Arts & Entertainment
About
others continue to be
posted on the Web
site, www.postsecret.
(248) 432.5579 or
gallery@jccdet.org ; or
go to www.jccdet.org.
COM.
Tell everyone you know to post his/her
secret.
Post Your Secret
One person admitted "a glimmer of hope"
whenever she saw an ugly bride. "What I
am really seeing;' she wrote, "is: Maybe I
will marry someday!'
"I sometimes think non-living things
communicate with each other when
humans are not around;' another wrote.
The confessions of a third: "My dad is
the only person who says 'I love you' to me.
Sometimes I call to ask him dumb ques-
tions just to hear it once in awhile'
Who knows what secrets lurk in the
hearts of men?
Frank Warren does.
Warren is the man behind PostSecret, a
community art project where anyone sub-
mits a postcard revealing a secret never
before shared. Some of these secrets are
contained in his book, PostSecret, while
The Janice Charach
Epstein Gallery,
located in the Jewish
Community Center
of Metropolitan
Detroit in West
Bloomfield, invites local residents to sub-
mit a secret of their own in preparation
for the exhibit "PostSecret," opening at the
gallery in October.
Secrets should be written on a post-
card (one of your choosing, or blank
cards may be obtained through the gal-
lery) and mailed to the Janice Charach
Epstein Gallery, 6600 W. Maple Road,
West Bloomfield, MI 48322. Each secret
may be a regret, a hope, a funny experi-
ence, a fantasy, a belief, a fear, a betrayal,
a confession, an unseen kindness — or
something else.
Please remain anonymous. Reveal any-
thing, so long as it is true and you have
never shared it with anyone. Feel free to be
creative, and please make certain hand-
writing is legible.
A selection of the cards will be exhib-
ited in conjunction with the opening of
Frank Warren's "PostSecret."
For information, contact the gallery at
Art For Lovers
The Song of Songs, one
of the shortest books in
the Bible, has provided
generations of human-
ity with some of the most passionate and
most lasting love poetry in history. Artist
Debra Band interpreted these
T c
he oon
love poems as the daydreams
of a couple within a walled
garden, enabling the verses to
be understood simultaneously
as both human and religious
words of love, in her book The
Song of Songs: The Honeybee in
the Garden (Jewish Publication
Society, 2005).
In an exhibition of the same
name running through August, Temple
Israel's Goodman Family Judaic and
Archival Museum displays Band's illustra-
tions for the book. The paintings contain
no full-body human imagery. Instead,
hand and arms (and one foot) reveal the
lovers' presence, while several recurring
textile patterns hint at the lovers' activities.
A honeybee is hidden in each illustra-
tion for several reasons: The name Debra
110N1 • ■ ,a
is a transliteration of the biblical name
Devorah, which is the Hebrew word for
"honeybee and the bees included in the
paintings relate to the Hebrew scribal
tradition of representing the scribe's or
illuminator's presence in the work.
Band, based in Washington, D.C., has
worked in the Hebrew manuscript arts
for more than 20 years. In October, Jewish
Publication Society will release I Will
Wake the Dawn: Illuminated Psalms, a full-
color art book that features 36 of the most
well-known psalms presented
in the original Hebrew as well
as in English translation.
In addition to the artist's
illuminations and commen-
tary, the volume will include
literary commentary by the
artist's father-in-law, Arnold
J. Band, a professor of Hebrew
and comparative literature at
UCLA.
For more information about the Temple
Israel exhibit, call (248) 661-5700.
Folk Traditions
Michigan State University Museum's Great
Lakes Folk Festival is a one-of-a-kind
fusion of arts fair, music festival, county
fair, hands-on activity workshops, living
museum exhibitions and celebration of
WS
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
LN
‘12
Super Geek
In a recent Time magazine profile,
(11) Neil Gaiman, 46, was described as
a "geek god" because his comics
/IW (Sandman, etc.), graphic books and
prose fantasy novels
have attracted a
huge cult following
among those often
called "geeks."
Fantasy's recent
popularity at the
movies (Harry
Potter,
Lord of the
Neil Gaiman
Rings) spurred
Hollywood's interest in Gaiman and
Stardust, the first full-length film
from a Gaiman work. Starring Claire
Danes, Robert DeNiro and Michelle
Pfeiffer, Stardust is a love story set
in an entirely mythical world. It opens
in area theaters on Friday, Aug.10.
This November, a new version of
the ancient fantasy tale Beowulf
will hit theaters. Written by Gaiman,
the film is directed by Oscar-win-
54
August 9 e 2007
ner Robert Zemeckis (Forrest
Gump). Next year, Dakota Fanning
will star in a film version of Gaiman's
children's novel, Coraline.
Gaiman, who now lives in
Minneapolis, was born and raised
in England, the son of parents of
Polish-Jewish background. He told
Time he has mixed feelings about all
the attention he is currently receiv-
ing and that he won't be that upset
if his films flop: "Five years ago, I
was absolutely as famous as I want-
ed to be. I'm now more famous than
I'm comfortable with," he said.
Trekking On
The "geeks" hit San Diego in huge
numbers late in July for Comic-Con,
the world's largest
convention devoted
to comics and
related fantasy/sci-
fi material.
It was a fit-
ting place for J.J.
Abrams, 41, the
Jewish creator
Leonard
of Lost, to make
Nimoy
the announcement that Leonard
Nimoy, 75, would reprise his role
as Spock in a new Star Trek film
Abrams is directing.
Joining Abrams at
the podium were
Nimoy and young
actor Zachary
Quinto (Heroes).
Quinto bears a
great resemblance
to Nimoy and will
Zachary
play the young
Quinto
Spock in the movie.
Abrams also said that William
Shatner, 76, will likely appear as
Captain Kirk in his movie. Nimoy
amused the crowd by responding
the way Spock would to the news of
Shatner's casting: "It is only logical."
Walter Koenig, 70, who played
Chekov on Star Trek, hasn't been
cast in the new film, but he's plenty
busy. He recently visited Burmese
refugees in camps along the
Thailand border and told a Bangkok
news conference that he was urging
Trek fans and others to oppose the
vicious Burmese military dictator-
ship. The son of Jewish-Russian
refugees, Koenig is trying to use
his celebrity to make the world pay
some attention to the plight of the
Burmese.
Sports Center
The charming and genuinely amus-
ing TBS cable original series My
Boys, starring the pretty Jordana
Spiro, 30, was a surprise hit when a
limited season of 10 episodes aired
last fall. My Boys
returned for a sum-
mer season of nine
new episodes on
July 30.
Spiro plays a
Chicago sports
columnist who has
to cope with being
Jordana Spiro
a woman in a field
dominated by men. Complicating
her life is the fact that most of
the single guys she meets are
also colleagues. New episodes air
Mondays at 10 p.m., with repeats all
week. Past episodes can be viewed
on the TBS Web site.