Art that burns the eyes: While some...

Art that burns the eyes: While some stuffy holdouts refuse to recognize L.A. as a cultural center, they can scarcely deny that this city has the world’s largest collection of smog artists.

One need only view the various brownish works on display by L.A. artists at the California Museum of Photography in Riverside: Smog sculptures (Kim Abeles), smog video (Cheri Gaulke), smog photography (Victor Land-Webber), smog murals (Sheila Pinkel), smog multimedia (Susan Silton) and smog smells (Michael Barton Miller).

Miller’s olfactory display at the exhibition--”Smog: A Matter of Life and Breath”--includes 17 corked bottles containing pieces of gauze that have been exposed to polluted (i.e., L.A.) air. “You can remove the cork from a bottle and smell something really nauseous,” guaranteed Helen Sanematsu, a spokeswoman at the UC Riverside museum.

Asked how the 17 odors vary, Sanematsu confessed: “I could only sample one.”

In other words, there is no difference? An F-18 fighter pilot told a presidential panel the other day that the difference between training men and women to fly combat aircraft would be the same as the difference between “driving the Los Angeles freeways and the Indy 500.”

Now they tell us: Alan Frisbie of L.A. passed along a Southwest Airlines cocktail napkin containing a message that we presume referred to the paper, not the plane in the illustration (see photo).

How about a weed from Johnny Carson’s lawn? Ed Barry of Pearl River, N.Y., making his first visit to Tinseltown, was approached on Hollywood Boulevard by a panhandler who asked: “Would you like to buy some gravel from Michael Jackson’s driveway?”

Another sad sign of the recession: A woman loitering at a garage sale in Pacific Palisades was observed covertly affixing a flyer to a table that was for sale. The flyer advertised the woman’s own garage sale a few blocks away.

Nose for news: Obviously catering to its readership, the newspaper Beverly Hills Today runs a regular column by a plastic surgeon.

No spills, either: An Angeleno--Hal Haenel--was a member of the only U.S. yachting team to win a gold medal in Barcelona. But kudos should also go to another U.S. entry for winning a silver medal--and avoiding running aground. That sailing team was sponsored by Exxon.

miscelLAny:

Barret (Dr. Demento) Hansen, the syndicated radio personality whose nickname derives from his fondness for playing such compositions as “Fish Heads,” “Dead Puppies (Aren’t Much Fun)” and “Transfusion,” has a master’s degree from UCLA.