Bidder buys $1.5 million space date with Leonardo DiCaprio

How much would you pay to get locked in a spaceship with DiCaprio? At an auction to benefit AIDS research, a man buys three days of training and a trip to suborbital space with the “Gatsby” star.

Spacebound: Leonardo DiCaprio acknowledges the audience at the opening of the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

If you thought $200,000 was a lot to pay for a Virgin Galactic flight to the edge of space, try $1.5 million. Do note, however, that the steep ticket price includes Leo DiCaprio as your travel buddy.

A bidder at a Cannes charity auction agreed to fork out that much for a seat in space beside the star who played flight-mad Howard Hughes in “The Aviator.” The money will benefit amfARa Cinema Against AIDS, hosted by amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

The winning bid was made by 37-year-old Vasily Klyukin, a Russian living in Monaco, according to Reuters.

“I want to be a bit daring,” Klyukin was quoted as saying. “I will have to give up smoking now for sure!”

DiCaprio and Klyukin are expected to board a Virgin Galactic flight along with a bidder who bought two other tickets on the voyage for $2.3 million.

“The Great Gatsby” star would spend three days with Klyukin while training for the trip, host Sharon Stone told the audience.

In a successful test last month, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo space plane fired its rocket engine and hit Mach 1.2.

Founder Sir Richard Branson said the vehicle’s key components had been proven, adding he expects “full space flight” by the end of 2013.

The auction at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in France’s Cap d’Antibes raised some $25 million for AIDS research and also auctioned off a private performance by Duran Duran, as well as a family portrait sitting with photographer Annie Leibovitz. …
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57586167-1/bidder-buys-$1.5-million-space-date-with-leonardo-dicaprio

Wild. Perhaps Vasily Klyuki will learn from DiCaprio the ways of an A-list actor just as Gatsby, in the story, became super rich by spending time with a super rich guy on a yatch. Is Klyuki an aspiring actor besides being a real estate agent?

Vasily Klyukin, 37, a Russian real estate agent living in Monaco, entered the winning bid of 1.2 million euros ($1.55 million) to accompany DiCaprio on a Virgin Galactic flight into space. Klyukin will spend three days training with DiCaprio in New Mexico prior to the launch.

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2013/05/24/leo-dicaprio-in-space-cannes-auction-for-virgin-space-flight/

Practice makes perfect? Not so much

Jason Mraz, world famous performer with “perfect pitch”.  

Turns out, that old “practice makes perfect” adage may be overblown.

New research led by Michigan State University’s Zach Hambrick finds that a copious amount of practice is not enough to explain why people differ in level of skill in two widely studied activities, chess and music.

In other words, it takes more than hard work to become an expert. Hambrick, writing in the research journal Intelligence, said natural talent and other factors likely play a role in mastering a complicated activity.

“Practice is indeed important to reach an elite level of performance, but this paper makes an overwhelming case that it isn’t enough,” said Hambrick, associate professor of psychology.

The debate over why and how people become experts has existed for more than a century. Many theorists argue that thousands of hours of focused, deliberate practice is sufficient to achieve elite status.

Hambrick disagrees.

“The evidence is quite clear,” he writes, “that some people do reach an elite level of performance without copious practice, while other people fail to do so despite copious practice.”

Hambrick and colleagues analyzed 14 studies of chess players and musicians, looking specifically at how practice was related to differences in performance. Practice, they found, accounted for only about one-third of the differences in skill in both music and chess.

So what made up the rest of the difference?

Based on existing research, Hambrick said it could be explained by factors such as intelligence or innate ability, and the age at which people start the particular activity. A previous study of Hambrick’s suggested that working memory capacity – which is closely related to general intelligence – may sometimes be the deciding factor between being good and great.

While the conclusion that practice may not make perfect runs counter to the popular view that just about anyone can achieve greatness if they work hard enough, Hambrick said there is a “silver lining” to the research.

“If people are given an accurate assessment of their abilities and the likelihood of achieving certain goals given those abilities,” he said, “they may gravitate toward domains in which they have a realistic chance of becoming an expert through deliberate practice.”

via Practice makes perfect? Not so much.

Damn. No wonder my vocals are improving at a snail’s pace. Just this past weekend I recorded the same short phrase for two straight hours over and over in my home studio trying to get it to sound right. I got better, but I couldn’t pull it all together, the feel, the timing, the pitch…. Then I got mad at myself and erased every take in disgust. I highly doubt Jason Mraz or Michael Buble worked as hard just to not hate recordings of their voices. Natural talent, eh? I may just have to accept that. But I’m a fighter! I’ve gotten so much better at being able to sing a middle C out of the blue with just pure hard work, and I couldn’t do that when I started. So, I may just have to keep struggling until I get my voice to where I enjoy hearing it as much as Jason’s. I know people who took years of voice lessons before finding what worked for them, so that’s another reason to keep chipping away at it.

Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett dies at 53

Australian rocker Chrissy Amphlett, the Divinyls lead singer whose group scored an international hit with the sexually charged “I Touch Myself” in the early 1990s, died Sunday after a battle with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, her husband said.

She was 53.

“Chrissy’s light burns so very brightly,” her husband, former Divinyls drummer Charley Drayton, said in a statement. “Hers was a life of passion and creativity; she always lived it to the fullest. With her force of character and vocal strength, she paved the way for strong, sexy, outspoken women.”

In 1991, the Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself” reached No. 1 in Australia and No. 4 on the United States’ Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The group, which formed in Australia in the early 1980s, was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association’s hall of fame in 2006.

Amphlett, who lived in New York with her husband, announced in 2010 that she had breast cancer, several years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She said in an interview that her family made the diagnoses easier.

“It’s unfair, but life is not fair — even rock stars get breast cancer,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald. “But there have been many girls before me who have dealt with it successfully. It’s easy to feel sorry for me but I feel sorry for people who are suffering it alone.”

via Divinyls singer Chrissy Amphlett dies at 53 – CNN.com.

Confusing Twitter hashtag leave Cher fans in mourning

… Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away today.She was admired and derided in almost equal measure. Some adored how she assaulted entrenched British institutions with her handbag. Others thought she was a petty and divisive shopkeeper’s daughter.

One Web site that espoused the latter view is called Is Thatcher Dead Yet? It rather looked forward to her passing to the Safeway in the sky.

So when her death was announced, it immediately created the hashtag #nowthatchersdead.

This gained some traction in Twitterworld. Sadly, though, some fans of the underrated actress and all-around shiny being read the hashtag a little too quickly.

Yes, they believed that Cher was dead.

Grief glittered the Twitterscape.

“RIP Cher, you were an amazing singer. Do you believe in life after love was one of the all time greats. #nowthatchersdead,” tweeped Ryan Coburn.

Someone with the apposite handle @sexyghosts offered: “RIP CHER. Just saw the hashtag. Never was a fan myself but you’ve gotta respect her influence.”

The hashtag #nowthatchersdead creates tears and wailing for the wrong female icon. It is former British Prime Minister Margaret

… Read more

Carrie Fisher to return as Leia in new Star Wars film

Carrie Fisher to return as Leia in new Star Wars films
4 hrs ago from CNET
The actress says she’ll reprise the galactic role that made her famous.

The Force seems to be growing stronger with the upcoming new Star Wars films.

Actress Carrier Fisher will return to a galaxy far, far away to play the role of Princess Leia in the next Star Wars movie.

In an interview with Palm Beach Illustrated, Fisher gave a simple “Yes” when asked to confirm whether she’ll reprise the role of Princess Leia.

So what will the princess be like in the new saga?

From Fisher’s wry point of view, Leia would be elderly and living in an intergalactic old folks’ home but still sporting the same infamous hairdo from the first film and the bikini from the third one.

“The bagel buns and the bikini, because probably she has sundowners syndrome,” Fisher said. “At sundown, she thinks that she’s 20-something. And she puts it on and gets institutionalized.”

That vision may not quite jibe with what director J.J. Abrams has in mind, so the actress added that she thinks Leia would “be just like she was before, only slower and less inclined to be up for the big battle.”

Rumors have popped up that Harrison Ford will also return to the Star Wars universe to reprise the role of Han Solo. And what of Luke himself?

Mark Hamil said last month that George Lucas has spoken to the main cast to see if they’d want to reprise their roles. Hamil also revealed that Lucas would not recast any of the roles and would simply write out the character of any actor who declined to return.

The new Star Wars saga is due to soar into theaters in 2015. Lucasfilm owner Disney is reportedly prepping a series of standalone films to focus on individual characters along with a whole new trilogy.

Awesome. I had a crush on her back in the day.

Watch the 2013 Oscars Free on the Internet

This wasn’t easy to find, but here’s a working stream of ABC which is broadcasting the Oscars tonight:  http://ufreetv.com/abc.html

Congressman says ‘Lincoln’ depicts Connecticut vote erroneously

Watching the movie “Lincoln” on Saturday, Rep. Joe Courtney was perplexed during the climactic scene.

Two of his predecessors from nearly 150 years ago, lawmakers representing the state of Connecticut in 1865, are seen voting against the constitutional amendment to end slavery.

Courtney asked the Congressional Research Service for the records, and sure enough, all four representatives from Connecticut voted yes on the 13th amendment.

But in the film, we see the fictional lawmakers Augustus Benjamin and Arthur Bentleigh of Connecticut each vote “Nay.”

“I could not believe my own eyes and ears,” Courtney said. In a letter of protest to director Steven Spielberg, he said that although he thinks overall the film is tremendous and compelling, “placing the State of Connecticut on the wrong side of the historic and divisive fight over slavery is a distortion of easily verifiable facts.”

He suggested the movie be changed before it is released on DVD on February 26th.

Historian Christian McWhirter, a researcher with the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, supported the congressman’s objection.

“It seems like such an unnecessary error,” he said. Nevertheless, he added, “it shouldn’t overshadow the fact that overall, this is a very strong and accurate portrayal of what actually happened.”

Going through the movie script vote by vote, CNN found that the important details are correct. By the narrowest of margins, after a breathless and unpredictable roll call, the amendment passes, with most Republicans in favor but many Democrats opposed.

Six of the lawmakers in the film actually existed and cast real votes, while the rest are apparently fictitious. No other vote discrepancies were found in the scene. …

via Congressman says ‘Lincoln’ depicts Connecticut vote erroneously – CNN.com.

Original Batmobile sold for $4.2m at US auction

The Batmobile used by actor Adam West in the original TV series of Batman has sold for $4.2m (£2.6m) at a US auction.

The car was bought by Rick Champagne, a logistics company owner from Phoenix, Arizona.

The 56-year-old, who was just 10 when the high-camp TV series began in 1966, said it “was a dream come true”.

The Batmobile design was based on a 1955 Lincoln Futura, a concept car built in Italy by the Ford Motor Company.

It was the first time that car had come up for public sale since it was bought in 1965 by car-customiser George Barris for a nominal fee of $1.

Barris then spent $15,000 (roughly £5,370 at the time) to transform it into the famous superhero vehicle, over a period of 15 days.

Gadgets

It had a V-8 engine, arguably one of the first in-car phones, and parachutes, which were deployed to help Batman turn sharp corners.

Mr Barris told reporters at the auction: “The car had to be a star on its own. And it became one.”

Since the show was cancelled in 1968, he has toured the Batmobile and was eventually housed in a private showroom in California. …

via BBC News – Original Batmobile sold for $4.2m at US auction.

Dear Abby columnist dead at 94

Pauline Friedman Phillips who, under the name Abigail Van Buren, wrote the long-running “Dear Abby” advice column followed by millions of newspaper readers throughout the world, has died. She was 94.
Publicist Gene Willis of Universal Uclick said Phillips died Wednesday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Phillips’ column competed for decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but later they regained the close relationship they had growing up in Sioux City, Iowa.

Phillips admitted that her advice changed over the years. When she started writing the column, she was reluctant to advocate divorce:
“I always thought that marriage should be forever,” she explained. “I found out through my readers that sometimes the best thing they can do is part. If a man or woman is a constant cheater, the situation can be intolerable. Especially if they have children. When kids see parents fighting, or even sniping at each other, I think it is terribly damaging.”

She willingly expressed views that she realized would bring protests. In a 1998 interview she remarked: “Whenever I say a kind word about gays, I hear from people, and some of them are damn mad. People throw Leviticus, Deuteronomy and other parts of the Bible to me. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve always been compassionate toward gay people.”

If the letters sounded suicidal, she took a personal approach: “I’ll call them. I say, ‘This is Abby. How are you feeling? You sounded awfully low.’ And they say, ‘You’re calling me?’ After they start talking, you can suggest that they get professional help.”

Asked about Viagra, she replied: “It’s wonderful. Men who can’t perform feel less than manly, and Viagra takes them right off the spot.”

About working mothers: “I think it’s good to have a woman work if she wants to and doesn’t leave her children unattended — if she has a reliable person to care for them. Kids still need someone to watch them until they are mature enough to make responsible decisions.”

One trend Phillips adamantly opposed: children having sex as early as 12 years old.b”Kids grow up awfully fast these days,” she said. “You should try to have a good relationship with your kids, no matter what they do.”

The woman known to the world as Ann Landers died in June 2002. Later that year, the family revealed that Phillips had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. By then Phillips’ daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who had helped her mother with the Dear Abby column for years, was its sole author.

Pauline Esther Friedman, known as Popo, was born on Independence Day 1918 in Sioux City, Iowa, 17 minutes after her identical twin, Esther Pauline (Eppie.). Their father was a well-off owner of a movie theater chain. Their mother took care of the home. Both were immigrants from Russia who had fled their native land in 1905 because of the persecution of Jews.

“My parents came with nothing. They all came with nothing,” Phillips said in a 1986 Associated Press interview. She recalled that her parents always remembered seeing the Statue of Liberty: “It’s amazing the impact the lady of the harbor had on them. They always held her dear, all their lives.”
The twins spent their growing-up years together. They dressed alike, they both played the violin, they wrote gossip columns for their high school and college newspapers. They attended Morningside College in Sioux Falls. Two days before their 21st birthday, they had a double wedding. Pauline married Morton Phillips, a businessman, Esther married Jules Lederer, a business executive and later founder of Budget Rent-a-Car. The twins’ lives diverged as they followed their husbands to different cities.

… Esther lived in Chicago, had a daughter, Margo, and in 1955 she applied for and was given the job of writing the advice column. She adopted the existing column’s name, Ann Landers.

Pauline, who had been working for philanthropies and the Democratic Party, followed her sister’s lead, though she insisted it wasn’t the reason for her decision. She arranged for an interview with an editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and presented sample columns, arguing that the paper’s lovelorn column was boring. The editors admired her breezy style, and she was hired.

Searching for a name for the column, Pauline chose Abigail from the Bible and Van Buren from the eighth American president. Within a year she signed a 10-year contract with the McNaught Syndicate, which spread her column across the country.
“I was cocky,” she admitted in 1998. “My contemporaries would come to me for advice. I got that from my mother: the ability to listen and to help other people with their problems. I also got Daddy’s sense of humor.”

Pauline applied for the advice column without notifying her sister, and that reportedly resulted in bad feelings. For a long time they did not speak to each other, but their differences were patched up. In June 2001, the twins, 83, attended the 90th birthday party in Omaha, Neb., of their sister Helen Brodkey.

The advice business extended to the second generation of the Friedmans. Phillips had announced in 2000 that her daughter would share her byline. Her sister’s daughter, Margo Howard, wrote an advice column for the online magazine Slate.

Aside from the Dear Abby column, which appeared in 1,000 newspapers as far off as Brazil and Thailand, Phillips conducted a radio version of “Dear Abby” from 1963 to 1975 and wrote best-selling books about her life and advice….

Back when we had things called “Newspaper” these columns were a window into people’s biggest problems.

Now, of course, there are apps where you can read people’s problems in real time from around the world.

The FBI’s secret file on Marilyn Monroe: intimate details kept

A classified file released by the FBI shows how the agency tracked Marilyn Monroe’s suspected ties to communism in 1956.

The agency documented an anonymous phone call to the New York Daily News that year warning that playwright Arthur Miller was a communist and Monroe had ‘drifted into the communist orbit’ after her marriage to him earlier that year.

The file is just one piece of the puzzle about what the FBI knew about the actress when she died in August 1962.

The Associated Press waging an ongoing campaign to have more of the FBI documents released by the agency, coinciding with the 50th anniversary Monroe’s death.

The redacted document reveals that on July 11, 1956, the agency got a tip that an anonymous male caller phoned the Daily News to report that the actress’s company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, was ‘filled with communists’ and that money from the company was being used to finance communist activities.

The caller said Miller’s marriage to Monroe during a Jewish ceremony less than a months earlier was a ‘coverup.’

Miller, the man said, ‘was still a member of the CP (communist party) and was their cultural front man.’

The FBI has long made portions of its documents about Monroe public, but most of them are heavily redacted.

However, the FBI claims it has lost its files on the actress and cannot release them.

Finding out precisely when the records were moved – as the FBI says has happened – required the filing of yet another, still-pending Freedom of Information Act request.

The most recent version of the files is publicly available on the bureau’s website, The Vault, which periodically posts FBI records on celebrities, government officials, spies and criminals.

The AP appealed the FBI’s continued censorship of its Monroe files, noting the agency has not given ‘any legal or factual analysis of the foreseeable harm that might result from the release of the full records.’ …

via DailyMail