FIRST OFF . . .

Los Angeles-based artist and L.A Weekly art critic Robbie Conal plans to paper Washington today with a series of politically charged posters featuring Lt. Col. Oliver North, Ronald and Nancy Reagan and others. Conal’s “Men With No Lips” depicts a grimacing President Reagan, former chief of staff Donald T. Regan, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III. “Women With Teeth” features a toothy Nancy Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, former U.N. ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Joan Rivers. “Speak” shows a tight-lipped North. Conal says the posters, inspired by newspaper photos of “sour-faced” public figures, are about “what power is capable of doing to people who hold it--how corrupting and constructing it can be.” The posters have been spotted locally from Echo Park to Venice.