A CHRONICLE OF THE PASSING SCENE : The Curious New Olde Curio Shoppe

Disappointed in your haul this past holiday season?

None of the exotic numbers you craved wended their way into your home?

Didn’t get those Chilean rain sticks you asked for?

No furniture made from picket fences to sharpen up your living room?

No 50-cent candy sculptures made it through your garden gate?

Santa has stashed some good boy and girl goodies in Studio City at a place called Handmade, but you have to pay from 50 cents to $20,000 for them.

Judie Aronson of Studio City is the 28-year-old budding entrepreneur and sometime actress behind the project.

Maybe you remember her from her parts in the movies “Friday the 13th Part IV” and “Weird Science,” or on a brief ABC show with Brian Keith called “Pursuit of Happiness.”

Maybe not.

She rented a 10,000-square-foot building fronting Ventura Boulevard in Studio City and has filled it with every eccentric artsy and craftsy work she can find.

Her giant mart filled with glitz, kitsch and collectibles has been turning a profit almost since the door opened in the middle of October, she says.

She and her 200 or so vendors brought in $115,000 in December. (She gets 10%.)

“I got the idea for Handmade from a somewhat similar craftsy sort of place in Northridge,” Aronson says. “It showed a lot of things I found interesting, but it was all pretty traditional. I wanted to encourage people who were creating unusual things and give them a great, big showcase.

Once she found her space she says she haunted galleries, art shows, craft shows, arts and crafts shows and antique dealerships.

If she was looking for eclectic, that’s what she got, fer sure, dear--how about an entertainment center made from an old refrigerator or a wine rack made from a 1950 television set?

One of the more interesting pieces in Handmade is also the most expensive. It’s a 6-foot sculpture of an artist made of old paint tubes.

If you want to see the sculpture, you’d better hurry.

Aronson says she thinks it’s been sold--for $20,000.

Man’s Best Friend Is Lion

It’s been a miserable kind of year for 34-year-old Anthony Miller of Glendale.

“I’m getting older, none of my songs have been published, the heat’s out in my rented home, and my roommate’s out of a job so I have to pay most of the rent,” he says.

To keep body and soul together until his lyric gifts are discovered, Miller, formerly a student at the University of Delaware, has been working for five years as a $110-a-week delivery man for Gin-G Chinese Restaurant in Glendale.

The tips he relies on have been bad as of late, and three days before Christmas, Miller was feeling pretty down after “looking at all the gifts I would like to have bought for my friends and family.”

He took his 4-year-old chow dog, Lion, for a late-evening walk down his street to clear his head.

Lion went bounding down the sidewalk in front of him, when a car full of people pulled up alongside Miller.

One man got out.

“The man pulled out a knife and told me to give him all my money,” remembers Miller, who had about $16 with him.

He started to reach for his wallet when he called Lion’s name and saw the dog wheel around to face the action.

The 65-pound, normally friendly Chow turned tiger as the canine fur ball flew back down the sidewalk toward the attacker.

The would-be robber took one look at the dog, jumped back in the car and told the driver to get out of there.

He did, but Miller had time to get a description of the car and most of the license plate number.

The police picked up and booked the suspects.

Lion earned a pork chop dinner.

Winding Up Baby

Want to keep the image of your child close to your heart--or at least your wrist? Consider a Classic Images timepiece.

The Reseda company takes a 4-by-6-inch picture of your beloved young one, reduces it to watch-face size and puts it on a $24.95 watch.

This picture-in-your-watch thing also works well if you are trying to impress your girlfriend or boyfriend.

Unless, of course, he or she doesn’t also happen to be your spouse.

War Weary on the Homeless Front

Jeri Darr, administrative assistant at the Lancaster Community Shelter, says although it can be depressing, working with the homeless has its moments.

One such moment happened just before Christmas.

“Our live-in homeless put on a holiday party for the less fortunate children in the general population. They cleaned the facility, made the food, planned the afternoon and cleaned up afterward,” Darr says.

Darr, a four-month veteran with the shelter, which offers a number of state, county and locally funded programs, says the one thing she’s learned is that stereotypes do not apply to the homeless.

“The people who come here are from all backgrounds and educational and cultural levels. The only thing they have in common is that they are isolated from the general population. We try to get them back into the mainstream, but it’s not easy,” she says.

Like other similar institutions, her shelter is seeing more homeless families and women with children. “It is hard to see people struggling so hard,” she says.

Darr went into social work thinking she could make a difference.

“I had such lofty ideas, but I’ve learned that a free meal and a bed are not going to change people’s lives. It doesn’t take long for the realities of the homelessness to strip you of your false idealism,” she says.

Darr is 24 years old.

Overheard

“You mean just because I tried on this very, very, unflattering lipstick I can’t return it?

--Valley-type teen-ager to saleswoman