Double Round Bobs

The Nine Tailors, in the Sayers novel are the bells themselves, what they were playing were Kent Treble Bob Majors. A full cycle could take eight or nine hours. I've had an interest in change-ringing for years and was reminded, recently, by an article in the London Review. What goes around. I first heard about it in college, a portly Brit in the theater department (in whose dorm room I first heard Wagner), who had some old 78's, and I was captivated. Then I fell under the sway of Herbert, at The Cape Playhouse, and he knew quite a lot about change-ringing. In fact, he knew quite a bit about almost everything, a genius of design and geometry, the second genius I had known up until that point in my life. The first had been Eddie, common-law husband of Mom's hair-dresser friend Star, who could recite Baudelaire even when quite drunk, and was the first suicide I had ever known personally. I was in high school, at the time, and I'd never heard someone recite something, so beautifully, in another language; ten years later, listening to Harvey recite Lorca in Spanish, I was moved to tears. I'm labile, in that way. Just another sentimental jerk. This is not lost on those designers of consumerism, they know what twangs your heart strings; and they know when you buy diapers or baby powder, what you might need next. I use a false ID at the supermarket. I'm pretty sure this doesn't currently break any law. I picked a name from a graveyard, and then got them a subscription to a magazine (Bridal Illustrated) and used that to get them a library card, so my pattern of buying things at Kroger doesn't refer to me at all, it's a completely fabricated person. I don't even care, I just buy the usual things anyway: bread and toothpaste, and avocados when I can afford them. I wanted an artichoke yesterday, but I certainly wasn't going to pay $3.29 for one, and I found a jar of artichoke hearts for about half of that, and ate them smeared on those small rye rounds. I made a great topping of goat cheese and browned butter. I meant to fry a couple of small lamb-chops but I forgot; I'll cook the chops tomorrow, with baby turnips and their greens. If you want to refresh the greens (America's Test Kitchen) you stand them upright in a vase or whatever fits in your fridge, in water with some ice-cubes. I love turnips cooked with their greens and cracklings. I had my oysters they'd saved for me, so I made a meal of broiled oysters and turnips. The land tax bill arrived, and I'm amazed my cash reserve can cover it. Every year, June and January, I pay taxes and insurance and it's always a juggle, but this year I was a little ahead. Kind of scared me, because that meant I was actually saving money while living on $819 a month; but, of course, I darn my underwear and socks, and I eat almost anything. Also I never wash my Jeep, and never water anything. I don't go out at night, I never go shopping, and I earn the odd bit of cash by doing things like re-upholstering all of the benches at the pub, or cooking ribs for the man. Last week I rebound an old book, a Tacitus, 1583, a beautiful thing, and I did a nice job of it, mostly doing something else while I waited for glue to dry. I had to rebuild a hinge, which I did with very thin goatskin and it ended up being quite nice. A guy had brought me the book, a friend of a friend, and I figured the job would take two hours (I don't factor in drying time, when I'm usually gainfully employed mincing onions, or something) and I told him I could it for $50, when he picked the book up, he gave me a $100 bill and told me to raise my price. I immediately went to the wine store and bought a Frank's Family Farm cab, which was wonderful (a 2012), and bought a pouch of Drum tobacco, which is a very fine rolling tobacco. Aunt Pearl said something, a riverside camp on the White River, the first time I ever fished for trout, about how the real world was not what we imagined. I can see her still, hunkered down over a refrigerator rack, grilling Cut Throat trout over an aspen fire. A great cook but she didn't say a lot, all you could do was watch her, the way she squeezed the fried chicken with the spatula, to make the juices flow. She made the best fried chicken I've ever eaten, the best creek-bank fish. Dad and his sisters were raised in different homes, within the extended family, after their Mom, Dovey, had died when Dad was born; the father, Mac, had left, the family didn't like him much, moved to Oxford, Mississippi, and a job on the staff at the university. I have, or had, relatives there I've never met, Step-Aunts or something, the other Bridwell line that moved to Texas. My sister still keeps up with my Mom's side of the family, I don't. Deep into reading Thoreau, I'm much more interested in when the redbud bloomed (considering global warming) than I am about whether or not my second cousin gets into Yale. I don't even know my second cousin's name. I'd rather talk about turtles, or frogs, I actually know a lot about frogs.