6676 Orchard Lake Rd. West Bloomfield Plaza West Bloomfield TEL 248-851-8782 FAX 248-851-7685 Fiddler INTERNATIONALDININ At The Movies FOOD AND SPIRITS `Keep The River On Your Right' WE ARE NOW OPEN FOR DINNER ON MONDAYS The DFT screens David and Laurie Shapiros documentary portrait of Tobias Schneebaum, a Jewish artist who lived with a tribe of Peruvian cannibals in the 1950s. LIVE VIOLIN MUSIC TUESDAY & SUNDAY BANQUET FACILITIES FOR 'ALL EVENTS:- 851-8782 Great Nome-Cooked Ttadition Since the 20's ANN SAYLES DINING ROOM Artist/anthropologist Tobias Schneebaum returns to the site of his former- adventures in "Follow the River- on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale." Classic ;\inerican I lams'-Cooked Cuisine at Very Reasonable Prices Nome-Cooked Food Like grandma llged to Make! • Sauteed Chicken Livers • Broiled Whitefish • Lake Perch • Meat Loaf • Broiled Salmon • Grilled Beef Liver And So Much More! FRESH ROASTED TURKEY CUT IROM THE BIRD! Lunch & Dinner Entrees Include: Appetizer or Soup, potato, vegetable, dessert & beverage. Open 6 Days • Closed Mon. • Carry-Out & Group Parties 4313 W. 13 Mile Rd. 2 Blocks East of Greenfield • Royal Oak (248) 288-6020 • Fax (248) 288-6020 SAPPORO Japanese Restaurant "An authentic dining adventure with preparation of fresh sushi and top quality Japanese delights." - Danny Raskin Enjoy THE FINEST FRESH SUSHI AND AUTHENTIC JAPANESE SPECIALTIES LUNCH SPECIAL BENT°, $6.75 SUSHI LUNCH SPECIAL $7.75 6635 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield, M148322 8/24 2001 84 (at Old Orchard Mall, Farmer Jack Center) (248) 626-8111 NAOMI PF EFF ER_MAN Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles T he documentary Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale began when artist David Shapiro found a box of old books jut- ting out of a pile of garbage on Avenue B in Manhattan's East Village. The year was 1994, and Shapiro and his sister, author Laurie Gwen Shapiro, now in their 30s, had long been arguing about the subject of a proposed film project. They didn't have to look any further. Inside the box, along with dog-eared copies of The Tofu Cookbook and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, there was an intriguing memoir, Keep the River on Your Right. Its yellowed pages told of a gay, Jewish painter, Tobias Schneebaum, a onetime rabbinical student who disap- peared into the Amazon in 1955 to live (and eventually dine) with cannibals. The filmmakers, the grandchildren of Jewish union activists, figured Schneebaum was probably dead. But on a lark, they checked the Manhattan white pages — and found a listing. Before long, they were sitting oppo- site the Heart of Darkness-style adven- turer in his Greenwich Village effi- ciency apartment. "We had been expecting Indiana Jones-meets- Hannibal Lecter," said David Shapiro. "Instead, we met a witty, mild-man- nered Jewish man who looked just like our grandfather." Amid shelves of real human skulls, gifts from his headhunting friends, Schneebaum regaled the Shapiros with tales of his remarkable life. He was born on the Lower East Side — several blocks from the filmmakers' childhood home — the son of an Orthodox Polish immigrant grocer who imposed punishments for infrac- tions of Halachah, Jewish law. Schneebaum loved the Jewish holi- days, the rituals of his "tribe," but longed to escape from the abuse. "I was preoccupied with drawing and with my need to lose myself in another world, where my father could not wallop me," he said in a telephone interview. The quiet, shy boy first glimpsed anoth;r world during a family trip to Coney Island, where he was riveted by a poster promoting a sideshow featur- ing "The Wild Man of Borneo." Years later, he remembered the image when the New York art scene left him feel- ing "hollow" — and when his homo- sexuality made him feel like the ulti- mate outsider. Searching for a place-where he could feel he belonged, Schneebaum hitch- hiked all the way to South America, riding from the Andes to the Amazon in a rickety, open-air truck. After hearing rumors of a remote mission serving the Harakhambut Indians, a people virtually unknown in the West, he headed off alone into the uncharted Madre de Dios rainfor- est, without maps, equipment or footwear except his sneakers. He chanted the Shema or Adir Hu (a Passover song) when he felt lost or lonely. His only instructions were to "keep the river on your right." Eventually, Schneebaum was adopt- ed by the Stone-Age Harakhambut. They decorated his body with red pig- ment and allowed him to sleep in the men's communal but (where, to his delight, the activities sometimes turned amorous). But under a bright moon one sum- mer night in 1956, Schneebaum's idyl-