Arts & Entertainment

&A bo u t

Daniel Kahn, center, and
the Painted Bird

Notes From Ann Arbor

Detroit-area native Daniel Kahn moved to
Berlin in the summer of 2005. In the fall
of that year, he formed the Painted Bird,
a band named for the infamous book
by Jerzy Kosinski. Featuring a rotating
roster of some of Berlin and New York's
best young klezmer and Balkan play-
ers, the ensemble performs a combina-
tion of political cabaret, radical Yiddish
song, American punk folk and klezmer
— fronted by singer-songwriter Kahn on
vocals, accordion and piano; U.S. expat
composer Michael Tuttle on upright bass
and Swedish drummer Hampus Melin.
In the summer of 2006, the band
completed its debut album, The Broken
Tongue, the fifth CD of original music

Kahn has produced
but one marking a
shift from indie folk
to klezmer-based
music. It includes
a number of songs
in Yiddish, and one
— a Bertolt Brecht
piece — in German.
At the University of Michigan, Kahn
studied acting, directing, playwriting and
poetry, winning U-M's most prestigious
writing award, the Hopwood, three times
and publishing Daylight Savings, a collec-
tion of his poems, with Ornithology Press.
After graduating and traveling, he moved
to New Orleans in 2001 to focus on music
and theater. There he played everything
from late-night piano lounge lizard gigs
to bluegrass jams, eventually directing,
producing, acting and composing music
for a well-received production of Brecht's
Man Is Man.
After leaving New Orleans, he settled
in New York, soon to be lured back to
Michigan to write and perform music
— for Planet Ant's Lehrstucke, Ann Arbor
Performance Network's Threepenny
Opera and Jewish Ensemble Theatre's The

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

Sam's Spidey

What is sure to be a blockbuster of
a film, Spider-Man 3, opens Friday,
May 4. As for its plot, suffice it to
say that Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire)
faces new super-bad guys and more
bumps in his ongoing romance with
M.J. Watson (Kirsten Dunst).
What you really want to know is
Spidey 3's web of Jewish connec-
tions – so here goes:
Tobey Maguire's fiancee and the
mother of his new daughter in real
life is Jennifer Meyer, whose father,
Ron Meyer, is head of Universal
Studios and a strong Israel supporter.
The Spider-Man
character was co-
created by Marvel
Comics founding
father Stan Lee,
and the trilogy of
Spider-Man movies
has been directed
by Michigan-born

40

rvi a y 20 0:

Dybbuk (for which he
won a 2004 OPIE for
his musical score). He
released his experimen-
tal folk rock Detroit CD,
Uprooted Oak, in 2005
and helps produce a
folk fest every fall on a
farm in northern Michigan.
Now an integral part of Berlin's folk and
klezmer scene, Kahn plays in some seven
different groups and musical projects and
tours mostly around Europe. He returns to
play his home state 8 p.m. Thursday, May
10, at Ann Arbor's Kerrytown Concert
House, 415 N. Fourth Ave. Breathe Owl
Breathe, an earthy Michigan duo with
roots in indie, classical and traditional
music, opens for Daniel Kahn and the
Painted Bird. Tickets are $10 general
admission and $5 students. Reservations
are recommended; call (734) 769-2999 or
go to www.kerrytownconcerthouse.com .
Also appearing in Ann Arbor, at the Ark,
316 S. Main St., are singer-songwriters
Duncan Sheik and Michael Penn.
Sheik takes the stage 7:30 p.m. Sunday,
May 6, with string quartet, drummer and a
pianist-vocalist. In addition to performing

and Franklin-raised Sam Raimi, a
1977 graduate of Birmingham Groves
High School. A practicing Jew and
another strong supporter of Israel,
Raimi has five children with his wife,
Gillian Greene, the daughter of the
late Lorne Greene (Bonanza).
Sam's brother, Ivan Raimi, co-
wrote the screenplay, and brother
Ted Raimi, an actor, has a smallish
part in the movie.
Meanwhile, the
pretty Jewish
actress Elizabeth
Banks reprises
her role as Betty
Brant, but it's
little more than
a cameo. Also
appearing in a
Mageina Tovah
small part, as
Ursula, is Mageina Tovah, 26, a cute
Jewish actress who was raised in a
religious home in Nashville, Tenn.
The handsome James Franco,
whose mother is Jewish, again co-
stars as Harry Osborn, Spider-Man's
sometime friend and sometime foe.

Wanted: Jewish Blonde

Josh Bernstein, 36, the host of the
History Channel archeology series
Digging for the Truth, was recently
profiled in a fun
article in the New
York Times.
The Jewish
"Indiana Jones,"
appearing at the
Explorers Club in
Manhattan, attract-
ed
the most women
Josh Bernstein
ever seen at a club
event. Apparently a lot of women
wanted to see, in person, whether,
as one said, he "could be that good
looking and that smart and charm-
ing."
Well, Bernstein did not disappoint.
His assets have made his show the
highest-rated program in the history
of the History Channel, and now the
Discovery Channel, which has a big-
ger audience, has lured him away.
He's just begun filming a similar
show for Discovery that will start air-
ing in January.

songs from his solo works, he'll include
songs from his film score (At Home
at the End of the World) and critically
acclaimed new Broadway musical (Spring
Awakening), both helmed by his creative
partner, Jewish director Michael Mayer.
Penn, appearing 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 8,
also has dabbled in film scoring (Boogie
Nights) and often collaborates with his
wife, singer-songwriter Aimee Mann. He
is the son of the late Jewish actor-director
Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan and the
brother of actors Sean Penn and the late
Chris Penn.
Tickets to the Sheik concert are $22.50;
tickets to the Penn concert are $20. (734)
761-1451 or www.theark.org.

Piano Man

In Billy Joel: The Biography, a new book
about singer-songwriter Billy Joel to be
published June 1 by Thunder's Mouth
Press, author Mark Bego chronicles Joel's
childhood in the Bronx as the son and
grandson of German Jews who fled the
Nazi regime in the 1930s.
He writes: "Although Billy is the first
to admit that he is Jewish by heritage,

Bernstein says he wants to settle
down, but that he's attracted to tall
blondes and, "it is not easy to find a
tall blond Jewish girl who is interest-
ed in the environment." (I somehow
think Bernstein has been flooded
with referrals.)

Messing's Around

This month Debra Messing, 38, ends
the low profile she has kept since her
TV series Will and Grace ended its
eight-year run in 2006.
Messing has a large supporting
role in the film
Lucky You, which
opens May 4. Eric
Bana (Munich) plays
a talented card
player who comes
to Las Vegas for the
World Championship
of Poker. He over-
Debra Messing
comes his personal
problems with the help of a waitress
(Drew Barrymore) and heads off for a
poker showdown with his estranged
father (Robert Duvall).