Special notes for everybody
This Is the personal family blog of John and Nami Hoppin, and our children. It is for our family and friends.
In the garden, knowledge and plants will grow. Mostly hands-off, this Rainbow tomato’s grown since Vanessa Shaushkin gave me the seedling earlier this summer. It’s six feet tall. Should I top it? Never grown one this big. It’s a good omen for John John.
This performance happened at the opening of Jim Drain’s exhibition “I Would Grow On My Hand” at Greene Naftali in New York City in 2007. A crowd of people filled the gallery to watch these dancers. There was Jim in a thong, silver tights, and a wig. There was a woman in a men’s dress shirt. Another woman wore a horse’s tail. They hopped in circles. We looked on. I took this video. The artist Gordon Hull was there and he gave me a zine he had been working on, full of incantations and voudou spells and secret codes you deciphered in mirrors. Vice licensed the footage for an art TV show they were working on. For dinner afterwards, I went to Taza del Oro on Eighth Avenue.
I was a fat kid, people gave me titty twisters on the school bus. I turned up the Eazy E and looked out the window as the straw colored hills of Morgan Hill rolled by. When I took the Presidential Fitness Test, the result was that I was not fit. It was no surprise.
My teacher, who taught me to code Logos on beige Apple ][e’s in the computer lab, which I loved and was good at, handed me a rope and asked me to climb it. It was attached to the ceiling. Of the gymnasium! Later they took us out to the monkey bars to climb poles. I got the wind knocked out of me and saw stars.
We played Dungeons and Dragons at recess. I was the Dungeon Master. We didn’t have books to follow, just one twenty-sided die. We took turns rolling it and then I made up what happened. Who died, who killed the Dragon, who saved the maiden, who got turned into a bird and then a donkey. We huddled in the shade of a small tree in the parched clay school yard. It was dusty. I sweat from my armpits.
My grandmother told me that she didn’t believe in Hell except for Ronald Reagan who was going for closing halfway houses and defunding disability programs while governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger had helped to design the test. They’re both going to Hell, I thought.
Life is good. Nami is making beer, our first batch on the East Side. Kent Goldings pellets, syrup. Wort chillin on the porch.
Wine and kebab. We made kebab with yogurt and parley. The tomato salad is with basil and olive oil. The tomato salad and wine were excellent together.
Garofoli Monte Reale Sangiovese Marche IGT 2012. The Wine Club, $11.
Pickles are easy to make. You need a clean mason jar full of cut up vegetables, and a lid. I used a half gallon jar and filled it with jalapenos, radishes, and cucumbers.
Bring a pot of brine to a decent boil. Pour it into the jar of vegetables. A funnel helps. Make sure the brine covers the vegetables completely. Let it cool to room temperature. Put it in the fridge, You can eat it right away, or sometimes it takes a day to really taste great. It’ll keep for a week or more. Eat it at every meal and you don’t have to worry about that.
BRINE:
Per cup of water,
NOTE: I tripled this recipe to fill the half gallon jar.
Someone burns
In Hell, but
I don’t know
Who