The Bone Clocks

by David Mitchell

Kenny Bloke offers me a smoke as Damon MacNish windmills through “Corduroy Skirts Are a Crime Against Humanity.” “I saw the lads in Fremantle, back in … eighty-six? Fackin’ A.” Kenny Bloke’s in his late fifties, sports ironmongery in his ear, and is a Noongar elder, according to the festival bumf. I observe how Damon MacNish and many of his contemporaries have turned into their own tribute bands, which must be a peculiar and postmodern fate. Kenny Bloke taps ash into the geraniums.

Favorite new word for me: bumf