Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev may be learning about a speaking tour bonus: money. Gorby is on a 12-day visit in Japan and is meeting just about everyone, including Emperor Akihito and Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. Gorbachev`s main host is the country`s best-selling newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, for which he`ll be writing a regular column; the country`s second largest paper, the Asahi Shimbun, is another host. Officials of both papers neither confirm nor deny that Gorbachev will leave Japan $300,000 to $400,000 richer than when he and his wife, Raisa, arrived.
STRADIVARIUS SONG A Tokyo electronics company, Forval Corp., is offering free use of a Stradivarius violin, via a contest, to help gifted artists let their talents shine. Though the company refuses to say how much it paid for its 1697 Stradivarius, the violins can cost in the millions of dollars. This one was bought from Norbert Brainin, first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet. The firm`s fax number in Japan is 011-81-33-498-0164.
BARDOT: BOYCOTT SPAIN Former film star Brigitte Bardot is asking people to stay away from Spain and the Expo 92 exhibition in Seville to protest the killing of animals at Spanish village fiestas every year. ”This is a country which remains extremely barbaric,” Bardot told a news conference. She and other animal rights activists are protesting such events captured on film as horse riders tearing the heads from live geese hung on a rope. A Calendar of Barbarity was released by the European Federation for Nature and Animals, with a summer schedule of about 2,000 fiestas where animals would die this year.
Bullfighting shows and other such events are widely followed in Spain, where they are viewed as part of tradition and culture.
RABBI RULES ON DOLLAR Israel`s chief rabbi, Mordechai Eliahu, says people should keep U.S. dollars in their pockets when in a restroom or an unclean place. His office in Jerusalem said Wednesday that an American Jew raised the question because the bills say: ”In God We Trust.” The rabbi`s ruling said that because of the motto, dollars must be treated the same way as holy documents and not be exposed to filth.
OPERATIC INVECTIVE Things are sizzling at Milan`s La Scala between the orchestra and the ballet dancers. The latest dustup began during rehearsals for Natalia Makarova`s ballet ”Bayadere,” which opens Thursday. Angry about talking and cackling from the orchestra pit, the head of the corps de ballet demanded quiet. ”But instead of heeding the call, the orchestra rose up in a squalid cacophony. Insults and even bad words were applied to the head of the corps,” says the dancers` union in a statement.
