LIFE ON ANOTHER PLANET?

Is there another planet where we could live?


Russian billionaire, Yuri Milner, is wondering about this and spending big money, $100 million on "Breakthrough Listen" searching for intelligent life in the 92 billion-light-year-wide universe. He's scanning the nearest stars and the 100 closest galaxies, each of which could be home to hundreds of billions more stars harboring who-knows-how-many habitable planets.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Tesla's Elon Musk, and Virgin Records' Richard Branson, are also searching for other worlds, but the 53-year-old Milner is different from them. He has no commercial purpose. His project is a scientific endeavor. Milner's using some of the world's most powerful radio telescopes to scan the cosmos for regular or repeating signals that could be communication from another planet.

Miler's "Breakthrough Listen" -- his search for extraterrestrial intelligence -- is currently leasing time on the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, and on Australia’s Parkes Radio Telescope, studying 10 times as much sky with 50 times greater sensitivity, at 100 times the processing speed. His project, eventually will be assisted by 9 million people around the world, who already allow their home computers to be used as part of a massive distributed network processing -- "SETI" Home. It is one of the largest supercomputers in the world.

Though Stephen Hawking has expressed doubts about the potential results of interstellar contact, Bezos, 51, sees finding a new world as a necessity and huge new market. CEO Eton Musk, 44, thinks we are going to run out of water and food, and must have another world to head toward. 65-year-old Richard Branson, since 1999, has been taking reservations on Virgin Galactic Airways, for outer pace trips at $98,000 a trip. His spokesman says, "It's now a matter of when, not if."

These men, are seeking a glorious future for the world, like men down through the ages, who have sought some kind of golden fleece, gone on quests, dreamed of reaching an unreachable star.

Will you and I ever migrate to another planet? Probably not, but these men dream of doing things that seem impossible. Ever heard that song? It's an overpowering feeling -- to hear it sung, or sing it yourself, and dream the impossible dream.

A PEEK AT EM'S GALLERY

If you buzz our buzzer, we ask who it is, and when we know who you are, we buzz you in. It's a surprise when you walk in. Our hallway walls are shocking pink, and bright orange; the steps and banisters are bright red. The brilliant, almost clashing colors, wonderful colors, make visitors laugh, and put most of them in a good mood.

After you climb two flights of steps you're at the third floor, where you see some of my paintings hanging on the pink wall.

This is one of my cityscapes. If you're a New Yorker or you've visited my hometown, you may recognize some of the buildings.

I like to do cityscapes -- I enjoy doing repetitive tasks, like embroidering "True Friendships Are Eternal" on a sampler. I gave it to Mom for Mother's Day when I was eight-years-old.

I found a photo in a magazine ad that I loved, and copied it, and have copied it again and again in different ways and in different colors.





As we climb the stairs to the top floor where our home is, you pass my visions of the water,  birds flying over it, with the island of NYC in the distance.

The red door you're passing is the entrance to "DanceHouse" -- that's where our offices are, (John Cullum's and mine), and the theater-dance studio where I choreographed and rehearsed my Dance Drama Company.


Here's a quick peek at the clipboard on my desk. The painting is my vision of the Galaxy.

I clip email, passwords and addresses onto the galaxy.



  
On the other side of my desk, attached to my Blue Faces painting, there's a list of ideas that I might use for my blog.

Other lists are taped below it, including emergency phone numbers for tech pals.






At the top of the step there's a plastic plant, stage prop from my play "People in Show Biz Make Long Goodbyes," and a Clown painting that goes with a song I sang to our son JD.

"See a clown,
He's looking down. 
He has a bird.
Oops he heard --
You and me --
Talking about the fact that he lives in a tree."

In the other part of our loft-home, on the door to JD's room,
there is my "Em Clown."

She's wearing one of my costumes; her eyes have fake lashes that I made out of black felt.  I painted the "Em Clown " on JD's door to keep JD company when I was on tour.

My biggest, bestest cityscape is hung in a prominent spot in the main hall where there's plenty of light from one of the skylights. Click the picture. You can see much more -- more buildings -- also the bridge to the borough of Queens.

I like my orange cityscape, but if I have time to paint another picture, it wouldn't be a cityscape.

Maybe I'll paint flowers.

(VIDEO) WHAT DO YOU HATE?

Emily Frankel asks her husband, John Cullum, "What do you hate?"

Grabbing onto his reply, Emily presses John to explain what he strongly dislikes, and why to him, hating is a sin.