LISTEN UP:After a brief ear infection, Ceridwen...

LISTEN UP:

After a brief ear infection, Ceridwen Rees, age 94, went completely deaf. It was a shock to the energetic Welsh woman, known in Santa Barbara for the elegant teas she gave generations of college students. Rees visited a specialist, who sprayed a stream of warm water into each ear. The procedure dislodged several small pieces of shrubbery in each area.

Instantly, Rees’ hearing was restored.

The shrubbery? Oh, she explained, those were pieces of garlic cloves she had stuck in her ears to fight the infection.

KIDS, DON’T READ THIS: The MTA’s brief ban of a mural featuring tiny 19th-century photos of the naked backside of a man has elevated the work into the status of famous, scandalous L.A. artworks. Some others:

* “The Pink Lady of Malibu,” a 60-foot-tall painting of a naked maiden above the tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road, was deemed hazardous to male motorists by the city and rubbed out by workers firing spray-paint guns in 1966. (A compromise proposal to fit her with a bikini was rejected.)

* To the horror of his neighbors, a Saudi sheik painted flesh, hair and body parts on four Greek statues on the front lawn of his 38-room mansion in Beverly Hills. He eventually moved away and the estate was leveled in a 1980 fire.

* “The New World (1991),” Tom Otterness’ sculptures of an anatomically correct female and baby outside the downtown federal building, were termed “obscene” by one judge. The figures were removed, then reinstated behind a protective railing.

* When the “Naked Lady of Rancho Palos Verdes,” a likeness of a sunbather’s naked backside, appeared on a hill above Hawthorne Boulevard in 1991, some passing motorists were shocked. But she was an earth sculpture and time took its toll. Last time we checked, an official said: “She’s sort of clumpy now.”

* Neighbors complained when Orleans restaurant set up cutouts of three bare-breasted women as symbols for the 1993 Mardi Gras. One night, the cardboard wenches were stolen off their perches on the balcony. An 8-year-old girl who lived nearby said she liked the remaining part of the display better, anyway--a cutout of a blue cow.

O.J. MISCONNECTION: When you phone the L.A. County district attorney’s office for information, a taped message says: “If you have information about, or a comment on, the O.J. Simpson case, please call (213) 974-3975.”

However, when you dial that number, a recording says, “You have reached an unassigned number for the district attorney’s office, county of Los Angeles.”

A fitting statement on the county’s prosecution of the case.

THE MOST BLATANT APPEAL TO WOMEN SINCE CHIPPENDALE’S: George Bromberg of North Hollywood ventured into a restaurant that has renamed Studio City in an apparent bid to draw female customers (see accompanying). Bromberg also noticed that the restaurant’s flier says that you can “phone ahead w/your credit card for easy pickup.”

miscelLAny Shame on us for missing the 67th anniversary of Wyatt Earp’s death in L.A. He died Jan. 13, 1929 (with his boots off) at the age of 80. Bruce Tennant of Long Beach forwarded an article from Arizona Highways magazine that revealed that the shootist is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Colma, near San Francisco (Wyatt’s wife, Josephine, was Jewish). There is no epitaph on his tombstone.