Annotated Bibliography

Leland, John. Hip: The History. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. Print

Leland is the basis for the study on hip. Focusing on hip's ability to bring forward the oppressed and meld cultures, a prediction for hip's future will be established. The issue of time, race, and identity will remain. However the importance will shift, remaining balanced as a whole. There are shifts of religion, cultural accepting, medicine and research (or science), and policy changes in society that cause changes loosely labeled as hip.

Pinkett Smith, Jada. Girls Hold Up This World. New York: Scholastic Inc, 2005. Print.

This children's book by Jada Pinkett Smith features a photograph of Jada and Willow on the cover. It also shows the girl-power embedded in Jada and Willow in a message delivered by way of a children's book to other American girls.

Smith, Willow. "Whip My Hair". Roc Nation, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v?v=ymKLymvwD2U

Here is a video of Willow Smith's first hit at 9 years old. She has a very strong and mature voice for her age and the influence of strong and influential parents is evident in her image.

Smith, Willow. "21st Century Girl". Roc Nation, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v_AfuHSJqqgAo&NR=1

The title of this song and its verse are foreshadowing the future of this American girl. Her image remains strong and at 11 years of age she is beginning to emerge. In the next ten years I can see her image taking on the hip profile of American future.

Starsky, Tanner. "Willow Smith's Whip My Hair." Entertainment Weekly no. 1127 (November 5, 2010): 69. Academic Search Complete, EBSCO host (accessed April 20, 2011).

Starsky's article supports a prediction for Willow Smith's place as potentially successful entertainer. While making a prediction for the future of hip, potential is important.

Chiu, Alexis. "FAMILYBUSINESS." People 70.21 (2008): 116-118. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 20 Apr. 2011.

Alexis Chiu's article gives a snapshot Willow Smith's rearing in the Smith home including her education. It describes the private school environment. Jada Pinkett Smith says, "We wanted to create an institution that creates great leaders." The article confirms in the interview that the school is not limited to Scientology's students but is in fact secular. While establishing potential is important, Chiu's article helps show that hip potential is a product of being well educated.

The Trickster HEROES

In a fevered state, I'm trying to find the trickster figure(s) in the NBC series Heroes. Claire, Hiro & Ando, and many others in the cast all pose certain weaknesses and identity issues as the eclectic cast slowly reveals a separate evolved race of mutants with super powers. One could begin to correlate this shows mutant race with the entire underground movement from South to North of black Americans. Leland's hipster qualities of freedom of the individual, identities, enlightenment, tragedy and myth are present in all cast members. Leland's trickster qualities may be best represented by one character, The Haitian.

The not often seen black-male character, known as The Haitian, for those less familiar with the series, is mysterious and he is able to manipulate minds. This figure is one of the most powerful characters in the series and viewed as a powerful asset to the front company, Primatech Paper Co., better known to insiders as the Company.

It suits well with this origin of hip theme to place a black male in the position of greatest power. His power is not simply obvious mind bending. He is clever and possesses the timing and instinct to deceive even those he is close friends with in order to provide, "an escape from unreality, from the greater absurdities that define race in America." (p.162) While instructed to remove a memory, he may not do if left to his own vices thus providing an escape from unreality. When the deception surfaces between The Haitian and the Company, "the points of guilt and race begin to shift." The Company is out to control or eliminate the mutants, however, those in control of the daily work are either mutant or have crossed the line in relationships and become fond of members of the supposedly new race. The Haitian is a religious character. His actions give him a loner stance and when chaos ensues he is the only one who still knows what is going on.

However, there is a character that may better fit the trickster defined under, "con men and hustlers...whom the culture invents to undermine its own rules." The carnie Samuel Sullivan, who manipulates geological material, is a master of the hoax and surrounded by a, "...long and varied family tree." He is constantly on the road and may very well be the most sorrowful character.

I could easily sit here and analyze every Heroes characters' hip-trickster moves and qualities...but I am not going to. I have to stick with The Haitian as my favorite. Heroes can be followed in series or comics and has humorous qualities that surface most between Hiro and Ando. Perhaps Hiro is the true trickster? Or his sidekick Ando? Perhaps identity chaos is the theme of Heroes.

On The Road

The Beat aesthetic of Kerouac's 1957 novel On The Road is to be expressed in the tentative 2011 film adaptation. With a budget of $25 million dollars and a 54 year process, Kristen and Kirsten (Stewart & Dunst) are trading in their vampires and superheros for the road.

Glancing around there may be some question if K&K will pull it off without downgrading the Kerouac vibe with a...

Twilight muse and Spidey-lover. ???

Listen to

Kerouac on You Tube

reading the last words from the novel.

I Know Hip

Writing an essay about the most hip person I know is easy. Reading it to someone else was easy. Knowing what that person is thinking was the hard part. I couldn't help but wonder if hip to me was even close to meeting the expectations of an audience.

The most hip part about the person I've chosen is that she is so hip to me that it doesn't matter what anyone's opinion is. Maybe nobody is really hip. Hip is a moment or a figment of our imaginations; the poet who writes romantically but lives in misery. Maybe romance is misery.

Every time I try to write about hip I am stepping on to a merry-go-round. Is this because I am officially old?

UGG Course, Hip Needs City!

Follow, follow, follow the origins of UGG. They came from the sheep herders of Australia stuffing wool in the toe of their boot for warmth, not inner-city folk, to surfers and American superstars. UGG even has its foot in politics, "...international trademark dispute that ensnared politicians, reshaped fashion and hobbled a national industry to shape global one," according to a New York Times article.

The gotta-have-it UGGs are not so hot with everyone though. Pamela Anderson apologized for being naive, read about on peta.org or in People magazine. What is functional for a farmer has the fashion potential to blow up, and then blow away.

What is left when the hipness cools off? Links, lots of links to popular magazines and information to get in the know. The same magazines that stimulated the growth will initiate its demise. Who stands in the corner and whispers in Pamela Anderson's ear? Perhaps that person is the actual source of hip, an incognito figure from the country with some great insight to a new product, movement or idea.

That product, movement or idea has surely been delivered from the countryside by the skeptical to the reporter predator looking to feed the masses fresh-new-hip snacks to consume. Look at the time, place and founders of Time Inc and People magazine in relation to the subjects in Leland's "Hip: The History". After the 1920's, "The publishing, entertainment and advertising industries, once scattered around the country, were now concentrated among the new skyscrapers of Manhattan," (p.77) The city searches out hip and then publicizes the crap out of it until common knowledge kills the hip vibe and takes the individual color out of it.

There are those that focus on the eternal qualities of hip like Rolling Stone. Then others still that shake it down to the local level of hip like our own Boise Weekly and the emerging community-level Caliper. The point of these three examples is the steady drop in number of advertisements. However pleasant the absence of retail ads may be, it is not a bad idea financially to include them but what is the price of doing this?

Uh oh! Starting to feel a contradiction coming on. Hip needs the city to launch it, sell it, and as evolution would have it either kill it off or let it live on forever. But if less advertisements are more hip to a reader how can that statement be true? Perhaps it is not one or the other that stands alone as hip but both as extremes. Does hip exist at extremes, at opposite ends of a scale, with mediocre and naive in the middle? If, "hip flourishes during periods of technological or economic change," (Leland p.61) then is Caliper online able to make the list since it is only a click away?

Civil Rights & Bananas!

Leland's book "HIP: The History" makes many references but some must be seen in order to grasp the image. "Josephine Baker (1906-1975), naked except for a feathered boa or a skirt of bananas," triggered my curiosity on page 74. Come to find out, Josephine Baker's life goes far beyond that banana skirt.

In 2006 at a tribute to Josephine Baker, Beyonce's performance sported fake banana's instead of the real thing. More than bananas are fake these days! Explore more of her life beyond the bananas as a civil rights activist on YouTube, Josephine Baker: The First Black Superstar.

Ethos my words or Whitman's?

This is what you shall do: Read books rather than text messages unless you are late for dinner, Listen more than you talk and write down what you hear for poetry and lawyers, Be positive and create a new image-two if you live in a city-without neglecting to be empathetic, patient and intelligent not necessarily in that order, Be humble if it suits the moment and the rejecters, Find confidence in strange places and strange places to be confident in, Sit still under the shade of a tulip tree in bloom, Show your children how to imagine something other than economic struggles, Pretend divorce is not a rite of passage like marriage or turning sixteen, Give thanks instead of worries, Love your soldiers not the war, Appreciate simplicity but Investigate complexity and anything technological, Go camping in the national forests then pack your crap back out, Smile at passersby and inquire why of those that don't, Choke on lame excuses and have pride like that of a lion, Garnish the meal you cooked not paychecks, Pray if you feel enclined to do so, Have songs in your ipod or in your sonnet, Create something anything, Feed the dog and your best friend, Laugh at your reflection then jump in the puddle and Enjoy the feel of soggy socks, Experience urgency and heartbreak over and over again, Travel to other countries first by visiting with your neighbors.