"Fly high in a glider -- just like Orville Wright"

The best grilled cheese sandwich

Chicago chef Graham Elliot Bowles's take on grilled cheese features Wisconsin cheddar, prosciutto, tomato marmalade and cheese curds.

The best grilled cheese sandwich is the gooiest grilled cheese, says Laura Werlin, the James Beard Award–winning cookbook author behind this year's "Grilled Cheese, Please!"

"After you bite into it, the cheese should stretch out past your face as far as your arm will reach. Otherwise, it's just not right."

'It's great to be alive in Colma!'

The Colma, Calif., town motto — “It’s great to be alive in Colma!” — has a cryptic meaning to those familiar with grave undertakings. In Colma, the dead outnumber the living nearly 1,000 to one.

“We have 17 cemeteries — one exclusively for beloved pets,” said Mayor Helen Fisicaro. “The cemeteries are like our parks. They are absolutely beautiful, and people come from all over to enjoy them.”

Colma, with a population of about 1,600, is the final resting place for more than 1.5 million deceased. She said the dead provide a living for numerous florists, landscapers, monument erectors and other funeral-related businesses.

Death became a Colma growth industry nearly 100 years ago when neighboring San Francisco deemed its real estate too precious to squander on the dearly departed, according to Pat Hatfield, president of the Colma Historical Association since 1993. Suddenly, final resting places became transitory.

“All the cemeteries were evicted,” she said. “The graves needed to be moved outside of city limits.”

City leaders settled on Colma, less than 10 miles south of downtown San Francisco, in San Mateo County.

“It was convenient,” Hatfield said. “Colma was as close as funeral homes could get and still be able to get back in one day.”

The hectic and trying relocation process resulted in what today is a community of uncommon peacefulness.

“The cemeteries are each so beautiful and all have their own personalities,” Hatfield said, adding that the cemeteries share characteristics as diverse as San Francisco.

Many are like ethnic neighborhoods without the restaurants. There are Serbian, Japanese, Italian, Greek, Chinese and Jewish cemeteries.

Most popular is Pets Rest Cemetery, home to the graves and lovingly rendered monuments to more than 13,000 dogs, cats, ocelots, goldfish, monkeys, turtles and even cheetahs, said owner Philip C’de Baca.

“People are really moved by what they see here,” Baca said. “They realize there are certain things everyone has to do when any human dies. But the love people show a pet is really above and beyond.”

Many famous Californians born elsewhere live in perpetuity in Colma. Baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, jazz musician/"Peanuts" theme composer Vince Guaraldi and Manson murder victim and coffee heiress Abigail Folger are among the eternal residents at Holy Cross Cemetery; William Randolph Hearst is at Cypress Lawn; Wyatt Earp, a man who became famous in Tombstone, Ariz., has his own tombstone in Hills of Eternity Memorial Park, as does blue jeans icon Levi Strauss.

Mark Fontana is a Colma chiseler in the best sense of the word. His grandfather, Valero Fontana, in 1921 founded the family mason business now going four generations strong.

He’s built mausoleums worth $500,000 and said the average amount spent on a monument is “between $2,000 and $5,000.” He hastens to add that the numbers diminish the personal investment unseen in the work contracts.

“We don’t advertise, and in Colma, we’re always busy,” he said. “This is one of those businesses where people pay us and then they send us thank you notes. It’s very gratifying.”

World record bathing attempt at a Chongqing hot spring

14,345 people attempt to set a new Guinness World Record as they gather for a bath at a hot spring in southwest China's Chongqing municipality on October 30. The former world record was 10,121 people having a hot spring bath at the same time in China's Hubei province.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Co. — Strawberry Park Hot Springs is to your average hot tub what Barton Springs is to a typical swimming pool.

They're nothing alike.

It's more natural, more rustic, more scenic — and perfect for outdoorsy types who'd rather jump in a creek than a cement pond.

The staggered series of pools, dammed up and surrounded by pine trees and big boulders, looks best with snow sifting over it. It's best visited at night, too, when stars sparkle and snow glistens.

Beware, though. If nudity makes you squeamish, don't go after the sun sets, when some folks don't bother with swimsuits.

The pools vary in temperature, from stay-in-too-long-and-you'll-get-parboiled to pleasantly warm. You can even leap into the stream at the bottom if you're into ice baths. I tried it, and it left me gasping and refreshed.

Bobbing in neck-deep water, scanning the skies or holding your spouse's hand, you'll slip quickly into the hippie-dippie bliss of the place. (If you don't appreciate hippies, steer clear. The granola vibe is all-encompassing.)

A Little Bit of Paradise

Only a few remnants remain today of the White Point Hot Spring Hotel resort and spa located at what is now Royal Palms County Beach in San Pedro.

During its heyday in the 1920s, it was one of the most popular beach resorts in Southern California, especially among Japanese-Americans.

Before Tojuro Tagami and his brother Tamiji built the resort in 1917, the area had been part of the Rancho de los Palos Verdes, which owner Jose Sepulveda had used as a cattle ranch.

In 1898, then-owner Ramon Sepulveda built housing and leased land to 12 Japanese-American fishermen from Los Angeles who had discovered an abundance of abalone and other readily harvestable sea life in the area. The fishing village thrived until 1906, when the abalone supply diminished and the operation closed.

The discovery of a sulfur hot spring in the area led to the Tagami brothers developing the bathhouse, together with Ramon Sepulveda. They built roads and dug out the hot spring, and by 1925 the resort included a hotel, restaurant, salt water swimming pools and an enclosed boating are

This July 1925 aerial view shows the outdoor concrete swimming area and an enclosed saltwater pool just north of it at the resort. Photo courtesy LACFD Station 48.

"From the mountain wilderness to the dense urbanized plain"

From the mountain wilderness to the dense urbanized plain, the Arroyo Seco contains a dazzling variety of geography and geology. Take a trip through the many zones and facets of the most celebrated canyon in Southern California.

"the world's first fully autonomous HALE UAS"

Northrop Grumman tout the Global Hawk as providing the safest and most cost-effective and efficient means of gathering intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) information over a vast geographic area without putting anyone in harm’s way. Flying at altitudes up to 60,000 feet for more than 32 hours per sortie at speeds approaching 340 knots, the MP-RTIP-equipped Block 40 Global Hawk can persistently see through most type of weather, day or night and is the world's first fully autonomous high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft system (UAS).

The aircraft is flown autonomously by flight control software under the direct supervision of a pilot. The pilot does not physically manipulate the control surfaces in flight but instead, he commands the computer to take action when needed, or the system can be left alone and fly a complete pre-programmed mission.

No Tinker Bell

Canadian tenor Ben Heppner is a versatile performer, but Tinker Bell he's not. Yet this mountain of a man will be flying as Captain Ahab in San Diego Opera's West Coast premiere of the opera "Moby-Dick." The production sets sail Saturday at San Diego's Civic Theatre.

Charles Lindbergh

One remarkable achievement stands out in making today's rapid, long-distance travel a reality: Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic journey from New York to Paris. Before Lindbergh’s arrival at Le Bourget on May 21st, 1927, air travel was a dangerous novelty that few believed had practical use in times of peace. Afterwards, aviation became an engine for commerce that tied the world together in ways even its most ardent supporters could have scarcely imagined.

Let's Hear It For the Idiots

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

10,000th Broadway performance of "The Phantom of the Opera"

Alumni of the 24-year Broadway run of The Phantom of the Opera are expected to be sprinkled among the audience of the history-making 10,000th Broadway performance of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical at 2 PM Feb. 11 at the Majestic Theatre. The matinee, to include a special post-show presentation, benefits The Actors Fund.

Now in its 24th year, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Charles Hart-Richard Stilgoe-written musical, directed by Harold Prince, is the longest-running production in Broadway history.

Patrons who purchase a $500 ticket will receive prime orchestra seating and the opportunity to join the Broadway cast onstage directly after the curtain call for a champagne toast, followed by a private post-show reception at Sardi’s with invited Phantom alumni, current cast members and special guests; $250 ticket purchase includes prime seating and Sardi's reception.

"I Left My Heart in San Francisco"

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco is honoring legendary crooner Tony Bennett, whose famous song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," was recorded 50 years ago.

Mayor Ed Lee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Nancy Pelosi are among those expected to attend a ceremony for Bennett in the City Hall Rotunda at noon on Tuesday, Valentine's Day.

The event will include renditions of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" by the San Francisco Boys and Girls Choruses and the San Francisco Symphony among others.

The song will also be broadcast at noon over the public address system in Union Square and Hallidie Plaza.

The event will conclude with a sing along of the song.

An SUV with Wings

Tesla founder Elon Musk builds spaceships, so it’s perhaps not surprising that his latest car has wings.

The Model X battery-powered crossover SUV was revealed on Thursday evening at an event in Tesla’s Hawthorne, Calif., design studio, right next door to Musk’s Space X rocket company. The all-electric seven-passenger vehicle set to be the second car in the company’s lineup when it goes on sale in late 2013.

Built on the same platform as the company’s upcoming Model S sedan, Tesla says the seven-passenger, three-row Model X will be available in rear and all-wheel drive models and that the high performance version is quicker than a Porsche 911, despite being as large as an Audi Q7.

In other words: it flies. Not literally, but open the doors and you might think that it can.

Give 'em the old "Razzle Dazzle"

These gentlemen have been contestants in the World Mustache and Beard Championships

Peeling Back the Years

The house specialty at Clifton's Cafeteria on Wednesday was filet de grille, with the promise of a beaux-arts surprise for dessert.

As part of a long-awaited restoration of the Los Angeles landmark, new owner Andrew Meieran peeled away the grate-like aluminum covering that for nearly half a century concealed the South Broadway building's original 1904 facade.

But there were a few murmurs from a crowd of roughly 200 spectators as work crews lifted a huge tarp and revealed that many of the building's original windows were filled in with ugly concrete blocks.

Not to worry, said Meieran, who acquired the downtown cafeteria in 2010 from the Clinton family for $3.6 million.

As soon as seismic upgrades are completed, the concrete blocks — installed for earthquake safety in 1988 — will be removed. Glass panes will replace the blocks and natural light will again flood into the cafeteria's famous redwood forest-themed dining room, he said.

Meieran, a Hollywood filmmaker and developer of the downtown subterranean night club, The Edison, plans to retain the cafeteria's signature redwood tree columns, its kitschy fireplace, mountain cabin accessories and the rock-hewn chapel with its diorama and 4-minute narration that suggests "redwoods were God's first temple."

Himalayan glaciers disappear as world warms up

In the 1950s, the Swiss glaciologist Fritz Müller and Austrian scientist Erwin Schneider conducted among the first extensive studies of the Everest region in Nepal taking photographs of the glaciers, mountains and valleys. Fifty years later mountain geographer Alton Byers revisited the exact sites of the original photographs to take more than 40 replicates, many of which illustrate the dramatic effects of climate change in the world's largest mountain range. The photos are just a selection of those included in an exhibition Himalaya – Changing Landscapes on show at climate change talks in Bonn

By 2007, the Imja lake (above)had grown to around one kilometre long with an average depth of 42 metres, and contained more than 35m cubic metres of water. The Imja glacier is retreating at an average rate of 74 metres a year, and is thought to be the fastest retreating glacier in the Himalayas.

Icy Wonder

A new study published in Nature has found that the world's largest mountain chain, running from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of Kyrgystan and China, has not experienced any net loss of ice over the past decade.

This came as a surprise to glaciologists who had thought that melting in the Himalayas and nearby peaks was making an appreciable contribution to sea level rise.

Shown above: An aerial view of the Siachen glacier, which traverses the Himalayan region dividing India and Pakistan.

Photograph: Channi Anand/AP

Matterhorn gets new look

One of Disneyland's most popular and visible attractions — the Matterhorn Bobsled ride — is down for six months for one of the longest and most extensive overhauls since it opened in 1959.

The Los Angeles Times ( http://lat.ms/AbO5UW) says that when the ride reopens it will feature shiny new bobsleds and a fresh coat of paint on the mountain. A permit filed with the city of Anaheim describes the work as a $1 million project.

Sepulveda Boulevard tunnel opens

September 27, 1930: Following opening ceremonies, a procession of cars, horses and wagons proceeds south through the new Sepulveda Blvd. tunnel.

Believe it or not ??

A tamer carrying a lion over his shoulders.

Packers win first Super Bowl

The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in the first Super Bowl. At halftime the Chiefs were only behind, 14-10, but the Packer defense took over in the third quarter.

"Woman of the Century"

May 15, 1971: Kevin Thomas reported in a Los Angeles Times article. . . that Mae West was named Woman of the Century at UCLA Wednesday night by vote of the student council.

Miss West accepted the award, a gold winged statue, along with a plaque declaring her an honorary student “with full privileges accorded by the Board of Regents” in the Grand Ballroom of the university’s student union building after a screening of her 1933 classic “I’m No Angel.”

Sheathed in white faille and sparkling with diamonds, the star was accorded several standing ovations by the approximately 1,700 students who crowded the ballroom.

In a question-and-answer session with the young people Miss West declared that she would not consider running against Gov. Reagan in the next election.

“I don’t know much about politics,” confessed Miss West, hands on hips (“I’m just restin’ ‘em”).

“But I know a good party man when I see one

"Dream World" -- a documentary

The sound is incredibly infectious. The editing insane. The cinematography is frantically fantastic, elegant and fresh. Watching it made me hyper, and I asked myself, is this a true sport? Is this what they call free running or parkour? I gather that the answer is yes.

I admire the style of filmmaker Frank Sauer. He did an excellent job building up the tension and hooking me on something I would generally not seek out on my own. Jason Paul and the others are very likable, acrobatic and daring characters.

By: Kathy M.Y. Pyon

"Balanced Rock"

Chiricahua National Monument, Ariz.: Volcanic rock pillars line up like rows of terra-cotta warriors in this under-visited parkland in the southeastern corner of the Grand Canyon state. Take a seven-mile hike along forested canyons to the Heart of Rocks Trail and come face to face with odd-shaped boulders named Punch and Judy, Kissing Rocks and the massively impressive Balanced Rock. Info: (520) 824-3560, Ext. 302; http://www.nps.gov/chir

DAY INTO NIGHT

By Jim Kaler, University of Illinois

Nightfall. When day turns softly to evening. But night does not fall. It rises.

Wait for a brilliant clear day and find a place of contemplation, one with a clean horizon that allows you to see the changing colors of sunset and twilight. Like everything else in sunlight, the Earth casts a shadow into space. When our Moon passes through the shadow at full phase (opposite the Sun), we see a lunar eclipse. But the shadow starts at the surface of the Earth itself and must first cut through our own atmosphere. So as the Sun dips below the western horizon, a gray band rises in the air to the east, the earthshadow. The Sun is far and the air near, which produces a lever action that causes the shadow to climb faster and faster until it sweeps across the darkening sky, allowing the stars to shine. Night thus rises. It is in morning twilight, just before sunrise, when the gray band descends to the western horizon, that night falls, the Earth's shadow finally disappearing as the Sun pops up in the east and a new day begins. Welcome to the sky -- half your world. Look upward and you won't want to look back.

"Estela de Luz"

If Mexico's bicentennial tower knew what people were saying, it might slink off and hide (if 341 feet of stone could skulk, that is).

Since opening last month, the soaring twin slabs made of translucent quartz panels have been scrutinized, argued over and widely jeered. Some people already want to tear the monument down.

A primary source of anger is that the Estela de Luz, or Pillar of Light, was unveiled 16 months after the anniversary it was built to commemorate. By the time its lights were flipped on, the Sept. 16, 2010, bicentennial was a distant memory, and work still wasn't done.

Added to the delays, the structure came in so far over budget that some members of Congress have called for an investigation. The original architect, Cesar Perez Becerril, has alleged official corruption and complained that his vision was ruined by design changes after he was replaced and construction was underway.

Officials defend spending about three times the projected price, saying they had to bolster the monument against earthquakes. And anyway, they insist, it's really, really pretty.

Education Secretary Alonso Lujambio, who oversaw bicentennial events, declared the pale pillar "emblematic" of Mexican architecture and said it would be "admired by Mexicans today and in 50, 100, 200 years, because its beauty is extraordinary and because it truly symbolizes a historic moment for Mexico." Lujambio took leave last month, citing illness.

Nonetheless, many Mexicans can't get past the price tag of about $79 million.

Ruth Gordon Had Joy Of A Lively Longevity

This remembrance by CHARLES CHAMPLIN, Los Angeles Times Arts Editor, appeared September 07, 1985.

IT IS DELICIOUS !!!

The where and when of the telling have long since faded from memory, but the papery voice of Ruth Gordon telling about her Broadway debut lingers like a just-played song.

When she died Aug. 28, she was 88 but still in full career. In her story, the year was 1915, she was not yet 20 and, to hear her tell it, her stage career was going to be over before it began. She was convinced she was terrible. On opening day she cried, threw up and cried some more and was working herself toward total nervous collapse.

She sought out the director and told him she couldn't possibly go on. Send in the understudy, she said, groaning. The director was astonished. What on earth was she talking about? She was going to be terrific, wonderful; it was all going to be a piece of cake.

Gordon (a wonderful raconteur all her days) felt the panic melting away. Really all right? A triumph, the director insisted. Were there, she asked, any little last-minute words of advice, any small notes left over from the dress rehearsal?

The director thought a minute, then gave a dismissive wave as if something had come to mind but was hardly worth noting.

"Well . . . , " he said.

"Yes?" she said.

"There's one thing, I suppose. . . . "

"Yes, yes?" she said.

"Watch those mannerisms," the director said.

Despite the catastrophic guidance, she survived the day and the night, and triumphed and in time became the best advertisement for seniority since Bertrand Russell.

Survival is the achievement the show-business community prizes above all others, because it's the hardest. Getting there is one thing; staying there is something else. Forgetfulness is a kind of acid rain that eats away at quick fame. Obscurity is the natural cause of celebrity death, so to speak, turning the one-shot success into What's His Name and You Remember Her. (Oh, the dreadful finger-snapping as recollection tries to work.)

Time is hardest on actresses. The radiant ingenue does not necessarily become the player of sophisticated careerists of 30, the worldly women of 40, the interesting character personalities of 50 and beyond.

Gordon was unique among actresses, not only because she defied the passing of time but because she used it like a bonus, a spiritual annuity paying off.

She grew more vivid and valuable as a character as she went along. Despite the achievements and honors of her career as a stage and film actress and writer in what you customarily would have said was her prime, she in effect began a new career when she was 70 (the year, 1966, she played rather raucous characters in "Inside Daisy Clover" and George Axelrod's updated Faust story, "Lord Love a Duck").

After more than half a century of acclaim sufficient to satisfy most actresses' dreams, Gordon became a pop star with "Rosemary's Baby." She was, as if it were possible, sweetly satanic, comfortably wicked, benignly dangerous. Goodness was overmatched in its battles with her.

She seemed thereafter to be playing herself, which is never quite true but never entirely wrong when it's said of an actor. Being "natural" is not enough to see you through the readings, rehearsals, blockings, retakes and voice-dubbings; naturalness on the screen is its own form of impersonation.

But Gordon's salty, uninhibited, sexy, sharp-witted, energetic, convention-snubbing, life-celebrating and joyous assertiveness on the screen obviously reflected what we might call her own soul-set.

The heavenly earthy senior citizen who roared and cooed through "Harold and Maude," "Where's Poppa?" and "Every Which Way but Loose" was an irreplaceable original, for whom writers could provide lines but whom they couldn't create, any more than writers could fully create the characters John Wayne played in his maturity.

In her glorious post-70 years, she was worth two dozen pages of exposition the moment the camera--grinning in anticipation--caught sight of her. She was an impeccable comedienne, a disciplined actress whose craft, properly, never drew attention to itself as craft.

But she was above all a woman whose whole life, the bruises and the triumphs alike, informed and enriched her performances. She was a life force who became a symbol of the vigorous and even riotous possibilities of the upper years. It is very likely true that the life and the role fed each other, and that her successes confirmed her private, passionate feeling that activity is the real fountain of youth, the rocking chair an item for the defeated.

No one made clearer that extra-inning games are the most pleasurable of all. She leaves with gratitude and affection for the performances, and that helpful truth

Super SUNDAY !!!

Madonna performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl XLVI football game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012, in Indianapolis. The New York Giants beat the New England Patriots 21-17 to win the NFL Super Bowl football game.

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

"Marilyn"

"Good schools make good citizens"

Good schools make good citizens and responsible citizens plant gardens. Combine the two and you get the school garden movement that's back in Los Angeles a century after it began.

In 1889, officials built one of the city's first public schools, four rooms in a building at the corner of East 7th and Wilson streets downtown. It soon became a two-story, windowed pile crowded with a thousand kids.

At the time, social engineers wrote that an effective education combined classroom learning and outdoor experience. Here in Los Angeles, still a region of fields and orchards, the Board of Education in 1910 hired Marie Aloysius Larkey. Trained in agriculture economy, she brought the school garden movement to Angelenos.

Larkey arranged the purchase of a 100-foot-long square lot at the back of the 7th Street school. Bordered by railroad yards and factories belching fumes from smokestacks, it was a barren, weedy dump. The lot was in a district that reformers called “squalid,” a rundown and littered neighborhood of blue-collar workers renting wood-framed, gardenless houses along treeless, unpaved streets.

"He scarfed a cheesesteak in a world-record 24 seconds"

PHILADELPHIA - Takeru Kobayashi, often called the greatest competitive eater of all time, set a new record Friday at Wing Bowl 20, the annual chicken wing-eating contest in this city.

In his first year of competition, Kobayashi downed 337 wings, smashing the record set by his closest competitor, Jonathan "Super" Squibb, in 2011.

"I could probably eat another 100 wings or so," Kobayashi said after the event, through his interpreter. "Not really fast, I'd have to take my time. But if you brought me 100 more I could eat them."

Squibb, who had won the event the past three years, finished in second with 271 wings. Bill "El Wingador" Simmons, a five-time past champion, came in third place with 251 wings, and Chilita, a female competitor, finished with 238.

Kobayashi, a native of Nagano, Japan, is known for winning six Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest championships. At last year’s Wing Bowl, he scarfed a cheesesteak in a world-record 24 seconds.

N.Y.'s Oak Room closes its doors

New York City's famous Algonquin Hotel has permanently shuttered the Oak Room, its fabled supper club that helped launch the careers of many jazz and cabaret stars, including Michael Feinstein, Diana Krall and Harry Connick Jr.

Hotel general manager Gary Budge said that audiences are declining, and the Oak Room will be turned into a lounge for Marriott Reward Elite guests.

The Oak Room, a New York landmark as the site of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, became a nightclub for the first time in 1939. It was silenced during World War II, and didn't have live music again regularly until 1980.

—Associated Press

Cezanne's "The Card Players"

In a reminder of the heady days of high-priced art sales, Cezanne's "The Card Players" has sold for more than $250 million, a record price for any work of art.

But it hasn't gone to a major museum such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay, the Courtauld or the Barnes Foundation. Those institutions already own works from Cezanne's series depicting card players. This one is owned by the oil-rich country of Qatar.

Word just leaked out on the 2011 sale from a private collector, and was reported by Vanity Fair's website. The sale price leaves the old record -- reportedly $140 million paid for a Jackson Pollock in the pre-recession year of 2006 -- in the dust.

Yes, "$250 million is a fortune," fine arts appraiser Victor Wiener told Vanity Fair. "But you take any art-history course and a 'Card Players' is likely in it. It's a major, major image."

The sale had been rumored for months, he told the magazine, and now "everyone will use this price as a point of departure; it changes the whole art-market structure."

"Symphony of a Thousand"

How many performers does it take to pull off Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, popularly and dauntingly known as the "Symphony of a Thousand"? The answer isn't as obvious as it appears.

For the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which performs the gargantuan symphony Saturday at the Shrine Auditorium, the tally is 1,011, with a lingering asterisk or two. It marks a rare, but certainly not unique, instance of the symphony being performed on the scale that the composer intended.

The bulging roll call consists of 18 different groups coming together for an unprecedented undertaking by the orchestra: 91 musicians from the L.A Philharmonic, 99 from the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, 813 singers from 16 local choruses and eight vocal soloists.

New alien planet is perfect for life, scientists say

A potentially habitable alien planet — one that scientists say is the best candidate yet to harbor water, and possibly even life, on its surface — has been found around a nearby star.

The planet is located in the habitable zone of its host star, which is a narrow circumstellar region where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface.

"It's the Holy Grail of exoplanet research to find a planet around a star orbiting at the right distance so it's not too close where it would lose all its water and boil away, and not too far where it would all freeze," Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told SPACE.com. "It's right smack in the habitable zone — there's no question or discussion about it. It's not on the edge, it's right in there."

Vogt is one of the authors of the new study, which was led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution for Science, a private, nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C.

"This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we know it," Anglada-Escudé said in a statement.

"127-Year-Old Cuban Still Awaiting Recognition as World's Oldest Person"

The battle over who is the world’s oldest living person continues.

Cubana Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodríguez claimed that she turned 127, which would make her 12 years older than the official record holder, the 115-year Besse Cooper of Georgia. Cooper was declared the world's oldest in January of last year, after Guinness learned that Maria Gomes Valentin of Brazil died. Gomes Valentin was 48 days older than Cooper..

Bautista’s identification papers claim that she was born on Feb. 2 1885 in the town of Ceiba Hueca, where she still lives. However, her claims are not recognized internationally and the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which verifies longevity information for Guinness World Records, doubts her age.

"The evidence gives us no reason to believe the claim," Robert D. Young the Senior Claims Investigator for the Gerontology Research Group, told Fox News Latino last year. "If you take a look at the documents that she [Bautista] is showing, it looks like the document is from the 1950s."

Young also pointed out her uncharacteristic physical attributes such as talking, standing and walking with assistance. Young believes other evidence is needed to prove her age, such as a marriage certificate or documentation that proves the age of her children.

Relatives Say Cuban Woman Marks 126th Birthday

"She just doesn't exhibit the attributes of a person who would be 126 years old," Young said. "There is no such thing as a 116-year-old that can walk around, let alone a 126-year-old.”

"Little Sure Shot"

Whether it be a pistol, rifle, or shotgun, the legendary markswoman Annie Oakley (1860-1926) was masterful with them all. Dubbed "Little Sure Shot" by Chief Sitting Bull (she was 5 feet tall), her sharp shooting in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show won her many awards and captivated audiences far and wide. Her name remains synonymous with firearms and entertainment.

"a gleaming glass entrance pavilion for the Museum"

Kevin Sharer, Chairman, and Paul G. Haaga, President of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Board of Trustees of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, announced that the institution has received the largest private gift dedicated to the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park in its nearly century-long history, enabling it to create a gleaming glass entrance pavilion for the Museum and its new North Campus. The $13 million gift from The Otis Booth Foundation—the largest made to date by the Los Angeles-based private foundation—will allow NHM to provide a focal point for the major new public approach to the Museum, through the landscaped North Campus.

Named the Otis Booth Pavilion in honor of Otis Booth’s service to the Museum and the unprecedented donation, the light-filled, three-story entrance will be connected to Exposition Boulevard by a soaring pedestrian bridge and will dramatically showcase one of the Museum’s signature specimens: its magnificent 63-foot-long fin whale. First exhibited at NHM in 1944, the 7,000-pound specimen was recently the subject of an intense two-year restoration and has been re-articulated to give an accurate and life-like impression of the grace and power of a whale in the midst of a dive. This unforgettable image will now be visible to all from the Exposition Boulevard side of the Museum as a sign of the wonders within—and the gentle glow of its surrounding glass structure will be visible at night from as far away as Downtown.

"Favorite Female Singer of the 20th Century"

Actress/singer/director/writer/composer/producer/designer/activist/philanthropist Barbra Streisand is the only artist ever to receive Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, National Endowment for the Arts and Peabody Awards, as well as the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She is also the first female film director to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.

She continues to be the highest-selling female recording artist ever and has had number one albums in each of the last four decades. Her number one albums span a period of nearly 35 years, the greatest longevity in that statistic for any solo recording artist. A recent poll by the Reuters news agency identified her as the favorite female singer of the 20th Century.

"CIRCUS BOY"

For thousands of people who attended the weekly farmers market in Bellingham, Wash., he was the circus boy -- entertaining visitors with juggling, magic tricks and acrobatics delivered with unbelievable aplomb.

But 10-year-old Caleb Kors died suddenly this week while apparently rushing around the house to construct a new circus costume, leaving Bellingham residents grief-stricken over a boy they knew mainly for his four-club juggle toss -- performed with a wisecrack and a rakish smile -- and for his fearless compulsion to perform.

Whatcom County sheriff's officials said Caleb died in an accidental hanging -- though exactly what happened still is unclear. "As far as we know, the young man died in what appears to be an accidental hanging. How he got there, we're not actually sure. There did not appear to be anything suspicious or nefarious," Chief Criminal Deputy Doug Chadwick told the Los Angeles Times.

Initial reports suggested Caleb died while trying to perform a circus trick, but it later appeared more likely that he was climbing on something to collect material for a costume, with the truth perhaps remaining a sad and enduring mystery.

"The Passion of Joan of Arc"

In spite of the hype, DVD is more often promise than fulfillment. Many, perhaps most, of the films presented in the latest video medium contain only the film, with the draw being the clean digital sound and the sharpest visuals available, which for many consumers is lure enough. Some companies, fortunately, take the medium’s interactive possibilities and great storage capacity more seriously. Criterion’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is a stellar example of the full exploitation of DVD. This cineaste’s dream has a gorgeous transfer of the film itself, taken from a restored version of the single good print available, as well as a quite extraordinary array of extras. These include three full audio tracks: the silent version, one with Richard Einhorn’s stunning "Voices of Light" musical soundtrack, and another with informative commentary by Danish film scholar Casper Tybjerg. There are French intertitles and optional English subtitles. There’s a history of the production design with rare stills; a history of the film’s many versions, with clips; an essay by Richard Einhorn on the film and a video essay on the music; a demonstration of the restoration process with scene-by-scene comparisons; an audio interview with Helene Falconetti, daughter of the film’s star; and even a libretto booklet for the "Voices of Light" score. If these aren’t enticement enough, consider the disc’s affordability. Listed at $39.95, it’s widely available for under $30.00 (try The Laser’s Edge at www.lasersedge.com). Not bad for one of cinema’s supreme achievements.
The Passion of Joan of ArcCarl Dreyer’s 1928

"exceptions can be made"

Copies of masterpieces don't usually garner media attention. But when it's a case of the "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo Da Vinci and a copy of the painting that is nearly as old as the original, exceptions can be made.

Experts at the Prado Museum in Madrid said recently that they have identified a copy of the enigmatic masterpiece that has been residing within its collection. It is believed that the painting was created by a pupil of Da Vinci who was working in tandem with the Renaissance master.

The finding, which was reported in The Art Newspaper, has come as a surprise to many in the art world. The copy was discovered after conservators at the Prado removed black paint from what they believed was a replica of the "Mona Lisa" created after Da Vinci's death.
What they found was a bright and colorful copy of the original "Mona Lisa" that they believed changed as Da Vinci developed his painting. The Art Newspaper, which reported extensively on the breaking story, said that the face in the copy depicts a woman probably in her 20s.

The copy provides a window of insight into the original painting by offering a clearer depiction of certain details, like the model's clothes and the surrounding landscape.

The original "Mona Lisa" resides in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506.

Chaplin's favorite film

The "Gold Rush" takes place in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. Chaplin’s Tramp (introduced as the lone prospector) is looking for gold when he runs into Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain), a man who’s just discovered a huge gold deposit at his claim, and Black Larsen (Tom Murray), a man wanted by the authorities. The Tramp and Big Jim end up snowbound in a cabin with no food and a hallucinating Big Jim begins to see the tramp as an enormous chicken. Later, having giving up on prospecting, the Tramp ventures into town where he meets and falls head over heels in love with a dance hall girl, Georgia (Georgia Hale), who he mistakenly believes loves him back. Big Jim, now suffering from amnesia, reappears and demands that the Tramp help him locate his claim. The Tramp ends up finding gold at last.

"Irish melancholy"

The supposedly dour John Dowland is thought to need all the help he can get. His early 17th century songs have been sometimes jazzed up and sung by Sting, even. Still, Michael Slattery, the American tenor of Irish descent (who, as the sailor, was the first singer heard in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Tristan Project” seven years ago) has some cheek. He and the Canadian early music ensemble La Nef have given a selection of Dowland's very British songs an Irish lilt. And an Indian drone too, with a shruti box that is meant to be used for chanting.

It works. Dowland’s tunes are sturdy, able to thrive on a lively lilt or bring a sentimental tear to the eye when offered with sweet Irish melancholy. Slattery sings with a feel for period style and the pub, and La Nef crosses genre divides with similar ease.

"Breaking Ground: Chinese American Architects in Los Angeles (1945-1980)''

In 1949, Eugene Kinn Choy built his family a home in Silver Lake. Deftly set in a narrow hillside lot, it was praised as a model of modernism, photographed by Julius Shulman and its merits noted in national architecture magazines.

And yet the house might not have been built at all, if not for Choy's ingenuity and resolve. When racial covenants had threatened to keep him out of the area, he went door to door, seeking neighbors' permission before he moved in.

"Even after he got an OK to purchase the land, no mainstream bank would offer financing," says Steven Y. Wong, the curator at the Chinese American Museum. "So he found another way to finance construction. Despite all this, he was able to make a name for himself with his design."

Choy is one of four pioneers whose stories are told in "Breaking Ground: Chinese American Architects in Los Angeles (1945-1980)," which opened at the museum in January and runs through June 3. The exhibition, which is part of the Pacific Standard Time initiative, describes how Choy, Gilbert L. Leong, Helen Liu Fong and Gin D. Wong helped to shape L.A.'s postwar landscape.

"music and drama engulfing the spirit"

Dance is a complete art form. Done well it incorporates all the senses, for it is movement and music and drama engulfing the spirit. Trying to explain its essence to a non-dancer can be nigh unto impossible, but into this void comes the phenomenal documentary “Joffrey, Mavericks of American Dance.”

At the age of 11, after attending a dance concert by the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo (a company famed for George Balanchine’s early choreography), Robert Joffrey informed his mother that he was going to form his own ballet company. Perhaps, suggested his mother, he might first study ballet to prepare. And study he did, with Seattle’s most prominent teacher Mary Ann Wells. It was in Seattle where, still a teenager, he met the handsome, older Gerald Arpino, just returned from the war. Joffrey convinced him to study dance and Arpino began his studies at the old age of 22. Together they would go off to New York to continue their work and plot the path for the company they would found. Joffrey began his own dance studio in 1954 and together they launched the Robert Joffrey Dance Theater in 1956 with 6 dancers, including Arpino, who toured the country in a station wagon pulling a U-Haul, performing to packed crowds in high school gymnasiums and VFW halls and wherever they found a willing audience. Joffrey stayed behind in New York, earning money to support the troupe by teaching both at his studio and at the High School for the Performing Arts where he found new members for his company.

A common thread in the early training of Joffrey dancers remains to this day, for Robert Joffrey was one of the first to hire dancers trained in classical ballet and bring in modern dance choreographers to teach them that idiom – two very specific and different forms. He had always felt that, once thoroughly trained in classical movement, other training would enhance rather than detract from the dancer’s ability and add an extra layer of flexibility. He was not wrong and it showed in his adventurous repertoire. The Joffrey reintroduced Kurt Jooss’ famous anti-war modern ballet “The Green Table” to the world and was the first classical company to commission a piece from a young, but unknown, modern dance prodigy named Twyla Tharp. That piece, “Deuce Coupe” became a classic in its own right. And even more importantly, the Joffrey introduced his own as well as Arpino’s choreography to a wider audience.

Above: Arpino's "Light Rain." The documentary "Joffrey, Mavericks of American Dance" opens this week and will have a special screening Feb. 1 at the Coburn School's Zipper Hall at which Joffrey alumni will be in attendance.

"close to a holy text"

“Watchmen” didn’t just make comic-book history in 1986 with its sprawling, subversive doomsday tale, it became something close to a holy text for comic-book fans. That’s why the publishing news out of New York today will make some purists feel like it’s the end of the world.

DC Comics is going back to the universe of “Watchmen” this summer by launching seven new prequel series that will collectively be referred to as “Before Watchmen,” marking the first time that characters such as Doctor Manhattan, Rorschach and the Comedian have appeared anywhere in comics since the original 12-issue series, which in a single-volume collection became the bestselling graphic novel of all time