ny (heart) bells

Thanks to Tom for this news: The folks at Trinity Church near ground zero have outstanding taste. They installed America's largest set of swinging bells - twelve in all! Just two short of the Domtoren in Utrecht--but from a better foundry.

The Associated Press article sure makes bells sound glorious. "The bells ... cast by pouring a molten bronze alloy into molds that were hand-crafted using a mixture of sand, water, chopped hay and horse manure .... The first change ringing bells rung in North America ... were rung by a band that included ringers brought to the United States by P.T. Barnum for his circus."

I find this particularly amusing: "In 1668, Fabian Stedman of England published "Tintinnalogia — or the Art of Change Ringing," containing all the available information on systematic ringing. The theory of change ringing set forth by Stedman has been refined but remains essentially unchanged today." I placed an old but lovingly maintained edition of that book in the GCNA exhibition at YUCMI, not realizing that it was of much historical significance. Guess it really is historimical. It sure looked that way in the case; that's why I mounted it there.