Desperately Seeking Nirvana

How do you compete with a rival network’s talk show? Stealing its star announcers is one way.

Orbit satellite channel was dealt a sharp blow last month when it lost its co-host and one of its most popular segment hosts when Nirvana left the anchor seat and Hussein El-Imam dropped his popular cooking segment. Within a matter of days, the two showed up on state-owned Channel 2’s nightly interview show El-Beit Beitak.

Now-solo host Amr Adeeb fired back by booking superstars including Adel Imam to spice up the program throughout Ramadan.

Meanwhile, Nirvana’s transition has not been painless. It’s rumored that her departure was triggered by increasing differences between her and Adeeb over her allegedly pro-Mubarak and pro-National Democratic Party politics, culminating in a program where she laid into Ayman Nour, Mubarak’s opponent in the recent presidential elections.

Despite her success on Orbit, Nirvana has been slammed since the day she moved to Egyptian TV, with detractors claiming she’s vain, silly and undeserving of the position. Critics also claim that she started her new job at El-Beit Beitak by refusing to appear on screen with any other host; she then actually asked Anis Mansour on air, “So, how do you think I’m doing?”

Ashraf Talaat Hussein El-Imam: Bursting with flavor

However, she later went on air with the program’s original Three Musketeers — Mahmoud Saad, Motaz El-Dimerdash, and Tamer Amin — saying “We’re all one big Happy Family.”

In short order, she then welcomed First Lady Suzanne Mubarak to the show for a talk. Detractors, shut your mouths.

Chaos and progress do battle at the Supreme Council for Antiquities

The disappearance of three small statues from the basement of the Egyptian Museum in the last week of September had newspapers in a tizzy well into October. Although the pieces were discovered in mid-October, the fact that maintenance workers had smuggled the three artifacts out of the museum in burlap sacks revealed a security problem of the first order: The unprotected basement of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Sqaure houses over 60,000 pieces of varying importance, to say nothing of hundreds of thousands more at storage magazines around the nation.

Ashraf Talaat Amr Adeeb: Happy now?

According to Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), that negligence has grown from 100 years of bureaucracy and corruption. Hawass points out that as bad as the basement is, the same applies to a number of storage areas and buildings — the Saqqara storage building, for instance, is suffering from rot and many of the pieces have turned to powder.

The ultra-high-profile Hawass, who has been in office for the past three years, says that the “basement development company” (at which the two culprits who stole the pieces from the Egyptian Museum were employed) had been in charge of the museum for the past six years. He claims that the minute he took over, he started an ambitious project to document and register the neglected antiquities of the basement and that his team has so far succeeded in registering one-third of the pieces.

The company in charge of the basement has since been relieved of its duties, and a new security company has been engaged. The new outfit is set to sign a contract with a British company, which will take over the task of registering the monuments and organizing the pieces.

Hawass adds that a new antiquities’ law, expected to come up for debate when the People’s Assembly convenes after this month’s elections, will drastically increase the penalties for theft and smuggling of antiquities.

While the Ministry of Culture was trying hard to hush up the basement scandal, another incident took place that fed the flames even more. A statue of King Bebi I fell and broke as workers were moving it. The bronze statue had been discovered in 1898 by a German Egyptologist and was restored by a German team in 1996.

Dana Smillie Rosetta and stone

Amid all the chaos going on at the SCA, Hawass has declared that the Council has decided to produce a documentary on the daily lives of Ancient Egyptians. The film is inspired by the Pharaonic Village show, and aims at addressing some of the misconceptions regarding life in Ancient Egypt. The film will also show how the ancestors thought and conceived new tools.

Aiming at turning the beautiful city of Rosetta into an open museum, the SCA has undertaken a huge project that includes the restoration of 22 Ottoman houses and a number of mosques.

Hawass says the $4.5 million project will take three years to complete. One of the SCA’s main challenges, however, is the problem of underground water, which is endangering the Azul Bath and the Zaghloul Mosque.

Also last month, the SCA’s restoration of the Prince Taz palace in Khalifa was opened by First Lady Suzanne Mubarak. The palace, built in 1353 by Prince Seif Eddin Taz in the Bahariyya Mamluk era, was being used as a Ministry of Education storage facility, but the 1992 earthquake severely damaged it.

The ministry initially decided to demolish the palace, but later decided to try to restore it. The palace is to be turned into a cultural center.

Farouk Shehata Art by Farouk Shehata

This year, the Alexandria Art Biennale, scheduled from December 1 through February 28, will celebrate its golden jubilee and for the first time is planning to reach out to new audiences by organizing events, exhibitions and shows all over Alexandria. Venues will include the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, cultural palaces, creativity centers and the Qaitbay Fort.

But as the biennale planners prepare for its biggest cycle yet, Farouk Shehata, professor at the faculty of fine arts (and an artist himself), who was an important force behind the appearance of several important Alexandrian artists in the 1980s and 1990s who studied in his studio, lies in the hospital.

Shehata is suffering from complications of renal failure.

Sparks flew at the Opera House last month over the planning of the opera Don Giovanni, scheduled for February. The Cairo Opera Company, headed by Hassan Kami, had agreed upon the popular Arabic translation by Aly Sadek, a hit when the Don last trod the boards in 1989.

Imagine their surprise when Nader Abbassi, head of the Cairo Opera Orchestra, insisted it be done in Italian. Upon being informed that this was not his decision to make, Abbassi issued an ultimatum: “No Italian, no orchestra.”

Will the Don swagger onstage to a tinkling piano? Will Abbassi take ‘his’ orchestra and head for the hills? Tune in for the next episode

Meanwhile the Cairo Opera Orchestra is trying to deal with another interfering party, this time in the form of Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni. It seems they were rehearsing, for a gala concert, a song with abstract lyrics (“You are the source of all great things, you are”) that could be interpreted to mean the Motherland, a beloved, or what-you-will.

Hosni reportedly requested that the word “Mubarak” be inserted into the song. Abbassi allegedly refused. The envoy returned to the minister and the minister insisted. Abbassi reportedly promised to do so, but apparently didn’t. Another envoy went running with the news to the minister, who allegedly thundered, “How dare he! I’ll send him back to Vienna where he came from!” then rushed off to pay a surprise visit to the rehearsal.

Matt Moyer Farouk Hosni

It is said that as soon as Abbassi saw Hosni walking in, the choir was hastily notified and a hearty “Mubarak” rang out

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa is due to inaugurate the 12th International Conference of Lisan Al-Arab (the Arab Language), a society that works on the protection and development of the Arabic language.

This year’s conference, scheduled to be held in Cairo on November 14, focuses on translation as an important way to preserve Arab culture and spread it to non-Arabic speaking nations.

Over in Alexandria, another venue has also been closed down, this time the Greco-Roman Museum.

Does that remind anyone of what happened to Royal Jewelry Museum in the seaside capital recently? Officials maintain the closures are temporary and cite the reason as “improvements” to the historical buildings, including adding on an extra floor.

Architecture activists are in an uproar over the proposed modifications, claiming that the historical structures should be protected in their own right and not tampered with.

The Hanager Arts Center is in a pickle. As per Civil Defense requirements, the government commissioned a private contractor to perform LE 200,000 worth of renovations on the avant-garde playhouse to bring it up to fire and safety code, including adjustments to the sprinkler systems and clearing away debris of old performances.

Mohsen Allam Greek or Roman?

The only problem? When the bill arrived, the government refused to pay up. The contracting company retaliated by refusing to put the final touches on the repairs and issue the requisite certificates. Hanager is currently closed until the whole mess is sorted out, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

Hala Sidki and Youssra have reportedly paid the Cultural Development Fund a handsome sum to rent out Walid Aouni’s dance school to hold dance rehearsals for an upcoming movie.

Can you do that? I’ve always wanted to live on the grounds of the Opera House grounds

Lebanese heartthrob Ragheb Alama wowed his audience with a spectacular performance in Mauritania last month. The show, the first of its kind for the country, drew in crowds of eager fans.

A huge advertising campaign was launched for the event under the title of “Lailet Eid” (A Holiday Night).

Alama sang alongside popular Mauritanian singers, in an effort to show solidarity with Mauritanians after the recent unfortunate events faced by the fellow Arab country.

Tougher. Grittier. Hipper. This is what film executives hope British actor Daniel Craig will be, having chosen him as the sixth James Bond out of 200 actors from the British Commonwealth. Craig topped Colin Farrell, Orlando Bloom and Clive Owen as well as a slew of unknowns.

Courtesy of Ragheb Alama Ragheb Alama and co.

Craig, 37, will start filming Casino Royale, an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first novel and the 21st James Bond film to date, in January.

Away from his Bond incarnation, Craig also stars in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Munich, about the aftermath of the 1972 Olympics in which Palestinians murdered Israeli athletes, as well as in two upcoming films, Have You Heard?, an adaptation of Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood, and The Visiting, about a Washington psychiatrist (Nicole Kidman) dealing with an alien epidemic.

British playwright Harold Pinter, 75, won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature last month.

Born in London to a Jewish tailor, Pinter is considered the greatest living writer of British drama.

My name is Craig ... Daniel Craig

He debuted with The Room (1957), followed by The Birthday Party (1957) and his breakthrough came with The Caretaker (1959), followed by The Homecoming (1964).

Some critics divide his work in three phases — psychological realism, lyricism and political theater — while others argue that most of Pinter’s work (including No Man’s Land, 1974, and Ashes to Ashes, 1996) resists such categorizations.

The playwright has always been a defender of human rights — and recently a critic of the war in Iraq. His trademarks include minimal plot, unpredictable dialogue and the tendency to reveal people’s daily power relations and trapped lives.

This genre, which is similar to the theatre of absurd, but has been defined as ‘comedy of menace,’ is now referred to as ‘Pinteresque.’

The Nobel Academy declared that Pinter’s work “uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.”

Associated Press Harold Pinter

In other book news, John Banville scooped up £50,000 (LE 344,000) in prize money as well as this year’s Man Booker Prize for best literary work last month after his novel The Sea surprised bookies by coming in first. The contest was expected to be a run-off between bookmakers’ favorite Julian Barnes, former winner Kazuo Ishiguro, and Zadie Smith.

“The judges salute all the shortlisted novels,” said jury chairman John Sutherland, who cast the deciding vote. “It was a very difficult decision, but in an extraordinarily closely contested last round, in which the judges felt the level of the shortlisted novels was as high as it can ever have been, they have agreed to award the Man Booker Prize to John Banville’s The Sea, a masterly study of grief, memory and love recollected.”

The Sea tells the tale of a middle-aged art historian mourning the recent death of his wife from cancer. He returns to the Irish seaside town where he spent a childhood summer and recalls the traumatic events which have haunted him ever since.

Banville, 59, is the first Irishman to win the prize since it was scooped up by Roddy Doyle in 1993. This is Banville’s 14th novel. His 1989 novel The Book Of Evidence was shortlisted for the Booker Prize but lost out to Ishiguro’s The Remains Of The Day.

If you’ve spent the summer wondering whether Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ engagement is true love or a media stunt to promote their respective blockbusters, here is new gossip material. Holmes is allegedly expecting a baby, according to People magazine.

But is it a boy or a girl? Don’t worry, Cruise will probably let us know as soon as he does, maybe by jumping up on Oprah Winfrey’s couch again as he did to announce, “I’m in love!”

Aseries of movies about Iraq are set to hit the big screen, among them No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah with Harrison Ford, Jarhead with Jamie Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal, and a third movie starring Spider-Man’s Kirsten Dunst as Marla Ruzicka, a 28-year-old aid worker killed in a suicide attack in Baghdad last April.

Ruzicka worked for the NGO Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict to document the number of civilians injured by US forces and helped their families win compensation from the US.

Meanwhile, in Italy, director Roberto Benigni has just released a romantic comedy called La Tigre e la Neve (The Tiger and the Snow), also set in war-torn Iraq. Benigni also plays the protagonist, a Rome university lecturer and poet in love with a writer (played by his wife, Nicoletta Braschi) who ends up in coma in Iraq.

Leading Algerian journalist Tahar Ouettar has been awarded this year’s UNESCO Sharjah prize for Arab culture. Ouettar, 82, has penned a number of novels including The Ace, The Donkey’s Wedding and The Candle and Dark Tunnels, which laid the foundations for Al-Jamahir and Al-Ahar magazines. He has been president of the cultural association Aljahidhiya since 1989.

Ouettar shares the award with French academic Michel Lagarde. According to UNESCO the award was “created by the Executive Board of UNESCO with funds provided by the Sharjah government in the United Arab Emirates in 1998 to honor individuals or groups that have contributed in some significant way to the development, dissemination and promotion of Arab culture in the world, as well as the preservation of Arab cultural heritage.”

A lifelong student of Arabic language and Islam, Lagarde, 66, has translated into French Kitâb al-Mawâqif by Abdel-Qadir Al-Jazairi, one of the lea ders of Sufism in the 19th century. He teaches at the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) in Rome, and is a member of the Society of Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers).

Rigid religious mores? Says who?

The award, which carries a monetary prize of $25,000 for each winner, was given by Koïchiro Matsuura, UNESCO director general.

Lebanese singing sensation Nicole Saba will team up with Egyptian singer Mohamed Mounir to play leading roles in the upcoming film Raq El-Habib (A Lover’s Gentleness), directed by Khaled Yousef.

According to the Qatar-based daily Al Raya, the love story will feature a duet for the two singers, in addition to four singles. Filming has already begun, with producer Mamdouh Shahin budgeting LE 5.5 million for the production.

In other news, Saba expects to finally hear a verdict from Cairo’s Northern Court against production company Digital Sound. Saba claims that the company failed to meet the set conditions of the contract she signed with them in July 2004, which ultimately affected her singing career.

Courtesy of arteeast Rigid religious mores? Says who?

The two-year contract allegedly stated that the company must produce an album for Saba every year that is no less than 45 minutes long and is responsible for sponsoring all her live concerts as well as executing her promotional campaigns.

Saba alleges that Digital Sound failed to meet any of its obligations, despite her persistent requests, and has asked the court to fine the company LE 1.5 million for breaking terms in addition to $1 million in compensation.

ILove Cinema, a comedic critique of rigid religious mores by Egyptian filmmaker Ossama Fawzi, has been chosen as the opening film at the 1st CinemaEast Film Festival, scheduled for November 4–10 in New York.

The festival will also present a special screening program entitled “Gender, Desire and Feminism: Vignettes from Egypt.”

The list of 55 films from the Middle East and its diaspora due to be screened includes: Khab e Talkh (Bitter Dream) by Mohsen Amiryoussefi, a dark comedy on the cult of death in post-revolutionary Iran; Kamal Tabrizi’s mystical fable Yek Teke Nan (A Piece of Bread), also from Iran; the Moroccan movies Darb Moulay Cherif (The Black Chamber) by Hassan Benjelloun and Dhakirah Moatakalah (Memory in Detention) by Jillali Ferhati; and Araïs al-Teïn (Clay Dolls) by Tunisian Nouri Bouzid.

For more information visit www.arteeast.org.

Also in New York, the New York Arab American Comedy Festival has been stretched to five days this year and is set to take place November 13-17.

The festival will kick off with two nights of comedic theater performances featuring six new theater works never seen before and including the event’s first-ever musical. The shows will tackle issues ranging from Palestine to Arab dating, racial profiling and religious fundamentalism from a humorous perspective.

The festival will also showcase top Arab-American stand up. et