That sculpture by Terry Allen outside Citicorp...

That sculpture by Terry Allen outside Citicorp Plaza on Figueroa Street (see photo) has taken on new symbolic meaning with the announcement that Citicorp posted a fourth-quarter loss of $133 million.

Now it sort of resembles a banker pounding his head against a wall.

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf will speak before the Southern California Defense Council in Century City on Friday, which leads one to wonder whether anyone has told Stormin’ Norman what the group is.

The Southern California Defense Council is a trade association for insurance company lawyers.

You always knew you were an artist, and you were right--especially if you’re a motorist.

“The Smog Art Collection was created by all of us who live and work in Southern California,” says the state Bureau of Automotive Repair, which is promoting a unique exhibition.

It’s a series of seven “smog” etchings by environmental artist Kim Abeles, which will be unveiled at the Bonaventure Hotel on Monday morning. Abeles created these works by setting out seven sheets of plexiglass stenciled with adhesive images, upon which the particulate matter imprinted itself over a period of more than a month.

The showing, by the way, will be on the Pool Plaza Level on the fourth floor--above the exhaust fumes.

For Sale signs have also become works-in-progress. After the initial sign come the tacked-on updates. Pat Weil of Studio City found what could be the biggest price reduction currently posted, a $400,000 drop to a paltry $1.2 million (see photo). Notice that the sign appears to be professionally made. This is apparently a new growth industry, the manufacture of reduced-price placards.

Sorry, Imelda, none of them are for sale:

The County Museum of Art is preparing an exhibition of 199 historic shoes (some lefts, some rights) for a showing between April 12 and June 7. It’s titled, “Salvatore Ferragamo: The Art of the Shoe (1927-1960),” saluting the onetime Italian cobbler who became Shoemaker to the Silent-Screen Stars.

The Times’ switchboard operators report that numerous people from around the nation called this newspaper Wednesday night and early Thursday morning to applaud the cancellation of Japanese-owned Sumitomo Corp.’s contract to build driverless cars for the Metro Green Line.

Bob Roselle of Studio City, meanwhile, wrote Only in L.A. to say how “prescient” we were the other day to describe the Sumitomo cars as riderless . And Molly Longley of Rosemead, who also spotted the riderless reference, added that she never realized the $121.7-million contract was “THAT controversial.”

miscelLAny:

Jack Stewart, who operates a Westwood Boulevard shoeshine stand, is listed in the Yellow Pages and takes reservations over the phone in his booth.