Sun-Sentinel
February 03 1999
By Dale Koppel

Advice From A Star

Live long and prosper -- and take good photographs.

That could have been Leonard Nimoy's message at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre, 55 NE Second Ave. in Delray Beach.

Leonard Nimoy? Spock from the Starship Enterprise? Yes, that Leonard Nimoy. Bet you didn't know he's a photographer.

(...)

After the gallery walk, Nimoy met with 15 children from the centre's two therapeutic photography programs: FOTOFriends, for children ages 10 to 12 involved in Alateen; and Project I See, for children ages 11 to 17 who are under court supervision because of abuse, neglect or abandonment.

"The kids in the program can express their feelings through the photographs they take," said Denise Felice, professional photographer and instructor of Project I See.

Nimoy shared his own thoughts about photography with the group.

"I love the way a camera can capture an expression or a shadow," he told them. "You can even stop motion with a camera. Best of all, a camera can keep an image forever."

For the kids in Project I See, whose lives have been in turmoil, keeping something you care about "forever" is significant.

Adventures in Geekdom

Lines.

LINES!

Lines to get into lines for other lines!

That is what stands out in my mind when someone asks me about the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. Followed very quickly by “fucking awesome!”

Leonard Nimoy!

Brent Spiner!

Billy Dee Williams!

Malcolm MacDowell and so on.

It was truly awesome.

It was my first Con of any kind ever. So I didn’t know what to expect really. I figured with “Advance tickets” I wouldn’t have to stand in line for an hour to get in. But I did. We figured out where and when the Leonard Nimoy panel would be and made plans to get in line for that.

The panel was awesome. He seemed like a very friendly down to earth guy. Funny. Not something I expected from Leonard Nimoy, to be funny, but he was. To be honest, I don’t really remember a lot of what he said, I know what he talked about, but as for actual words…they seem to have escaped me. I can say with 90% confidence that the rumour that the Leonard Nimoy in Vulcan was a double, is in fact false. It was @TheRealNimoy (his twitter name), cause it’s the real Nimoy. get it? Yeah…you get it. :)

(...)

Back to the Leonard Nimoy signing. Now I do have a slight gripe about this. I realize that there was no posed photography allowed, and I also get that were were literally thousands of people wanting a signature, but we aren’t cattle. Lady in front of me who asked if I could get a picture of you getting your autograph, here is what happened:

We handed over our cash and Communicator to be signed while you were getting yours signed. I looked in the view finder…GAH! Its the big lens!! All I got was a REAL up close of Mr. Nimoy. I moved back. Barely got you and him in the view finder, body guard snapped at me for “taking too long” (roughly 20seconds), and that’s when I moved, and bumped into someone and pressed the button to take the picture. Plus I was all excited. If you are reading this, I do sincerely apologize for the AWFUL picture I took of you getting your autograph. I feel terrible. If it’s any consolation, I didn’t get a picture of us getting ours either.

The people working Mr. Nimoy’s table were very GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO!!! It felt very rushed. They were so fast that he had signed our box before we had gotten to him. They handed the box to the wrong person! Like..calm down people. I managed a “Thank you very much sir.” as we walked past him. P’s & Q’s are important people! Celebrity or not. I don’t blame Leonard Nimoy or the staff, I understand the need to keep the line moving…but…

Anyway…we got it signed and it was awesome to even be that close to one of the pioneers of Sci-Fi, a legendary pop culture icon.

(...)

All in all, an excellent experience. I really enjoyed myself. Lots of fun. A gamut of emotion. Got some cool stuff, and it was nice to be able to geek out without being thought of as socially retarded. :P

Thank you organizers of the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. It was an amazing experience. I will definitely go back, but, I think I’m gonna aim for VIP tickets next time.

To quote random guy who asked Leonard Nimoy a question:

“Hello Mr. Nimoy *pause* I’m sorry, *slight pause* you’ll have to excuse me, I’m totally just geekin out here”

We all were my friend.

We all did.

Nimoy to host Jewish music shows on XM Satellite Radio
Associated Press
Sept. 30, 2004, 9:10AM

NEW YORK -- Former "Star Trek" actor Leonard Nimoy is beaming onto the radio.

"American Jewish Music From the Milken Archive With Leonard Nimoy" will explore scared and secular Jewish music from the Milken Archive of Jewish American Music during 13 two-hour episodes on WFMT Radio Network stations and XM Satellite Radio.

The series will air beginning Sept. 30.

"I grew up speaking Yiddish at home in Boston and hearing this music during services at synagogue and at social events where my uncle and four cousins played klezmer music," Nimoy said in a statement Friday. "This program and this music makes me feel very much at home."

The series' musical selections will range from biblical epics set to music by Kurt Weill, Jewish legends in tone poems, film scores and operas, symphonies and concertos based on Jewish themes, Yiddish theater songs and world premieres of recently discovered Jewish compositions by Leonard Bernstein.

Source: Chron

The Jewish Daily Forward
By David Mermelstein
December 31, 2004

Listening to Classical on the ‘Cool’ Medium
On the Radio

The Milken programs, each running two hours, derive their contents from a series of Milken Archive CDs on the Naxos label. (Currently, 30 titles are available of 52 projected.) Added to the music is Nimoy’s relatively dry commentary and excerpts from interviews in which conductor Gerard Schwarz questions Neil Levin, the archive’s artistic director.

Unusually, the series often presents works in their entirety, a gesture serious music lovers will welcome. Those interested in just sampling Jewish music might find listening to more than 40 minutes of Kurt Weill’s “The Eternal Road” a chore, but no one will discount this series’ value in making available music rarely heard and little known.

The Bible Stories program, for instance, features that bizarre collaboration known as “The Genesis Suite,” with music by several 20th-century composers, including Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Conducted by Schwarz, the Berlin Radio Symphony performs the piece, joined by the Ernst Senff Chorus. Barbara Feldon, Fritz Weaver and Tovah Feldshuh are among the narrators.

A program of concertos offers unfairly neglected works by Joseph Achron, Joel Hoffman, Paul Schoenfield, Sholom Secunda and Jacob Weinberg. And the incidental music that Yehudi Wyner wrote for “The Mirror,” a play by Isaac Bashevis Singer, enlivens the klezmer program. There are even two hours devoted to Bernstein’s music, nearly all of it unfamiliar, though none of it conducted by the composer.

Unfortunately, the series is not flawless. Nimoy’s narration, while authoritative, is muddily delivered. And the interpolated comments from Schwarz and Levin need drastic cutting. Not only do the “interviews” ramble, but they are also self-serving, undermining the very real value of this series.

Sun Sentinel
February 08, 2003
By James D. Davis

Nimoy Puts Feminine Face To Judaism

"A number of religions have feminine adjuncts to deities -- a nurturing, mothering, intercessor aspect of the divine," Nimoy, 71, says from Los Angeles. "As a monotheistic religion, Judaism doesn't need that. But it does see feminine aspects to the deity."

In Nimoy's book, the presence takes the shape of a woman -- actually, eight models over the eight years of the shooting project. The women stand, stride, recline, even dance: One of them was a ballerina. Some of them gaze downward, attempting to show the Spirit hovering over humanity.

Many of the models are nude. One is pregnant. Others are partly draped in glowing shrouds, a purposeful reference to a biblical psalm that says of God, "Thou didst clothe thyself with light, as with a garment."

A few of the models wear prayer shawls and phylacteries, a brazen challenge to traditional Jews who would reserve those artifacts to men.

Nimoy's broad goal in the book: "If Shekhina is a creature of Spirit in the flesh, I want to explore all the things that women experience."

(...)

Thus far, though, Nimoy's vision has survived. Negative reactions to the book and exhibit have been few, he says, adding that most women have voiced elation at seeing feminine divinity. But some of the objections have been notable.

In Seattle, the Jewish Federation withdrew its invitation to a fund-raiser after scheduling Nimoy months in advance, afraid that potential donors would be offended. In Detroit, the JCC asked Nimoy not to attend its book fair. Reform synagogues in both areas got him to speak on their premises instead.

Nimoy seems most incensed by the JCC in Atlanta. The group used the cover photo of his book on a brochure for upcoming events, a photo of a young woman in a prayer shawl. Someone retouched the photo, to hide the dark spot of a nipple showing through the thin cloth. That drew a protest from Nimoy on artistic grounds.

Underneath many of the objections, he suspects, is a patriarchal attitude against giving women spiritual authority. "This book says that there is a power in the female aspect of the deity. And some people are uncomfortable with that.

“We were like brothers,” says Nimoy of his co-star Shatner. “Sibling rivalry, you know. And sometimes it was very funny, sometimes it got tense, but it was always interesting. I think it helped.”

Nimoy says the balance the writers struck between the flamboyant, emotional Captain Kirk and the monotone, scientific Spock helped catapult “Star Trek” to critical acclaim.
“Bill [Shatner] brought a tremendous energy to the show,” Nimoy says. “What he did was attack a scene and attack the action, and I, as Spock, kind of cocked an eyebrow and made my comment quietly.”

(...)

“The show valued education, it valued teamwork, and it valued loyalty. [“Star Trek”] was forward-looking, always, just by its very nature. And I think those things appealed,” says Nimoy.

More here.

What, in your research and conversations, were you most surprised to discover about Star Trek and Roddenberry?

Trinklein: One thing that I think was pretty cool was to see some of the people who worked with Roddenberry on Star Trek, who were the pioneers with him on it, in a way. You had Shatner and Nimoy, who were still early in their careers when they did the show. We have Shatner talking about (having been) on Howdy Doody and we see Nimoy in Zombies of the Stratosphere and see Shatner in Alexander. It’s kind of cool to include those clips. I think a lot of people have heard about these things, but maybe haven’t seen those clips. So, Bill and Leonard talk about those credits a little bit and then we see the clips. That’s fun. The thing that surprised me the most, but it’s not in the show because it was too long a story, but I found an old Gunsmoke episode that Nimoy had done, in which he played an Indian. He did this just a few weeks before Star Trek started. You look at it and you go, “That’s Spock.” He has the same attitude, the same emotional approach, the same kind of feel as the Spock character. And I asked Leonard, “Did this Indian character influence how you portrayed Spock?” He said, “I never thought about it, but it kind of did.” He played that Indian with the same kind of “still waters run deep” feeling that he brought to Spock.

Something else that interested me, aside from learning so much about the interracial kiss and what it meant, was how Shatner and Nichols tell the story about shooting the scene – and tell it so differently. They tell it totally differently. Their memories differ. I asked Leonard about it and he didn’t even want to weigh in on it because he had no memories of it. But it’s funny because Bill and Nichelle were there and their versions don’t have a lot in common.

(...)

It was fascinating to see Martin Landau talk about not playing Spock. How surprised were you that he agreed to sit down and discuss it?

Trinklein: I was surprised that he was so open about it and his comments about being glad that Leonard Nimoy got the part because Leonard was better suited for it. Viewers can draw whatever conclusion they want from that. But he was more than happy to talk about it.

Taped interview with the Star Trek actor on his being honored with an award, The Leonard Nimoy Angel Award by Company Of Angels Theater Company, he helped found. We also chat about Star Trek and Fringe.

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