BY BEN WINTERS
Amidst a flood of dispiriting stories about the cultural treasures disappearing
from the National Iraqi Museum, a handful of heartening items bubbled
up about another art form making a Baghdadi comeback.
Al Rasheed Theatre by several accounts is back in business with a vengeance.
The Al Rasheed is “Baghdad’s most famous playhouse, and all
the Iraqis I spoke to described it as a national treasure.” That’s
Phillip Robertson talking—he’s been Salon.com’s man in
Baghdad since before the war began. In a long, narrative piece set on
May 4 in the chaotic post-war Iraqi capital, he describes a trip to see
“the first play performed in Baghdad since the fall of the city,
and the first uncensored play in Iraq in decades.”
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They
Passed By Here
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The play was called
They Passed By Here. (In a wire service article about the performance
from AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS, it’s called They Passed by There.) Robertson
describes They Passed by Here’s action: “a furious burst of
moments. A Painter painted on a canvas and a Sculptor sculpted. A Poet
played a guitar and a pair of Dancers danced on a scaffold. A Filmmaker
crouched in the coils of a print that had been destroyed in the looting
of the theatre. The Artists worked away in the background while a Dictator
castigated a Soldier to help him conquer the moon.” And so on.
The AFP report also contains a lengthy description of piece, and draws
explicit links between the content of the play and the harsh realities
of Iraqi life: “Suddenly, a man marches toward the audience as if
he is ready to jump off the stage. The rigid walk is that of Uday Hussein,
the ousted president’s once high-living elder son and military confidante.”
No matter what it all meant (the play doesn’t sound particularly
narrative), the audience was apparently very affected by the play: “Iraqis
in the theatre wept,” writes Robertson “One man, an Iraqi poet,
was so overcome he had to leave; he buried his head in his hands outside
the smashed doors of the theatre.”
AFP says the performance troupe was called Mordhuh; Robertson says they
were called Najeen Group, and quotes one group member explaining that
Najeen means 'survivor.’
Nitty Gritty In Ditty City
Did you here the news? SB 1034 passed California’s Senate Judiciary
Committee! Yahoo! Rock and roll forever! Wait, what?
How about we let the good people at Music Industry News Network explain:
“SB 1034 declares that the obligation to accurately account for royalties
earned under a recording contract is a fiduciary duty.”
What that means, writes Jim Wasserman for the ASSOCIATED PRESS—in
the most straightforward article on the bill—is that it “would
require music companies to act in the financial interest of their artists.”
Ken Murray, the Culver City legislator responsible for the bill, touts
it hence: “Under the current structure, there is no disincentive
for record companies to properly account for and pay royalties, therefore,
bad behavior by companies is rewarded. SB 1034 simply makes it law that
record companies must accurately report royalties to the artist.”
The bill, adds REUTERS, includes “a measure that would prevent artists
from being tied to record companies for more than seven years.”
This stuff ain’t sexy, but the fact is the music business is a business,
and a big one. The Recording Industry Association of America opposes SB
1034, which is one clear sign it’s a good thing for artists. The
bill, says RIAA president Cary Sherman is unnecessary because the individual
record companies already “have outlined actions to reform and make
their systems more transparent to artists.” (The only big record
companies that haven’t done so yet are Sony and EMI).
Sherman also whined about the effect the law might have on recording industry
attempts to battle back online piracy: “It would basically mean that
record companies would no longer be able to offer any innovative business
models at the peak of our piracy problems.”
Speaking of innovative business models, Apple’s new online music
service has been doing insanely well. They sold a million songs in the
first week, a mark they had hoped to make in a month. And that’s
before non-Mac users are able to access the service, which ain’t
gonna happen for months yet.
Here’s a calm, unbiased report from Ron Harris in the AP: “It’s
too bad 97 percent of you will have to wait until the end of the year
to check out Apple’s new iTunes Music Store. It flat out rocks!”
Say Hey Fey
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Tina
Fey
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Saturday Night Live
wunderkind, and one-time Second City superstar Tina Fey was pronounced
to be very rich in entertainment columns all over the country early this
month, when it was announced that “'Saturday Night Live’s’
head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor has inked a $4 million deal that
extends her contract for at least two more years.”
That’s from E! Online, which also refers to her as the “geek-chic
gal” and explains that the $4 million will also cover “the development
of a prime-time comedy for NBC, which would be shepherded by Lorne Michaels’
production company.”
Fey also recently landed on PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S 50 most beautiful people
list, so all in all it’s been a good run for her.
By the way, in many of the same entertainment columns touting the fabulous
Fey (like the one in the DENVER POST) it was briefly noted that “Rock
guitarist Pete Townshend, co-founder of The Who, was cleared Wednesday
of possessing pornographic images of children.”
Which is great news for Townshend (and the children!), though the British
coppers are still putting Pete on a national register of sex offenders,
because he did confess to having accessed kiddie porn sites in 1999.
It’s always funny how much ink a story gets when someone is accused
of child pornography, and how little when they’re cleared of it.
The DENVER POST column, for example, moves quickly on to Elton John’s
new musical version of The Vampire Lestat.