Art behind closed doors:How can a Los...

Art behind closed doors:

How can a Los Angeles photo exhibition titled “Prostitution” not include Heidi Fleiss?

“These are fine art photographs, not paparazzi stuff,” explained Paul Kopeikin, the owner of the La Brea Avenue gallery. “But I was thinking of contacting her for the opening. It turned out she was being sentenced. I figured it was a bad week for her.”

Kopeikin also considered a couple of metaphorical jokes: the installation of a mirror as well as photos of Hollywood personalities who prostitute their work, in his opinion. He decided that most people wouldn’t understand the mirror and that the Hollywood lineup could be bad for business.

As it is, “Prostitution,” which offers images of soiled doves from around the world back to the turn of the century, is the most heavily attended show ever at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery. It runs through March 17.

“We’re getting so many phone calls that my assistant asked me at one point, ‘Who are all these people asking what the admission price is?’ ” Kopeikin related. “And I said, ‘They’re people who’ve never been to an art gallery before and don’t know it’s free.’ ”

Or perhaps they were confused by the show’s title.

NO FUN: It’s about time someone took a stand against stage-diving. Cary Baker noticed that the practice was banned at a concert he attended in Hollywood (see photo). A rock concert, needless to say.

SPEAKING OF DANGER . . . Merv Kopp found a newspaper ad in a weekly for an apartment with a stove that appears to be dangerous. (see excerpt)

RHYMING L.A. (CONT.): Eric Wilson of Santa Monica points out that the “Essential Songwriters’ Rhyming Dictionary” not only omits Los Angeles but “another English word for which I have never been able to find any rhyme: orange.”

To the rescue, through one of those coincidences that make life worth living, comes Zachary Charles of Burbank.

“About 60 years ago a well-known New York columnist named E.V. Durling suggested in his column that no one could rhyme the word orange,” Charles writes. “I sent him two couplets, which he printed, rhyming orange with car range and with the name of a boxer named Angelo who was known to his fans as Our Ang.”

Hard to think of modern applications for Our Ang except, perhaps, for those writing songs about Angie Dickinson.

NOW THAT’S FUNNY: KSCA-FM (101.9), you may have heard--and heard--played a laugh track for 12 straight hours Wednesday during its transition from rock to Spanish language. We said we couldn’t tell whether the laughter was in English or Spanish. Leave it to a listener to e-mail a radio web site on the Internet that he recognized one of the ha-ha’ers as Robert De Niro in “Cape Fear.”

miscelLAny

In California Lawyer magazine, a Southland firm advertises a computer service that will compile “daily arrest information” and merge the info “into a letter, written by you on your letterhead” that will be “sent to those recently arrested.” This, it continues, benefits “those who do not know how to find a lawyer.” Name of the service: Jail Mail.