Kip Austin Hinton

totino's ad campaign - okay, there are these commercials on TV about a thing called "totino's pizza rolls." apparently it is a very tiny hot pocket. the gimmick seems to be that kids can prepare this food themselves (not sure how this is any different from every other convenience food). of all the features these cubes have, the commercial focuses on taste as a selling point. obviously, frozen cubes of bleached white flour taste great no matter what. - so this kid microwaves a bag of these things, then serves them to his friends in the middle of the night. he warns they must be quiet, i guess to avoid waking his parents. but it turns out the cubes are so delicious his friends are unable to stay quiet. "i love totino's pizza rolls!" screams the first taster. - as screams erupt from everyone, the betrayed boy-chef expresses dismay at the punishment which will surely follow. oh, i jest. his parents will probably eat the cubes themselves after they come dow...

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 ...