, Kip Austin Hinton, and Brian Trinh. 2007. 9 minutes. - An interview with scholar John Shelton Lawrence . Using clips from popular films, we look at the political, religious, and cultural function of the " American Monomyth ." - Everyone likes superhero movies, right? Like it or not, we show how superhero myths are anti-democratic, and support the unquestioned consolidation of power. Within these myths, people are ignorant and impotent, and must depend on a benevolent white man to make decisions. - Recently, the myths show possibilities of collaboration and transgressive themes - such as a heroic black vampire in Blade, or "coming out" narratives in X-Men. Even revolution now seems possible: a popular movement in V for Vendetta actually changes the corrupt government, which traditional superheroes work so hard to preserve. - This was the final project for our Critical Media Literacy course at UCLA. Our movie has man...

went to san diego and tijuana. for spring break, i guess, but i'm in grad school these days. that means we didn't do anything that would freak out my grandma. - stayed at Calaca Press headquarters. went to get tacos at Cuatro Milpas , ran into a walkout on the way. student-citizens from 2 high schools marched across the city to chicano park. protesting the recent ICE raids in san diego , in which some of their parents (who are not citizens) were deported. you'd be pissed too. - there was a minuteman woman (that irony is lost on her, i bet) videotaping these minors, intending to sell the tape to Lou Dobbs or Brit Hume. i told her it wasn't her park, and we are there as guests of the chicano community that maintains it, and should be respectful. especially of the rights of minors - who did not sign release forms. do they have first amendment rights of expression, without expecting their under-17 faces and words to be edited and twisted and used against them (and for profi...

[this is about the students of my friend, Roy Garza .] - The Southland's hidden Third World slums In the Coachella Valley, hundreds of trailer parks house desperately poor Latino workers amid burning trash, mud, contaminated water. By David Kelly, Times Staff Writer March 26, 2007 - THERMAL, CALIF. — Like most of their neighbors in the sprawling, ramshackle Oasis Mobile Home Park, the Aguilars have no heat, no hot water. On cold nights, the family of eight stays warm by bundling up in layers of sweaters and sleeps packed together in two tiny rooms. - Bathing is a luxury that requires using valuable propane to boil gallons of water. So the farmworker clan spends a lot of time dirty. - Jose Aguilar, a wiry 9-year-old, has found a way around the bath problem. He just waits until dinner. "My mom makes frijoles," he said, "then I take a bath in that water." Jose and his family live in a world few ever see, a vast poverty born in hundreds of trailer parks strung like ...

driving to Palisades Park yesterday (saw Apples in Stereo , Page France & Headlights the night before). birds scuttled in formation along the shiny crashing waves. - Amalia and i translated this Ramon Ayala song. while she focused on meaning, i worked on rhyme. together, it is ready for the studio. so mr. Ayala, if you're jonesin' for a Third Coast top ten hit, we offer our translation services for a reasonable fee. it is unanimous, Ayala's music is the best for when we dance together. - she kept wanting to translate "rama" as "ram." i agree with her, everyone should start using "ram" in English, instead of "branch." let's say this new vocabulary is a combination tribute to Ramon Ayala and Ramiro Ayala . (no relation. that tree blocking the door - it should've been mesquite, but i think it's a live oak .) - probably title this " the mesquite tree ." - the branch of the mesquite tree where you were waiting...

at spaceland. we met up with Nicolas, Yesenia, Roy, and Ollin of course. Scott Randy Ralo Vincent. st patrick's day, which in this case was a celebration of the San Patricio Battalion . a group of conscripted irish immigrants who were part of Zachary Taylor's invading army. during the U.S.-Mexico War in the 1840s. seeing themselves as unwilling participants in an unjustified war, they defected to the mexican army, focusing on catholicism and shared victimhood (as the irish were not "white" yet). they are still folk heroes in mexico. Ollin, that night, released an entire album dedicated to the San Patricios. they played those songs and plenty of pogues, too. - there was much guinness and tequila and vodka consumed. among a dozen people who danced with reckless abandon for 2 hours straight. dripping sweat and bumping into each other. we waltzed and conjuntoed, and did uncategorizable dances, too. nicolas probably melted his accordeon keys. - Roy stayed at our place, i ...

again with the movies. is it really possible to derive life lessons from them? who cares, i do it anyway. - update: we've just returned from 300 . it is stunning and meaningless. you get more feeling for the spartans' life and times from a wikipedia entry . there are zero jokes in the movie (by "joke" i mean it makes somebody in the theater laugh). imagine a gorgeous video game, except you can't get the controller to move the characters around. everything in it is beautiful. you want beautiful beheadings, beautiful jabba the huts with sword-hands, beautiful sweaty leather speedos? then this is the fim for you. mi pobre novia, once she got over the shimmering 6-pack abs , she had a hard time ignoring the lack of plot. that's saying a lot, when you take into account the deafening soundtrack. i put inof velvet goldmine back home, just to cleanse the palate, really. ella me dijo que pareci' y aun parezco a maxwell demon . i'd never make a 300 casting call...

ten dollars to make all your drinks come true someone's gotta win, hope it’s me, not you buy your loteria lo lo lo lo loteria lo lo lo lo loteria as i said, Amalia and i sold most of the loteria tickets ($1400 worth). she’s a marketing genius. She wrote this jingle. but i at least wrote part of this verse, and we sang and laughed out way through it. harmony. i hit most of the notes. some photos from NALIP: these photos: us selling loteria, Edward James Olmos reaming Latino execs, Adam and Freddie Rodriguez, Joe Hernandez-Kowlski taking a photo of us, Eduardo & Beva, Haldun w/Amalia. (as you might figure out, i was like the only white boy there). gotta go, pick up Frances from the Getty. Nicolas arrives tomorrow...