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#2143 -
This issue features a few news
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"The
Real News"
Edited by Jerry Katz
Stash
of Pollock work found in New York
A trove of 32 previously unknown works by abstract art icon
Jackson Pollock has been discovered by a family friend, who said
on Friday he would like them to tour internationally and be
studied by art historians.
Alex Matter, a filmmaker who knew Pollock from childhood, said
the collection was among the possessions of his late parents, who
were long associated with Pollock.
Matter said that about two years ago he stumbled upon the
soot-covered artworks wrapped in brown paper since 1958. They had
been first stored in a
The works included 22 of the artist's drip paintings and two
enamels on paper, he said.
~ ~ ~
Blue
posts BBC2’s new reality doc ‘The Monastery’
Full-service post-production facility blue has completed the
postproduction for two promos for BBC2’s forthcoming reality
TV show, 'The Monastery'.
Produced by Tiger Aspect and commissioned by the BBC's religion
and ethics department, The Monastery is reality TV-style
documentary aimed at understanding monastic life and the role of
religion and belief. The show will see five young professionals
taken out of their busy, modern, fast moving metropolitan
environment and sent to live in a monastery.
The Monastery is also being billed as a personal spiritual
journey and the two promos aim to convey the idea of a person
making their own individual journey through life.
In the promo – a 30 second version and extended 40 second
version – we see a lone man coming up an escalator in slow
motion. In contrast, crowds of people are rushing at high speed
in the opposite direction.
The footage was shot on 35mm film. In around six hours of online
sessions, blue’s Tristan Wake enhanced the resulting
sequences.
“The idea was to create a very monotone feel, primarily made
up of shades of grey, rather than have something that was vibrant
and colourful,” Wake explained.
blue’s Rich Martin carried out sound design for the promos
where the idea was to convey the stresses of everyday life such
as commuting on the tube.
“It was quite a stylised brief for the sound design; we
wanted to represent the outside world through the sound track,”
Martin said. “It was a really nice job and the voiceover was
done by Terence Stamp, which is quite noteworthy.”
Telecine work for the promos was completed by blue’s George
K using Spirit.
Jon Dennis, Director, BBC, said: "I'm delighted with the
team from blue, as this was a really big job in respect to scale,
effects and audio.
“Blue brought to the table an enthusiastic, dedicated and
what was most important to me, very talented bunch of guys - and
brought to life exactly what I wanted on the screen as a
director."
The promos have aired on BBC2 since 1 May, in preparation for the
programme’s air date of May 10.
~ ~ ~
Kunitz
works on poetry ahead of tribute
"You must find out as much as you can about whom you are,
what you're doing and what it all means," Kunitz says during
the interview. "To answer those questions, you've justified
your being around."
A published poet for three-quarters of a century, Kunitz is
slowed, but steady, noting proudly that "I still have a
life" as he looks forward to completing new poems and to
hearing what his peers say in tribute about him. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Christian
themes found in galaxy far, far away
When the new "Star Wars" film opens Thursday, there's a
spiritual reason people will go.
They're intrigued by evil and the dark side, says Dick Staub,
author of "Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters"
($16.95; Jossey-Bass).
"A lot of younger people especially have a strong
understanding of the dark side," he says. "They find
that when they try to pursue the right path they're irresistibly
drawn to the dark side."
...
Staub explored why so many people connected with spiritual themes
in "Star Wars" films. And he also wanted to connect the
films to Christianity.
That's partly because "Star Wars" is usually associated
with Eastern religion.
"The Force" is usually linked to ideas from the Chinese
religion Taoism. In Taoism, the universe is constructed of energy
which one must become in harmony with. Yoda and Obi-wan Kenobi
are spiritual mentors who are often compared to Hindu gurus and
Buddhist monks.
But Staub -- who has a popular spiritual blog Web site
dickstaub.com -- wanted to connect "Star Wars" to
Christian themes.
"There's the perception sometimes in
~ ~ ~
Film
on Dalai Lama ready for US premiere
Kolkata, May 8: 'Impermanence', the documentary on the Dalai Lama
by eminent filmmaker Gautam Ghose, is ready for its
Still enamoured about his experience with the extraordinary man
"because he is so different from most of us", Ghose
recalled how the Dalai Lama always talked about his aversion to
human follies like jealousy, greed and violence that can only
lead to misery and advocated compassion for every fellow human
being.
"As he wrapped a chadar each on me and the Italian producer
of the film Sergio Scapagnini after the docu-feature's special
screening in
The
In the
~ ~ ~
Spiritual
Activism Conference: Tikkun, an international, interfaith
community, is hosting a spiritual activism conference in
California.
Spiritual Activism Conference
Berkeley, Calif.
July 20 – 23
Tikkun, an international, interfaith community, will host a
spiritual activism conference, July 20 – 23 in Berkeley,
Calif. to create a network of progressive, spiritual activists.
The conference will include workshops on: science, technology and
spirituality; the economy; nonviolence and anti-war activism;
reproductive rights; sexuality; the environment; globalization;
law and social change; and building a spiritual politics within
civil rights, feminist, gay rights, labor and green movements.
The organizers want to create a network of progressive activists
that will compel institutions to maximize love, peace and other
virtues as they maximize money and power. Speakers will include
Rabbi Michael Lerner and theologian John Cobb.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, of the Tikkun community, identifies two
main goals for the conference, “This is a powerful strategy
to stop the mis-appropriation of God and religion to support
wars, environmental irresponsibility, dismantling of programs for
the poor in favor of a preferential option for the rich, and
assaults on liberals and secular people.”
The second goal of this conference “will be a rethinking of
the relationship between science and religion/spirituality in the
context of liberal/progressive culture with its deep
religio-phobia,” he said.
Sponsors for this event include The Peace and Conflict Studies
Program of the
For more information and registration e-mail Joe Fischel, the
assistant to Rabbi Lerner at Joe@tikkun.org or visit
www.tikkun.org/community/spiritual_activism_conference.
Jennifer Cousins is an editorial intern at Science and Theology
News
~ ~ ~
School
Offers New Degree in Spirituality
By Jennifer Siegel
Rabbi Yakov Travis has a message for spiritual seekers: Come down
from that mountaintop, move to
Travis, a professor at Cleveland's Laura and Alvin Siegal College
of Judaic Studies, has created
"This is about [the students'] own spiritual journey,"
said Travis, who was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate of
The centerpiece of the accredited two-year program is an
intensive seminar that meets three mornings per week, based on
the model of the beit midrash, or study hall, found at
traditional yeshivot. The students also take conventional
academic courses, including classes in rabbinic theology and
Jewish education, and complete apprenticeships at Jewish schools
and organizations throughout the city. Participants and teachers
join together once a month for Sabbath celebrations that often
feature impromptu jam sessions with guitar-playing students.
Travis drew on the hybrid nature of his own educational pedigree
in conceiving the program, which is officially titled
"Ruach: The Jewish Spirituality Master's Degree." With
a doctorate in Jewish thought from Brandeis University and a
decade of study at various Orthodox yeshivot in Jerusalem, he has
sought to combine the communal, personal feel of the traditional
beit midrash with the nondenominational openness and rigor of
academia. Until now, he said, this pairing has only existed at
the more liberal rabbinical schools, which excluded Jews who were
not seeking ordination.
Six of the program's first students are set to graduate in just a
few weeks. Several are planning for careers in Jewish education
or communal life, including Jeremy Goldberg, who said the program
transformed him from someone with little knowledge of Judaism to
someone planning to pursue a rabbinical degree.
"The spiritual searching I've been doing for the past 10
years through Eastern religions, and African religions, and
different kinds of California religions," fell away and
"all of a sudden the world of Judaism got opened up and it's
a beautiful, amazing, deep, poetic tradition," Goldberg
said. "It's exciting to want to share that with other
people. What I love to do is help other people to have the tools
to really enjoy their Judaism, to infuse it with their own
creativity, their own voice."
~ ~ ~
Movie
captures spirituality of a diverse human family
May 13, 2005
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
I'm a skeptical journalist, but I was swept away by their
film, which is a refreshing assembly of the wise and sometimes
funny comments about faith that they gathered over several years.
What's the film's message? Well, it takes 79 minutes on screen to
answer that. To get a sense of the innovative nature of the
project, though, baby boomers might recall the first time they
watched "Easy Rider."
Please, don't get me wrong. Their new movie, "ONE," has
nothing to do with motorcycles or marijuana. But watching
"ONE," I thought back to that naïve, shoestring
project that Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda cooked up in 1969 that
proved to be a lightning rod for youthful aspirations.
Of course, Powers was only 12 that year and Carter was a toddler.
But the contemporary equivalent of heading out on the highway on
a pair of choppers in the late 1960s is the 2-year road trip
these guys made with a camera and a host of questions.
They turned out to be great documentarians. Whether interviewing
a near-legendary spiritual sage like Keating, or a multiply
pierced kid in dreadlocks on a street corner, Powers and Carter
treat each person with respect.
That compassion for everyone they meet on the road, which grows
on viewers until we begin to share their respect, is the film's
greatest evidence that people are, indeed, part of a single,
infinitely valuable human family. -read
more-