Personal Info (Marilyn Miller):

You're missing a cute cocker spaniel! To the right is Allegro Con Molto BRIO, winner of the 1997 Traver Ridge Cutest Pet contest. For more revealing pictures of my better half, click on the turtle.



I'm currently employed at the Middle English Dictionary as a Review Editor and assembly language programmer. (Not everyone can get two dead languages into one job description!) The Dictionary, now nearing completion, is an enormous project that makes the language of 1100-1500 intelligible not only to literature students (the period includes Chaucer and most of the Arthurian material) but also to those interested in the history of medicine, technology, political thought, agriculture--every known work written in Middle English is included, so its scope is large. To look in on plans for the electronic MED, look at the Middle English Compendium. (If this link fails, try the Humanities Text Initiative project.)



In another life, I had the privilege of working with the Urban Design and Development Group of Detroit in the seventies on a project to help the neighborhood groups that were then attempting to make use of federal funds to improve their neighborhoods. We designed a simulation that would help them explore the federal resources available and cope with the mass of paperwork needed to make effective requests for funds. Working with the groups was extraordinarily satisfying. Although those particular federal programs have ended, I've continued to be interested in the well-being of Detroit.



As a Flint native, I grew up thinking of Detroit as the big metropolis, with a wealth of cultural assets, and I've found it reassuring that in the years since, great efforts have been made to ensure that such treasures as the DIA have remained accessible to all. And it is with considerable bitterness that I've viewed the loss of WQRS. Only a local station can make Detroit's musical assets available to all. For information on efforts to restore educational, fine arts programming to the Detroit area, take a look at the home of the Detroit Classical Radio Corporation..



I was fortunate enough to have grown up with music, and that gave me a lot of advantages. My father has for most of his life been a tenor soloist with a church choir. The thrill of my life came when as a 12-year-old I was able to play a piano concerto with the Flint Symphony. And although as an adult, piano performance has followed a downhill course, my interest as a listener has grown. Given exposure, classical music can grip a kid, but for the introduction to music handed to me, others may have to turn to a radio. Once given a taste of all that is available in 500 years of memorable music, there is no way to keep from wanting more. I still get together with friends when possible for chamber music, but mostly get friends together around a piano to sing. Talk shows on TV and radio are very popular these days, but that's simply letting one or two people yammer at everyone else. It is singing together that creates ties.



Well, enough of my sermon. Time to go to


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