Schreiber

$#@%^&*(&*, Steve N' Seagulls is playing The Somerville tonight, and it's the one night when I REALLY cannot afford to expose myself to COVID at a concert. (Because I'm flying to Toronto on Friday to hang out with a whole bunch of people in a belltower.)

I totally CAN believe that my commitment to limiting my greenhouse gas emissions is such that I signed up to spend six hours each way on a train to get to Phili next month, instead of flying, which would be (I can't bear to look how much faster); but...

Even though it's only technically accurate, I'm going to spend the next 24 hours making ruthless use of the excuse "Sorry--I was at a funeral all weekend."

I just had a moment when I wondered whether someone had yet created a Benjamin Janvier/Rose Vitrac fanvid to Rihanna's "We Found Love", before I remembered that tragically that series HASN'T been made into a TV show.
(It would have to be some sort of crazy Quebecois/French and American collaboration, with subtitles, multilingual actors, and a whole pile of historical and linguistic consultants, so the mere logistics would probably torpedo it, but dammit.)

Meantime, bells.
(No, I wasn't there for the recording. I was busy driving through Vermont.)

Intros:
1. I feel like I'm doing nothing these days but being the one who remembers to inform the clergy.

2. Why am I posting this here? None of you have heard of her. Well, except maybe Sor. But when a legend dies, you have to sing about them SOMEWHERE.

Linda Woodford has died.
I never met her (more about that later); most of you have never heard of her. But she was a legend in Boston ringing circles, AND with anyone who's been a parishioner at the Church of the Advent for more than a certain amount of time. Parishioner, sexton, choir member, bellringer; trailburningly gender-non-conforming, first woman on the shop floor at Whitechapel, sometime professional bellhanger; lover of all bells and restorer of many, though her favorite bell was (again famously) the 2 1/2 tonne tenor at St. Mary Redcliffe.

Bellhanging didn't work out as a full time job, and Boston was and is expensive; she moved to Kalamazoo at some time after they got a ring, but in any case long before I got back into ringing. She died this afternoon after several days in hospice there. At least she was lucid until the last, and died with family and ringing friends nearby.
At some point there will be ringing. At some point when ringing with more than four people in the room doesn't bring the risk of yet more deaths.


3. So I have this list of people whom I'm really really sad that they died before I got to meet them. "Bop" Pritchard, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, G's grandfather, legendary jokester and Character with a capitol C. Leonard Boyle, prefect of the Vatican Library (and therby hang MANY tales), but my parents remember him mostly as the Diplomatics professor who used to toss medieval charters across the room for his students to look at.
And now I guess Linda's on it too.

Anyway, here's some photos. At some point I will try to get a scan of the legendary photo of Linda hugging the giant tenor at Redcliffe.

Linda working with the even more legendary Bill Theobald.

Another one from back in the day.

ETA: interview from a few months ago.

Hey non-ringing friends! Have you ever wanted to learn more about my weird hobby? Thought about giving it a try, but didn't have the time? Are you stuck at home and bored this weekend?

Well, here's your chance!

The University of Chicago Guild of Change Ringers is hosting their annual Bell Bash tomorrow (5/16), and since we're all social distancing (and not traveling), they're doing an online version this year.

On the minus side, this is not nearly as exciting as ringing the GIANT bells of the University of Chicago's Mitchell Tower, putting on ear protection to try out the crazy outdoor bells in Riverside, or meeting experts from all over the continent over a nice set of handbells (or ice cream).

On the plus side: you will not need ear protection, you will not need PPE, you will not need plane fare to Chicago, and (since like half the participants will be in the same boat as you, learning how to use ringingroom.com) you will not need any prior experience!*

Advertisement on the Guild website can be found here.
Guidelines and practical details can be found here.
Signup here: put yourself down for "Intro to Ringingroom", and add a note that you've never done this before but would like to try it out.
The hosts note that "While there should be opportunities for advanced ringing, this event has been and continues to be a student-oriented event."

* You will need a computer, earphones (to prevent feedback), and the Zoom app.


Average number of new COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts per day this week: 1155.

Silent friend from such great distances, feel
how your breath still makes this space greater.
In the beams of the darkened bellframe
let yourself ring. The thing that gnaws you down

will become a strength through its devouring.
Go in and out of metamorphosis.
What is your most painful experience?
If your drink is bitter to you, become wine.

Be, in this night of excess
sorcery, at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning of your strange meeting.

And if all that is earthly forgets you,
say to the silent earth, "I flow,"
to the swift-flowing water, speak the word: I am.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II.29 (1922)

Somebody at teenybuffalo's shindig t'other night read a brilliant short story about a couple of people manning a space station called "Lighthouse", and trying to figure out what the hell its name meant. I cannot now FIND said story, so this is not an exact quote but:

"My sister, who's a history otaku, said that it was, like, a building with a big light that told waterships where there was rocks, same as this thing tells, well, ships where the space hazards are."

The reader reminded us that, while in English an Otaku has come to mean someone who is obsessed with anime/all things Japanese, in Japan it can refer to any kind of obsessive nerd.

In that moment, I had an unpleasant revelation.
I am now a bellringing otaku.
* * * * *

(Further proof of this, as if more was needed, came after dinner, when I decamped, leaving Teeny with a quantity of excess soup, in favour of the ringers' deliberately-delayed-til-after-the-start-of-school post-AGM party. Which was unexpectedly much quieter, even after they put out the bourbon.)
(The bourbon was definitely a mistake.)

So yeah, that was my Saturday of 2 1/2 parties. (Ringing practice counts as an extra half party.)

The tail end of the NAGCR AGM: In several conversations, texts, and emails (and commentaries thereon)*

Texts from me to sovay, 20:17, 24.8.19:
ME: At Venetian restaurant, but no green crabs in sight. Sad!
SOVAY: Bummer! I hope the rest of the Venetian food made up for it.
ME: It was actually surprisingly meh, but they gave us a very good price...

It's traditional to have a banquet after the actual business meeting; on this occasion, we calculated that catering was going to be too expensive AND prohibitively complicated, and settled for trying to find a restaurant that could take a reservation for 80+ people. We wound up at Filippo in the North End, which gave us an entire gigantic second-floor room, but served us what was frankly cheap, boring Italian food. I guess we should have gone with the private room at the Asgard, or whatever our backup plan was. Still, nobody complained, they didn't gouge us TOO severely on booze (and see above on second-floor private room, price etc.); and the company was good. We Boston folk ended up semi-accidentally dispersing ourselves among the various tables, and
chatting with guests from away.


A parishioner to me, morning of 25.8:**
P: You're not usually down here for coffee hour at this point!
ME: Well, it's standing-room only...actually, not even standing room...in the tower, so I thought I'd come down, actually act like a member of the congregation for once, and help show off the mini-ring.

(Everyone wanted to do service ringing.)


Me to E.H.***, while sprawled on the stairs up to the antechamber to the ringing room that afternoon:
ME: Why am I so frickin' exhausted?
E.H.: Because you've been working like a dog all weekend? ...And so have all the rest of us?

(Accurate.)


Me at some other point that afternoon:
"OK, maybe Cambridge major from the 6 wasn't the best choice for the first thing to ring after I've rung nothing but a miniring all weekend!"

(Cambridge is probably the most difficult method I can be said to know, and I'm still learning it. Involves a lot of dodging, i.e. swapping places rapidly, which is tricky on large bells. Like the 6 at the CotA, which weighs a bit over 10 cwt., i.e. over half a metric tonne.
It wasn't a COMPLETE disaster, though, and by that point we had abandoned any plan to impress the congregation or visitors, and were doing what was basically an extra practice.)



Email (addressed to me personally, for no readily apparent reason) from some ringers from Raleigh, 2 Sept. 2019 :
Just wanted to thank you and all the other organizers for a wonderful time in Boston and environs last weekend. The organization was impressive and you must all have worked very hard. Please convey our thanks to your ringing colleagues.

I post this because it's just the latest in a series of personal conversations at the AGM, and emails after (though why they keep emailing me, I have no idea.) For us, or at least for me, it is easy to focus on all the things that could have been better done, better organized, more fun, or cheaper; but the overwhelming response from everyone ELSE was that we rock hard and so did our BellsCon!


* And yes, this post is over a week late. Life's been busy, ok?

** I THINK this conversation happened. If it didn't, let's pretend it did.

*** Fellow Boston ringer: handbell enthusiast, ex-Steeplekeeper, and at the AGM Feastocrat for Friday plus in charge of various other things.

Yesterday I worked from home all morning, then hauled butt into town for the AGM, where I

- Adjusted the AC
- Brought the Visitors' Book down from the tower, on the (accurate) assumption that the tower was gonna be a mob scene later
- Helped unload a ringing simulator built out of 2x4s and weighted wheels
- Let in two German tourists to look at the church
- Helped E.H. put All The Food into various fridges and other spaces
- Helped unload, and then later set up, a miniring
- Bought beer for the picnic
- Met/Hung out with various awesome people*
- Directed various attendees as to where they were supposed to go
- Served as doorguard for a bit
- Said evening prayer with [Church Regular]--not AGM-related, though going on at the same time...
- Rang on the miniring--though unfortunately nothing exciting.
- Dealt with various crises. (Or in one case, attempted to deal with it but was too braindead to actually deal with it effectively, so our wonderful co-Conchair figured out a solution.)
- Had late-night Thai food, per usual, exc. with about five times the usual number of people...
- Had the person who'd nearly been my houseguest drive me and my ACTUAL houseguest home. Yay, almosthouseguest! I hope that the Berkshires are good to you.

Today everybody is on the Cape, at a tower which is lovely in every way but where I have been many times before; so I am at work.
Also, I have just realized that if this is a con, I should just accept that con-things apply, namely that
I am going to spend this time: Eating too much snack food, skipping meals, eating meals twice, possible drinking more booze than is wise, definitely drinking too much coffee, trying to use coffee as a substitute for sleep, taking a "You can sleep during Lent" attitude, not exercising properly, trying to lift too much weight, and spending more money than would perhaps be ideal.

* Somebody who I didn't recognize, from some tower I'd never been within a thousand miles of (Vancouver?), swore she knew me from somewhere; which might be, or might be the same sort of memory-playing-tricks-on-you that caused me to think that I knew a former Boston ringer from Arisia, when in fact she'd never been...