Hum, sweet hum: So what if you’re...

Hum, sweet hum: So what if you’re not flying to Europe this year? You can always hum to Paris--without leaving Santa Monica. And you don’t need to make reservations 21 days in advance.

It’s a project of performance artist Bonnie Barnett, who was, of course, the organizer of the 1988 MacArthur Park Pedestrian Tunnel Hum-Along. A cast of 50 harmonized under Wilshire Boulevard for half an hour that day.

This time, Barnett is inviting pros and amateurs alike to gather May 15 at the Electronic Cafe International in Santa Monica. There, they’ll sound off in unison with participants gathered at Paris’ La Cite in a “videophone-linked transcontinental hum.”

It could be the perfect comeback vehicle for Milli Vanilli.

No wonder modern art can be so excruciating to look at: The L.A. Cultural Affairs Department apparently now includes pain as a category in applications for its latest public art program.

On the rubber broccoli circuit: Democratic Assemblyman Tom Hayden recently received an award at the Great L.A. Clean-Up Environmental Awards Vegetarian Banquet.

L.A. Index: Some local items published in Harper’s Index in Harper’s Magazine:

* Maximum amount an L.A. taxi company can be fined if its drivers are found wearing anything plaid: $1,500.

* Maximum fine for animal sacrifices in L.A.: $1,000.

* Percentage of all Los Angelenos who voted for Mayor Bradley in the 1989 election, which he won: 5.

* Percentage of Southern California drivers who say they have made indecent gestures at other drivers: 38.

The fruits of academia: Outgoing L.A. Police Chief Daryl F. Gates asserted the other day that it was unfortunate that incoming Chief Willie L. Williams lacks a four-year college degree because the job “requires some time in academia.”

Gates, you may recall, has remarked that some of his Latino officers were “lazy” (1978), that the LAPD’s SWAT team was capable of rescuing the American captives in Iran (1979), that TV anchorwoman Christine Lund was “an Aryan broad” (1980), and that “casual drug users ought to be taken out and shot” (1990).

It was also Gates, who confided his “hunch” in 1982 on why so many blacks died from police use of the carotid chokehold: “We may be finding that in some blacks, when it is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up as fast as they do on normal people.”

Traffic officer’s collection plate: Phil Stern saw these side-by-side signs outside an L.A. church:

“First Baptist Parking Only.”

“Violators Will Be ‘Baptized.’ ”

miscelLAny:

Roosevelt Highway, Reservoir Road and Orange Street are now known, respectively, as Pacific Coast Highway, Sunset Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard.