Starlight

Using data from the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, astronomers have discovered a telltale "flicker" pattern in a distant star's light -- an interstellar Morse code that reveals hidden but crucial information about its mass and volume. Their quick scientific trick, described last week in the journal Nature, could improve estimates of stars' sizes by three times or more -- and thus, improve estimates of exoplanets' sizes as well. Pinning down stellar sizes using starlight is surprisingly difficult.

Using data from the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, astronomers have discovered a telltale "flicker" pattern in a distant star's light -- an interstellar Morse code that reveals hidden but crucial information about its mass and volume. Their quick scientific trick, described last week in the journal Nature, could improve estimates of stars' sizes by three times or more -- and thus, improve estimates of exoplanets' sizes as well. Pinning down stellar sizes using starlight is surprisingly difficult.

Seeking greater job security, union musicians struck the Starlight theater company Monday, and planned to picket auditions by non-union musicians. The San Diego Civic Light Opera's five-play summer season opens May 24 with a performance of "Peter Pan" at the Civic Theatre. In past years it has employed a minimum of 20 musicians per show. Local 325 of the American Federation of Musicians sanctioned the strike after the Starlight mailed contracts with a 5 p.m. Monday signing deadline to 21 union musicians, despite the absence of a contract agreement.

We sing more songs of the moon and the stars than of the sun. Google it. The moon and stars win by many millions. Music and night merge differently than music in daylight - or even artificial light for that matter, as the debate over the new high-luminosity Hollywood Bowl monitors indicates. Night invites magic and mystery and, well, music. That is particularly true outdoors, and it was to the nocturnal that Southwest Chamber Music turned for the second of its Summer Festival at the Huntington programs on Sunday, which featured the excellent Lyris Quartet.

Striking musicians ratified a proposed contract with Starlight Monday, which the theater's executive committee is expected to be approved at a 3 p.m. meeting today, management says. Seeking more job security, the musicians went on strike April 17. The agreement, which runs through Jan. 31, 1990, offers a 4.5% pay raise to the players. It also calls for Starlight to employ 96 musicians at some point during the season, although Starlight employs only about 20 musicians for each of its five musicals, said Joseph Pallazola, president of Local 325, American Federations of Musicians.

"A Diet for Ailing Airlines" (editorial, Nov. 4) and "Uncertainty Shadows Starlight" (Nov. 3) both ignore the fact that subsidies have been a major part of transportation in the U.S. for most of our history. They are nothing new and are necessary in many cases to ensure needed service to the public. A leading airline publication recently characterized its industry as one of the worst investments in the history of U.S. transportation. The picture would be even more dismal if the carriers had to pay (like railroads)

Well, it was just a matter of time. Lee Blessing's "A Walk in the Woods," the La Jolla Playhouse smash directed by Des McAnuff at the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts, has finally moved from being vaguely Broadway-bound to becoming most definitely produced by Lucille Lortel at the Booth Theater on Broadway. - In "The Price Is Right" department: the Old Globe Theatre is offering a limited number of $7 tickets for seniors 60 and older to the 2 p.m. Dec.

Jay Leno, minus his "Mr. Brain" routine and the amplified guffaws of "Tonight Show" bandleader Kevin Eubanks, did his darndest to joke it up with the best of them at the Starbright Foundation's celebration of "The Emperor's New Clothes," a just-published reinterpretation of the always-prescient fairy tale. However, with John Lithgow's funny hat-balance routine, Nathan Lane's theatrical bellows and Robin Williams' manic effluvia, Leno had his work cut out for him.

This 1987 New Zealand film is pure enchantment, a perfect blending of cast, setting and story that brings to mind the visual impact of "Days of Heaven"--and could just as easily have been set in the American Midwest during the Depression. It's such a familiar tale--the plight of a pretty young runaway of 12 (Greer Robson) and a man (Peter Phelps) in his 20s on the lam--that you're surprised how deeply you become involved.

Give celebrities humanitarian awards and they usually wax profound about the meaning of charitable work and go on and on about how deeply moved they are. Give that award to actress Whoopi Goldberg and she'll stand there in her tuxedo and scuffed Reeboks, dreadlocks flying, and say: "(What I've done) isn't any great shakes. It's just sorta what you're supposed to do."

Here's an idea for a leisurely autumn trip that's scenic and saves money: Amtrak is taking 25% off tickets on a stretch of the Coast Starlight route between Los Angeles and Davis, Calif. The sale applies to destinations such as Oakland, San Jose, Paso Robles, Santa Barbara and others. -- The deal: The Coast Starlight runs between Los Angeles and Seattle, but the Book Early and Save 25% offer covers only the southern leg of the line. The discount also applies to up to two children, ages 2 to 15, who travel for half fare with the purchase of an adult ticket.  -- When: The offer is good for travel Oct. 13 through Nov. 17. But you must buy tickets by Sunday.

With their mania for film franchises, leading studios are behaving more like packaged goods marketers than the showmen of yore in pumping out movies, and appear more interested in taking direction from fanboys, brand managers and multimedia consultants. So the time appears ripe for consultants such as Jeff Gomez and Mark Pensavalle, co-founders of Starlight Runner Entertainment. Their job: To make sure that stories and characters remain consistent as a movie is reincarnated as, say, a TV series, a video game, a theme park attraction or an online virtual world.

Comfortably settled in ClubAcela, the first-class lounge at New York's Penn Station, I considered the folder of Amtrak sleeping car tickets much as I would money in the bank: a promise of good times ahead. I would travel on the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, the Empire Builder to Seattle and, finally, the Coast Starlight to Los Angeles. These trains, two of Amtrak's best and one of its most improved, would show me a huge slice of America for the next week. During my 3,582-mile journey in March, the scenically mundane mixed in with the magnificent, and that was fine with me. There were books to read, people to meet, naps to take.

To take Amtrak's Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to the Bay Area is an all-day excursion, 12 hours if you're lucky, 14 or more if there are delays. You can do it only if you have time to give yourself over to the experience, which is why, on a Saturday morning in summer, my 12-year-old son, Noah, and I are in our seats, waiting to leave Union Station for the long passage north.

Racked by corruption, poverty, ethnic inequality and violent drug trafficking, Mexico certainly has no shortage of subject matter for documentary films. Nor does it lack a pool of talented young documentary filmmakers. What it needs is more financial support for documentary production, and possibly a jolt of Hollywood-grade star power. That's where Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, two of Mexico's most bankable young actors, think they can help.

What's better than eating outside on a summer night? That's when L.A. really does seem like a paradise. You're under the stars. The humidity's negligible. You'd have to try hard to rustle up a mosquito or two. And if there's the tiniest nip in the air, well, there's always last year's pashmina to throw over your shoulders. Come evening, Cafe Stella in Silver Lake spreads out into the courtyard behind Sunset Junction.

World Entertainment Services, a Santa Monica-based entertainment and concert promotion agency, has been selected by Burbank officials to operate the Starlight Amphitheatre, a city-owned facility plagued by financial and legal difficulties for years. Michael S. Seemann, company president, said that on Friday he will announce 12 shows to be presented this summer at the 6,000-seat outdoor theater.

Singer-guitarist Bonnie Raitt will perform Oct. 9 at San Diego's Starlight Bowl. Acclaimed folk-pop songwriter John Prine will open the show. Raitt last performed in San Diego in 1989. In 1990, she won three Grammy awards for her best-selling album "Nick of Time" (best album, best pop vocal performance female, best rock vocal performance female). Raitt shared a fourth Grammy (best traditional blues recording) with blues legend John Lee Hooker for their duet on "I'm in the Mood."

Joseph, a burly ex-Marine, is munching peanuts and gazing out the big domed windows of the Pacific Parlour Car. We are traveling on the Coast Starlight, the train that runs between Los Angeles and Seattle, a 1,389-mile trek that is arguably the most beautiful stretch of railroad in the country. I met Joseph only a few hours ago, but already I know more about him than I do about some of my closest friends.

It was a rare celestial event. The 83rd birthday of famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury coincided with Mars' closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years. To celebrate, members of the Planetary Society came up with a novel idea: They held a birthday celebration for the author at the society's Pasadena headquarters on Saturday. Afterward, they trucked three busloads of guests to the Mt. Wilson Observatory for a glimpse of the Red Planet through the facility's massive 60-inch telescope.