Fans get brain-washed, awe-inspired, live in self-deception, and self-doubt after listening, reading, or seeing the performances of these celebrities. It is the apparent character that these artists display/or appear to possess that finally inspires and wins the hearts of fans.

As long as these artists charge money, fans pay, and the minds of the fans are tied to the character of the performer and that is biased to the quality of performance, it is a legitimate aspiration to try to know what kind of a person the artist actually is. If his/her performances preach idealism, and his/her actual beliefs/acts are quite contrary to the preaching/portrayal, fans might not want to empower such a person.

Finally, it is the character of a person that we get inspired of, and want to reward or be indifferent or admonish, as the case may be.

Practice what you Preach or please don’t preach and usurp money. If somebody wants to say something, let it be allowed; people have the brains to know what the truth is.

But I will say that if any of my friends tried to publish (i.e. commodify) an account of my private matters, I’d be pissed. I don’t have a team of lawyers to back me up (and I wouldn’t want one), but the tone of the book wouldn’t matter. I wouldn’t want my private experiences to be turned in to a money-making thing for public consumption.

I think about my best friend, a wonderful woman whom I trust to share my deepest secrets with and whom I regularly learn about the world with. I love this girl like a sister. And if she were to publish a book speaking nothing but absolute praise for me, but still revealing our personal experiences and my private matters, I’d consider it a complete betrayal of my trust.

I don’t think LM’s personal life is our business anymore than mine is yours. It doesn’t matter if she has skeletons in the closet or not, it’s HER life. And I certainly shouldn’t be able to buy that information; that’s disgusting to me. Would any of these readers publish a book about their mother’s deepest struggles and failings? And even more relevant for this particular discussion, how would you react if you found that a confidant of your mother’s did what Ash did?

Here’s another example by way of metaphor. What if the published information had been nude photographs? I think more people are able to see that as disgusting and inappropriate. But really, how different is that? My body belongs to me, and no one has a right to make money off my naked body. Equally, my secrets, my grief, my personal struggles, they are mine. We all filter what we share with others, regarding both our physical bodies (with clothes), and our experiences (with silence). If someone rips off my clothes in public, it’s a violation. Equally, if someone shares my personal information in public, it’s a violation.

I hope I’ve succeeded in making the connection. And, I’m glad this boundary has been set in court, though I don’t have much faith that it will stand for long, knowing our celebrity-obsessed culture of commodification.

So, thank to YouTube I began listening to Loreena songs, from time to time. And, then tonight, I went back to Wikipedia article on Loreena that I had not carefully read, but just browsed in the past. So, I read of Niema Ash book on Loreena as a friend and of the unbelievable story of its censorship. I went on Google doing a search to understand something more. I was surprised to find the book still listed on Amazon, but not anymore available: Amazon, btw, doesn’t mention that the book was censored by a court order,…

Frankly, I would have never thought that such a thing could still happen and I was left unhappy not to be able to read Niema Ash book. In USA there is a first amendment, as I also know, but the freedom of speech suffers very bad drawbacks because of America obsession with privacy. IMHO, the court should have ruled according to the following logic: What Niema wote in her book about Loreena was a report of real facts, or the sick phantasies of someone interested in damaging the reputation of the object of her writing? In the latter case, Niema would have defated Loreena and Loreena should have been awarded a compensation; otherwise, Niema would have just spelled the truth. The boundaries of privacy are a highly personal matter of opinion and I can’t believe that a court ruled on what a way an interaction between friends should have taken place up to the point of censoring a book as it happens in dictatorships.

However, there is something that I don’t understand,… We live, thanks god, in Internet times and Internet, as we all know, has cancelled many, if not all, borders: at least for what concerns the free flow of information. Therefore, my question is: how is it possible that no one has uploaded Niema book in pdf on the net from a server located in a safe-heaven country, such as, let’s say, Panama? Panama, and other countries as well, don’t recognize the jurisdiction of other countries, so that many websites who would be soon clamped down in USA, in Canada, or in the UK, comfortably survive there with no harassment whatsoever,.. Frankly, if I had Niema book in my hands, I would upload it from here, one way, or another; and, then, I would like to see if Loorena would be willing to hire a Italian lawyer to move me legal action. Considering the endless time of Italian jurisdictional system, she would have all the time to die before having the satisfaction to see me in court. Well, not precisely like I just wrote, but almost,…

Aldo
Aldo

Ms Ash deserves the beating she has received and will continue to receive in her attempts to defame Loreena.

Loreena Mckennitt spends two hours at the end of each of her concerts (I have seen four in recent years) greeting every single member of her audience.

After the curtain has gone down, concert-goers start forming a queue, generally by the theatre foyer or in a street adjacent to the backdoor.

Loreena goes back to her dressing room, changes outfit and freshens up her make up, then she regularly comes out to the audience waiting in line and spends an average 1 to 5 minutes with each of them. She talks, signs autographs, has a picture taken with her fans, kisses (!!) whomever asks on both cheeks, whilst smiling and being pleasant at all times.

It doesn’t matter that she’s been singing her heart out for the previous two hours. It doesn’t matter that she is due to wake up 5 hours later to travel to a new tour destination. It’s doesn’t matter whether she’s sleepy, shattered or not up for it.
She just does it.

Loreena performs this meet and greet act every single time after her concerts, spending at least two hours with every member of her audience.

And no, I am not an obsessed fan. I am not making any of this up. It’s all documented.

Now - I wonder - how many world-renown artists do you know that have a similar approach to their fans?

Not bad for someone who “lacks a personal approach to people”, as suggested above by Mr. Ceresmary.

I have a degree as an Anthropologist and am trained in critical thought, reason and deduction. Having said this, I have not read the above book. I have, I will say, written to Loreena McKennitt a private letter that received a cursory response from her staff stating that she does not have time to respond to individual letters sent to her.

I contacted her staff back in the 1990’s, to try to understand why when someone has written a letter than nothing other than “Loreena appreciates her fans, but cannot respond personally (or I guess, by staff) to letters sent to her.” I found it put offing (as that a short nice comment could be made, rather than a rather curt sounding business letter approach) could have been sent. It was a choice of hers.

I found her comments about “not being pagan” and her music collided, as that being an Epistople is a form of Catholism (sp) and typically does not support (in my visits to Epistople churches)religious focus outside of their preview: the church. It really doesn’t matter about her faith, it is her business, but it seemed odd to try to subjegate any paganism in Celtic (huh?) and try to give her public a diacotomy view of herself.

So now an “tell all” has come out on Loreena..surprised, no. Since I don’t know Neima Ash, other than this post, I have little to go on. I assume the Tim mentioned was one of her back up musicians.

I must say that Loreena has dealt with severe blows in her life: the sad death of her fiance, her mother’s sickness, and going into ‘hiding’ for a period of two years when she produced no music, but rehashed released to various Movie offers.

I have seen this before from other musicians who get burned and burned bad: Donovan for one, who had his business hijacked by Mikey Most, his producer that ran Donovan’s profit literally in the toilet.

I saw this with Dan and Jim Seals, who quietly left the music business simply because it was too savage.

Personal life and being an professional artist can and is often h@ll, that reflects little of what the artist wants–publically has to be “on” and “happy” and personally suffering without curtains to draw down.

This is what often leads to tyranical behavour seen by John Denver’s Musicians (who suffered at his cocaine addiction in the 1980’s), and egotystical behavour (”I won’t sign autographs” comment for one, and my personal exerience one: “You should be so happy to meet me.”). Sadly when musicians “make it big” like any other entertainers, they need therapy to back them up to deal with their success and the need to feel “perfect” in their public and personal lives.

Going back to my science background: Did the evidence that Ash gave stack up to be true? that can only be measured against other studio musicians and others’ who had worked with LM to know for sure.

Did Loreena have “time” on her hands to spend dealing with Ash? What interactions did others who knew Ash feel about her mental/Emotional state?

By critically going through all the evidence can we truly know if Ash wrote this to 1. Gain some of Loreena’s audience fame for herself. 2. To vindicate her experience with Loreena. 3. Just P*ssed off and wanted others to know it. 4. Wrote it as therapy for her own feelings. The latter should not have been published, but left as a journal.

My feelings based on my experience with her staff and letter recieved as well as gleanings from her flip/flop on faiths, I am able to gather that Loreena exposes what she believes will support her as a musician, but with her ambiguous stands she takes (private is private, but too much secrecy leads to question: what do you stand for?) I find it hard to know the truth about Loreena McKennitt.

I have always loved her music and have a picture of her promotion of Mask and Mirror album on my wall. Yet, I have received better letters from other artists (spent time talking with them one on one with less ego involvement) who were more famous at the time than Loreena and still had the grace to take time to talk to a fan.

She should reconsider this “over professionalism” in her business approach, if she hopes to gain fan support in this issue with Ash.

I, for one, find this (situation) indicative of her over guardedness and lack of personal approach to people. Sorry.

In light and love,
Rev. Mary Miller

There also seems to be the idea that Loreena Mckennitt sought legal action to prevent “embarrassing stories” from being revealed. From what I know of Loreena Mckennitt, she is quite a private person which could explain why she would not want certain aspects of her life portrayed within Niema Ash’s book. This does not mean she has something really dark to hide, but probably just the reality that she does not want the whole world knowing about certain occurences within her life. I think many people would feel the same way.

I noticed that Susanne has pointed out that we must not let the truth about Loreena Mckennitt be buried again but what does she really owe us? She’s a performer. She doesn’t need to tell us about her whole life. What she is offering us is her music and somehow people seem to expect her to spill out her whole life as well. I don’t really understand how our society has gotten to the point of believing everyone owes them something. It’s not going to kill anyone not to know about Loreena Mckennitt’s life.

McKennett have proven herself to be phony and dangerous and we must not let her ruin anymore lives or have the truth about her buried again. It’s horrible enough that she and her shyster lawyers have ruined the financial and personal lives of Naima and Tim. Anyone who attacks that hard has lots to hide.

Objectivity is called for here. Not ” fan-fanatic emotional hoopla”. Get it straight people. This is terrible PR for McKennitt. She just doesn’t see it yet. Just because McKennitt won a court-case, doesn’t seal this as truth etched in stone forever.
I’m very disappointed in McKennitt. A sharp-witted lady that should know better.

Whether Ms. McKennitt likes it or not, Ms. Ash is indeed entitled to publish a book saying that she doesn’t particularly like Ms. McKennitt. That’s why McKennitt was not entitled to ban the book entirely, however much its contents and potentially retributive intent may have offended her. But the court chose to set some limits as to the types of Ms. McKennitt’s private details Ms. Ash is entitled to reveal and sell for her own personal gain. Whether Ms. Ash likes it or not, there is (at least currently) legal protection for that privacy. It will be interesting to see how much of this court decision holds up over time, and how narrowly that protection can be defined, in this age of a hungry public and media feeling that they “own” performers and have the right to know everything about them because the performers lay their music, painting, performing or other artwork before the public. But aside from the legal point, it’s true that there remains a moral question as to whether “retribution” should be pursued or encouraged. Take a look at what Ms. Ash states in the Daily Mail today — her claim that the book on McKennitt “was complimentary about her, even glorified her” doesn’t quite jive with the portrait she paints in the rest of the article, or with the response you had in reading the book, so there’s a certain amount of disingenuousness to Ash’s tone that weakens her case. Everyone involved should move on to more constructive uses of their time. The best place for dirty linen is not out on the line. While some may “profit” from it (like publishers or TV stations eager for sales/ratings) in the short term, society as a whole does not benefit from it.

Of course it can be argued that Ms. Ash is morally wrong in writing this book, but based in the ‘punishment’ that she endured, I think this is a very small retribution.