Arts & Entertainment
Environmentalists urge end to CD boxes
By Jim Hanna
Senior Reporter
Many artists in the music industry have
taken high-profile positions in the recent re
birth of the environmental movement. Now,
the producers who distribute their music may
jump on the green bandwagon as well.
The National Association of Record Mer
chandisers (NARM) will meet next month and
may consider changes in the packaging of
compact discs, which many see as a waste of
paper products, said John McCallum, owner of
the Twisters record chain in Lincoln.
Currently, most CDs arc packaged in card
board containers that are much bigger than the
CD and case they contain. Recently, environ
mentalists have been calling for the elimina
tion of the so-called long box.
“They’re wasteful,” McCallum said. “We’re
the only country that continues to use them for
CDs There is definitely a move in the U.S. to
get rid of the long box.”
Dylan McCullough, an employee at Pick
les, 1637 P St., agrees that the long box is a
waste of paper.
“They should be done away with. They’re
plugging up our landfills,” he said.
Initially, CDs were packaged in long boxes
to boost sales and decrease theft. The increased
package size allows distributors to create larger,
more inviting art that makes the product more
appealing to consumers, said John Nanos,
manager of Pickles, 1637 P St.
In addition, the large, unwieldy size of the
long box makes it less susceptible to shoplift
ing, McCallum said.For those reasons, many
larger music stores are resistant to a change.
“A lot of retailers arc opposing change because
of shoplifting, which is bad enough already,”
McCailum said.
Nanos doesn’tagree, saying the big retailers
just want the increased sales the larger art
btings.
“That’s a crock of shit,” he said. “They’re
just too lazy to put it into a plastic case.”
Plastic cases are one of the proposed solu
tions to the long box controversy. CDs could be
distributed without paper packaging and then
inserted into reusable plastic holders, much
like cassette tapes are now.
Using plastic cases also would allow CDs to
be shelved on the racks currently used to store
long-box CDs. This could save individual stores
as much as $30,000 by avoiding the costly
fixture replacement unpackaged CDs would
require, McCallum said.
Both McCallum and Nanos say they expect
some sort of change in packaging guidelines in
the near future. Change may come as soon as
the NARM meeting next month, McCallum
said.
Until then, both Pickles and Twisters have
systems for dealing with the present long box
situation.
Currently, Pickles is using both plastic cases
and recyclable cardboard cases for the unpack
aged CDs that many distributors send to them.
As more music artists insist on releasing their
CDs without the long box, this sort of re
packaging will increase.
Twisters now invites customers to take the
cardboard packaging off their CDs and leave it
at the front counter.
“We recycle everything,” McCallum said.
“We’ll take that cardboard and recycle it.”
In the interest of the environment, however,
McCallum said he would like to sec the long
box packaging done away with entirely.
“I think for the environment, it’s definitely
the way to go,” McCallum said, “and we’d
support it ”
Doc Homer/Dally Nebraskan
Troy Radenslaben, an advertising and broadcasting freshman, browses
through the easy listening section of CD s at Twisters, 1401 O St.
Daily Nebraskan corrects information
in story on ‘Sidewalk of the Stars’
The following are corrections
for an article about Lincoln’s
“Sidewalk of the Stars” in Wednes
day’s Daily Nebraskan.
According to Jennifer Schizas,
executive director of the Lincoln
Arts Council, the LAC was asked
by the city’s Department of Urban
Development to become involved
in the project. The article said the
idea for the sidewalk was intro
duced by the council.
The article incorrectly quoted
Schizas as saying she was confi
dent the project would begin early
this spring and that “the first prior
ity is to attempt to raise funds through
contributions for the stars.” The
article also quoted Schizas as say
ing “the LAC and the Urban De
velopment Department only will
go to the city if it is not possible to
obtain private contributions.” These
quotes should have been attributed
to George Chick, Lincoln director
of urban development.
The article said Lincoln’s side
walk “will feature stars for lumi
naries in entertainment arts beyond
the movie industry.” Schizas said
no decision had been made on
whether to feature stars for those
people.
Schizas, in a letter to the Daily
Nebraskan, said “we were in the
very preliminary stages of this
project” and that “a committee
would be making decisions about
whether the honor would extend
beyond entertainers ”
Schizas also said no definite
decision had been made about who
See CORRECT on 10
Magnmcent, interesting cinematography
can’t get ‘Russia House’ off the ground
By Robert Richardson
Senior Reporter
Despite Scan Connery’s and Mich
elle Pfeiffer’s efforts to get “The Russia
House” off the ground, their plane
stopped at the end of the runway.
“The Russia House,” based on the
novel of the same name, was written
by John Le Carre and directed by
Fred Schcpisi. The film should have
remained on that plane that was stuck
on the runway.
The film begins with Katya Oliver
(Pfeiffer) walking to a book fair in
Russia with an unpublished book. She
is delivering the book to an English
publisher, Bartholomew “Barley” Scott
Blair (Connery), for her Russian friend
Dante.
Barley hasn’t arrived at the book
fair, so Katya entrusts her important
Russia House
Starring
Sean Connery,
Michelle Pfeiffer
Rated: R
Rating: 3
package with Blair’s colleague, an
other English publisher.
He is reluctant to accept the pack
age because he knows his security is
at risk. But after Katya says, “If you
love peace, you will help me,” in a
quaint Russian accent, he accepts the
unpublished manuscript and prom
ises to try to deliver it to Barley.
When Barley is nowhere to be
found, his colleague delivers the
manuscript to the British Intelligence
Agency. The British involve Ameri
can intelligence, and together they
find Bailey and question him as to
why Katya was trying to find him.
Included in the novel is informa
tion regarding Russian military se
crets that place the Russians far be
hind the United States in the nuclear
arms race.
The British want to know if the
information is correct, who Dante is
and why he wrote the book. Barley is
trained as a spy to go into Russia
disguised as a book publisher— his
real job — and find out the questions
to the answers everyone wants to know.
See RUSSIA on 10
Religion, male domination
subjects of ‘Magdalene’
By Robert Richardson
Senior Reporter _
Senior theater major Heather Flock
said she felt a need to address issues
such as male dominance and religion
in her latest play, “Magdalene,” which
will be performed at the Howell
Theatre.
“Magdalene” is about three women,
all of whom happen to be named
Mary Magdalene. Magdalene (Laura
Arnold) is from biblical times, Mary
(Lori Edwards) is from the turn of the
19th century and Maggie (Daena
Schweiger) is from present day. AH
happen to be dead and residing in
some unnamed place.
“Thai’s a question I would ask the
audience to make for themselves,
deciding exactly what place it is,”
Flock said, “because I don’t want to
say, oh yes, mis is purgatory or it s
hell.
“Basically, 1 wanted to use the
character of Mary Magdalene, but 1
didn’t want to put her in the tradi
tional kind of ‘Last Temptation’ situ
ation. I wasn’t into that.”
At the heart of “Magdalene” are
several issues that Flock thought had
to be addressed, including living in a
male-dominated society.
“It deals with what it’s like living
in a society and living under the as
sumption that, if there is a supreme
being, that it is automatically male,”
Flock said. “And what that says about
the society and the religion and men
in general.”
Flock said she started to write plays
in high school because the plays that
existed didn’t fit her style, and she
See FLOCK on 10
Michel!© Daily Nebraskan
Actresses, from left, Laura Arnold, Lori Edwards and Daena Schweiger rehearse for this
weekend’s production of “Magdalene.”
