Around the Arts

Visa woes cancel Cucho Valdes concert\nCHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- An Oct. 4 performance by Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist Chucho Valdes has been canceled because the federal government won't let the Cuban musician enter the United States. \nA new federal law enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prevented Valdes from getting the proper travel visa needed to embark on his American tour, which was scheduled for a stop at UNC-Chapel Hill next Friday. \nValdes was one of 22 Cuban musicians unable to obtain a visa in time to attend the Latin Grammy Awards in Los Angeles last week. Valdes won for best pop instrumental album, his first Grammy after decades of work. \nState Department officials said last week the performers weren't denied visas. Instead, they were required by a law enacted in May to clear a lengthy screening process, one that had not yet been completed. \nAt UNC, word came down late last week that Valdes, scheduled to kick off the Carolina Union's 2002-03 performance series, wasn't coming to town. \n"It was a huge problem, a scramble," said Don Luse, director of the Carolina Union. "As a result, we have rescheduled another performer."\nThe university quickly chose a salsa and jazz act, Ray Barretto and New World Spirit, to fill the spot. Tickets for the Valdes performance will be honored at the Barretto appearance. \nControversial Sept. 11 artwork removed\nNEW YORK -- An arts center has removed a window display of silhouettes depicting people who jumped or fell to their deaths in the World Trade Center attacks. \nThe Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning in Queens, New York said the artwork, which went up Sept. 11, was taken down on Tuesday because of complaints that it was insensitive. \nThe center had planned to show the work through Oct. 5. \nThe display -- placed in the window panes of the center's neo-Renaissance building -- is the second artwork depicting falling trade center victims to be removed in less than a week in New York. \n"I'm delighted and relieved. Taking it down was the appropriate thing to do," said Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. \nThe artist, Sharon Paz, said on her Web site: "My interest was to explore the moment of falling to bring the psychological human side of the event, the moment between life and death."\n"I think it is a strong piece, but I didn't mean in any way for it to be offensive or insensitive."\nLast Wednesday, a bronze statue of a naked woman in a somersault was removed from Rockefeller Center because of complaints. "Tumbling Woman," by Eric Fischl, had been on view about a week. \nCNN, ABC news talk about merger\nNEW YORK -- Executives have been discussing a merger of the CNN and ABC news operations, a deal that could help cut costs for troubled parent companies AOL Time Warner, Inc. and Walt Disney Co. \nBoth companies confirmed the talks, which were reported Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times, but said no deal was imminent. \nCNN, owned by AOL Time Warner, has held merger discussions with both ABC and CBS in recent years that bogged down over questions about control of the news divisions. \n"We've had conversations for the last 18 months and no deal has been reached,'' said Zenia Mucha, Disney spokeswoman. \nOne scenario being discussed would be to spin off ABC and CNN's news operations into a separate company. AOL Time Warner would own a majority stake, from two-thirds to three-quarters, with ABC's parent Disney owning the rest, according to the Times. \nThe two divisions would have a combined revenue of more than $1.6 billion, with more than $1 billion coming from CNN, the report said. \nRelations between ABC News and Disney have been tense due to the company's unsuccessful pursuit of David Letterman to take a late-night slot, upending ABC News' "Nightline." Some at ABC News felt undermined by those discussions. \nLance Bass back at Cosmonaut Center\nMOSCOW -- Pop star Lance Bass is back at Russia's cosmonaut center for a new training session, despite being excluded from the crew of a rocket heading to the international space station next month. \nThe 'N Sync singer, who was ordered to leave the Star City cosmonaut training ground earlier this month after failing to pay for the trip, has returned to the center outside Moscow, said Yuri Nikiforov, general director of Atlas Airspace. \n"He will not go in October for sure, but he just doesn't want to interrupt the program,'' Nikiforov said by telephone. He spoke after Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed official at the training center in Star City as saying officials there had decided Saturday to let Bass resume training. \nLast week, Russian space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov didn't deny Bass might return, but stressed that if he did he wouldn't be training for the October flight or any other space mission. \nBass began training in July, hoping to rocket away from Kazakhstan on Oct. 28, boosted by corporate sponsors and a seven-part television documentary. But TV producers failed to raise the estimated $20 million fare, and Russian space officials said on Sept. 3 that he would not be part of the crew. \nAt 23, Bass would have been the youngest person ever in space. He also would have been the third paying space tourist after California businessman Dennis Tito and South African Internet tycoon Mark Shuttleworth, who flew to the station on Russian rockets. \nJury sees video of Lennon with family\nNEW YORK -- A jury hearing Yoko Ono's case against a former assistant over her late husband's personal property watched home videos Tuesday showing John Lennon frolicking with his family in his final days. \nShot in the months before the former Beatle's 1980 murder by a deranged fan, the video was introduced at a federal trial in which Ono is accusing the former studio gofer and personal assistant of pilfering Lennon's stockpile of mementos for profit. \n"Oh, my God, it's beautiful," Lennon said off camera as he videotaped Yoko Ono and their son, Sean, then 5, rolling around on the waterfront lawn at their Long Island vacation home. \n"You're out of the shot," he said later. "You mind playing a little nearer to the camera?"\nThe video showed Frederic Seaman snapping pictures, which Ono's lawyers say was one of his official duties. \nOno, 69, sued Seaman in 1999, alleging he violated a confidentiality agreement by publishing the family photos. She also claims he profited by stealing mementos and selling them to collectors, which Seaman denies. \nTestifying for a second day, Ono accused Seaman of also raiding her late husband's wardrobe in the year following the former Beatle's death. \nThe lawsuit demands Seaman surrender the rights to 374 photos he took of Lennon, turn over about $75,000 from the sale of the rock legend's papers and pay unspecified damages.