Who knows the stars in the sky by name?

Either the title of this painting is, "Viking Ship," or it is something else that I failed to notice .... but, obviously, it is of a fleet of Viking ships emerging from mist and fog. It is an oil on canvas painted in the 1860s by an expatriate Englishman, Edward Moran of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It currently resides in a private collection in New York and is available through an online auction. It can be your painting if you are the high bidder at an estimated $10,000 to $12,000.

The Vikings have a reputation as explorers and traders and pirates and mercenaries and .... well, a few other things. I think of each new year as a new age of discovery for each and every one of us. Next week, we will embark on a journey into an unknown time moving toward an undiscovered destination. How we utilize what we encounter during our trek and what we to do with those things depends upon the decisions we make along the way. I wish each of you good fortune as you undertake your own voyage of discovery in 2018.

Travel toward the sounds which please you

Troopers in the Marine Corps have a reputation of moving toward the sound of gunfire, not retreating from it. George Armstrong Custer had the same reputation, and it was well known among the cavalry soldiers he commanded.

Do not worry. This is not a post about the Marine Corps or about Custer. Rather, it is about sound and the appeal or the lack of appeal various sounds have to individuals. The sound of gunfire, for instance, is a pleasant sound to my ears. The sound of some music has significant appeal, while the sound of other songs sends me running in the opposite direction. Although I do not like all music in this genre, my preferred music is what I describe as "classic rock" .... conversely, songs marketed as "rap" or "hip-hop" -- as well as some others -- send me rushing for the nearest exit.

My range of musical interests is somewhat limited, but I enjoy an occasional dash of opera and Broadway and -- while loud sounds generally are an abhorrence to me -- I turn the volume up when a piece by Johann Bach or Johann Pachelbel reaches my ears. Despite my religious leanings and questions, I enjoy much spiritual music and nearly all Christmas music. Must be traits left over from childhood ....

There have been studies done on which voices and which languages sound pleasant to the ear and which do not. Hearing Italian spoken, it is said, is mostly a pleasant experience, while hearing French sometimes is and sometimes is not and hearing English or German spoken often is not. I assume we all have preferences in that regard -- I know I do.

Very, very rarely I encounter a woman whose voice is particularly melodious, and I could listen to her speak for hours no matter which language she was using. When I hear a woman with such a voice, I wonder if "she" is descended from the Sirens whose song Odysseus listened to only after having had himself tied to the mast of his ship.

I have a marginal hearing loss which I like to describe as due to "machine gun" ears, meaning overexposure to gunfire. In truth, this loss was first noticed when I was age twelve and the era of gunfire was just getting under way for me. As is my habit with many medical issues, I simply ignored it and learned to live with the deficit. (I could tell you a few stories about that, but some involve the Marine Corps -- like how to cheat to pass a hearing test -- so we will skip those tales for now.)

The question, which probably has no logical or satisfactory answer, is this: Why do some sounds appeal to some people and not to others? I could speculate and I suspect my partial loss of hearing affects my tastes since I do not always hear spoken words the way others hear them .... make sense ???? But, I have no real answers.

Whatever .... I hope the sounds which appeal to you and make you happy and bring you contentment are those you encounter during 2018. To begin the process, here are the sounds of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, composed by Bach and performed by an unknown organist, and Indescribable, written by Laura Story and performed by the Slavic Chorale .... I sure like them and I hope they fit your fancy ....