It sounds as though the Los Angeles...

It sounds as though the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency can find plenty of things lovelier than a tree.

In a memo regarding traffic congestion in Hollywood, the agency said one possible solution would be “creating major diversions (e.g., planted roadway medians) to reduce the attractiveness of Highland Ave. to through traffic.”

Nothing like trees and bushes and grass to reduce the attractiveness of a roadway, right?

It sort of brings to mind Ogden Nash’s parody of Joyce Kilmer:

I think that I shall never see

A billboard lovely as a tree .

Indeed, unless the billboards fall ,

I’ll never see a tree at all .

As a companion piece to William Reagh’s “1990: The Changing Face of L.A.,” local history buffs can avail themselves of a second calendar--”Angel City Trolley: Streetscapes from the 1950s.”

Published by Photoventures Co., it covers the final years of the Red Car and Yellow Car trolley lines, the city’s first mass transit system; the one that many drivers wish had never been dismantled.

The publication also recalls “the days,” historian Bruce Henstell points out, “when Angelenos shopped Downtown in stores like Leed’s, and then took in a movie at the Newsreel, which showed nothing but the news of the day.”

The calendar includes several L.A.-ish milestones, such as this entry for Sept. 30:

“James Dean’s last meal: Brunch at the Farmer’s Market (1955).”

Elvis-Head Sightings (cont.):

Unlike Graceland, the Northpark Shopping Mall of Ridgeland, Miss., welcomed the floral noggin of the King. But the 15-foot-tall bust would not fit through the entrance. So it will go on display outside the mall for a week, mall marketing director Becky Orsi said.

“Then who knows what’ll happen to the head,” Orsi added.

Meanwhile, relations between Tennessee and Mississippi were reported as tense.

Graceland had originally given permission to Mississippi--Presley’s birthplace--to construct the bust for the Tournament of Roses Parade. The Memphis, Tenn., mansion has since condemned the float’s post-parade odyssey, led by two KLOS disc jockeys, as undignified.

“We feel like we’ve been had by the state of Mississippi,” said Graceland executive director Jack Soden.

Well . . . at least, as the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger put it: “The King has found a new place to dwell.”

“Los Angeles Without a Map,” one of the newest members of the genre of L.A. novels, revives memories of the 1980s. (Remember them?) The story revolves around a Playboy Bunny who’s an aspiring/perspiring actress.

Author Richard Rayner unveils a cast of Angelenos that includes a British screenwriter who works as a mannequin in a wax museum, a pool cleaner who dreams of starting a TV ministry, a Ship’s cafe chef who writes submarine movie scripts, a Cambodian taxi driver who composes violin sonatas, an insurance salesman who also plays back-up for an Elvis look-alike, and a man who videotapes parties at his house so he doesn’t have to attend them.

The typical crew at any L.A. party.

Their lives are more or less summed up by one character who says: “Another year and I know I’ll make it. I’ve just got to get through the next year.”

Bravest of all, perhaps, is the Brit. He doesn’t know how to drive.