Sunday, March 6, 2016

Letters one would like to have sent Janette Miller


Letters one should never send


We all do it! We have a bad experience with a friend. The friend prevents you having a Pythian Shot - the last word - so the next best thing is to go home and dash of one of those satisfying  missiles where you tell your friend exactly what you think of them and then in a fit of triumph you post it or in many cases don't.

If you do the results can be calamitous for these florid words how ever brilliantly written can never be taken back but worst of all even if not sent, if you wrote them on your computer they can be recovered and used against you if your target person feels the target can gain by it. This happened to Monica Lewinsky, the naive, ill used and really abused girl by her powerful lover, press and the world because virtually everything you delete on a computer can be restored if enough money and time is spent for the recovery to be worthwhile. 

Like Marcel Proust, who was the master of writing this type of letter to his friends, I regret to say I do this too. Proust used to write wonderful letters to his friends who all loved him but in private he was putting them into his book in the way he really saw them. This book A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is really Proust's unsent letters to his friends. Proust's pen is devastating in its accuracy. The most damaging parts of the book were published after Proust's death. Naturally the friends were shocked and there is nothing any of them could do about it.

I do take the precaution of writing my unsent letters on paper that can and is destroyed and I  usually never send them anyway, that way there is no lasting record of my unfortunate outpourings for unlike Proust on the whole I have no wish to leave a bitter legacy. There are one or two exceptions and it all depends on who dies first as to the outcome but if you have crossed me in a particularly vicious manner from which you benefitted you might be in for a surprise after my death. There are only two people on this list so far.

If a draft of my epistle is on my computer it can be read by anyone at any time. You might not like it but it is not too bad.

Sometimes one is forced to do the unthinkable and send the letter. No amount of procrastination can put off the moment after one realises that it must be sent. There is one up here on my blog where a long loved tree of great age was in danger of being cut down for a car park. I had to send it, three pages of plea and my neighbour, bless her saw how much I cared and the tree is still there. Problem is now it is rather big and needs a trim and I can hardly complain can I?

Sadly a couple of years later probably eggd on by her family she cut it down. I was devastated. It looks awful without it and without the shade of the tree sitting out in the sun is unpleasant. I still miss the tree but have made it up wiht my neighbour. Her family still find it difficult to talk to me as my oringanl letter still hurts. They did it and now feel guilty.

As you can probably guess I am in the process of writing such a letter. The first draft even on computer is too strong. My second three days later is much better and will do the trick by making me feel better in a more civilised way. It is final but leaves the way open for a dignified acceptance if we should ever meet again. One does meet unfriended friends again in real life regretfully

In FB one can just unfriend. It is such a dignified way to do it. I cull constantly. I do not allow any sort of proselytizing or major politics on my personal FB page. The FB friends that do this I visit. I tell them that my FB page is for friends and friends do not want to be preached at. This works well. If I get too many Jesus loves you after three you are out.  I still like you but not on my FB page.

It does take a lot to provoke me into doing any of this. If I do it means I am serious but in the meantime I personally let of steam by writing letters on paper that I never send. 




Thursday, March 3, 2016

Philomena The Film The Book and Amazon.com









From Amazon.com to Janette Miller

Your review could not be posted. 

Thanks for submitting a customer review on Amazon. Your review could
not be posted to the website in its current form. While we appreciate your
time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines:http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines

Here is the rejected review


 Philomena the book - The other side of the story.

I came to this book via the film of the same name which I had enjoyed. I often
seem to see the film first and the read the book. I expected more of the same
as the reviews of the film did admit to dramatic license and having experienced
Irish Catholic nuns for myself I was curious to know more.

The book is very very different from the film. Perhaps the name and the first section
 in the convent is all they have in common. From then on the film is about Philomena
 and the book is about her son Michael. From the moment he leaves the convent the
 book is about him. In the film this amazing man hardly gets a look in. I suppose
 because he was gay and the book is quite frank about his choice of lifestyle. Not 
 shocking for most of us but enough to make film distributors anxious. The film
 would have been better if it were more like the book.

The film was hard on Micheal's partner who in the film is depicted as an unhelpful
 man and deservedly hard on the RC church which behaved in the way it usually does. 
The book by contrast hardly dwells on Philomena herself, the USA visit never took
 place, and is far more truthful about the whole discovery process which I preferred. 
Truth is always stronger than fiction.

I did enjoy it. I suppose for most of us convent educated girls reading this is a form
 of masochism as we relive our school days with horrible nuns and creepy priests 
which we can recognise only too well. The good thing is that if you have seen the film
 you actually see the convent and surroundings so ones imagination does not have
 to work so hard.

What a pity the film did not have the courage to do it this way.



We encourage you to revise your review and submit it again. A few common issues to keep in mind: 

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Here is my accepted Amazon review:

This is a very difficult book to review because of its topic. My first review 
was rejected by Amazon because I mentioned this topic. So I will just have
to say I enjoyed it. It was different from the film because the focus was on
the child not the mother. The child and mother are both amazing.

I was astonished that my first review was rejected. It should not have 
been rejected but it was. My last review was useful and I encouraged you
to read it book I still do so.


This shows what happens when Belief Systems are in control. 

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Janette Miller's project for 2016 - My Winter Journey




Janette Miller's Winter Journey

2016

Based on the Die Winterreise song cycle by Franz Schubert

In life, everyone should have a project. I go from project to project and if one ends, even if I don't want it to, I start another maybe in a completely different field or maybe sometimes more of the same. I can get tunnel vision which is a good thing as I get things done and cut out distractions. Not so easy now I am older as living takes a lot of my time. Seeing the house does not fall down, the garden gets done takes time.

In 2015 I had to do an upgrade on my technical skills. In 2015 the technology made a big leap and it took me months to catch up. I had to upgrade my website janette-miller.com to Muse from Dreamweaver and this was a challenge as Muse is still a very new platform but oh what you can do with it. It took me the last three months of 2015 to do it. Huge job but tis done. I have an ulterior motive in doing this as it is the basis for My Winter Journey

Ever since  I first heard Die Winterreise at Aldeburgh I knew I one day would have a go at this. Britten and Pears loved Lieder or Songs as Peter would pontificate when making me feel awfully small. Peter was so good at this. Peter always said he was afraid of this cycle and it could only be sung in maturity which of course is a lot of rubbish as the story is about a young rejected suitor and the devastation of unrequited love which the young lover gets over. However I did not know this then and I thought, wrongly, at the age of 16 with nil German, that it was about an old man approaching death and I think half the audience did too and still do if they cannot speak German. Certainly, a lot of elderly men sing it!

As Peter  Pears made clear, a young girl could sing some Lieder but Winterreise was off the menu for me as it was a man's cycle so I never bothered with it until....ah! that little word until...until my husband died. We had been working on Die Winterreise at the time and The Organ Grinder the last song in the cycle was the last song we ever sang together. The hardest song I have ever recorded.



Years later I discovered iMove2 and put up an appreciation  for Miles using this song and I again let it go because although we had recorded the whole cycle some of it was just not up to standard as we had done it so quickly and I could not afford to pay an accompanist or pay for transposing the songs into more suitable keys for me.

But then came Garageband and all changed. I could write out my accompaniments and sing again. I recorded Die Schone Mullerin and then I thought about Die Winterreise. Why not?

Well, there is a hundred reason Why Not? All of them good but I have not been an L'Enfant terrible all my life for nothing and quite frankly I do not see why men should have all the good songs and young maidens encounter unrequited love too. Winterreise is not an old man's song. It is a young person's cycle. and luckily my voice sounds quite young.

There are 24 songs in all and each song can be taken as an individual item. I have been working on the complete cycle all my life. The first was On the River  with my first DVD movie camera. I had a friend's daughter for Norway staying with me and she kindly let me film her just before Miles died in 2001. You can see her in the trail above.

I have joined it all together but and it is almost roughed out and if I die before I have finished the world can get a rough idea. Styles and technical formats and styles change too and I have allowed for those. I have also altered the running order of the last 12 songs. Shock Horror! But no one knows what order these are supposed to be in, not even Schubert because like me, Schubert did not encounter them in order. Anyone can see that the order after the first 12 songs is wrong so I have put them in the order I think they should be.

2016's project is about to start. I need a website so that I can let anyone know who is interested where I am at, I need to finish the 25 songs, yes - there is one extra, which may come as a surprise to purists but this is my personal journey and I can do what I like. At 73 I can do what I like and I do hope you will come along with me. I know that my friends on FB find it hard to watch and much prefer my garden when it comes to the Like button but I do live in hope that one day they will enjoy it too.