November 21 2007, 12:11 AM Klaxon

Mrs. Compass points out that one of the nice things about living here is that it takes a fair amount of effort to get far enough away such that one doesn't occasionally hear the tolling of church bells or the cry of a train whistle, stumbling around up there in the sky. She claims that this is useful, a happy sonic signpost that reminds us from time to time of good things. I am in agreement with her on this - there is still a fair amount of pleasant sounds from our past, zipping from hill to hill out here.

Local conditions play their part in this, too. I have mentioned the way the qualities of the air up here on this hill can wrap the sounds of the valleys in different ways. We are fortunate to have rivers, and they do even better at this. Some time ago I told the little story of the slow train singing on the other bank, the wet from the summer and the river making the song mournful and pure. On clean cool evenings, the trains down there next to the water make their tootling known up here on the hill, the sound vaulting over the valleys. The other night, a chorus of fire sirens woke up to blanket the earth with their insistence. The air made them seem close.

I suppose I should mention the ghost.

We were sitting in the living room, and the space was filled with music. Three Nordic sopranos, singing clear and strong. The ghost turned to me, and said, "where do you begin to find this music?"

There is little story to how I found about about them: I got lucky, and attended the appropriate concert. There are all sorts of good ways to find out about these sorts of things. There are copious resources online and in print, including a very expensive monthly, printed lovingly on glossy paper by people in Europe and sent here on boats. It might be best to look for that one at the local library; libraries can be great sources, too. One day after foraging at mine, I pointed out to the good folks behind the circulation desk that the CDs I was holding didn't come with the protective locking cases. They looked at them, looked at me, and then pointed out that no one was likely to ever steal them. So it goes.

Here is a better story. I was digging around for podcasts. I found many on many subjects; I found one on the subject at hand. I listened to it, and found it to be good. I noted that it was tenth in a series, but the feed did not include reference to the other nine. I dug about in the links of the site, and lo, I found past podcasts. One of them opened with a lovely Pavanne, apparently from the soundtrack of the movie Orlando, a movie I have not yet seen (nor a book I have yet read). Wonderful Pavanne, that. If it is a period piece, it presupposes Beethoven's Seventh in a gentle echo. If composed recently the theft (such as it is) is in the opposite direction, but this does not detract. I will see the film, and listen to the rest of the soundtrack, and it will all undoubtedly lead me on to other things.

Amusingly, the ghost doesn't even like early music.