Too Bad They Won’t Pay a Penny for Their Thoughts

Hundreds of previously rejected movie scripts are going into production after all--but the authors are unlikely to feel delighted. The scripts will be used as props in a new play, “The Sun Dialogues,” by David Hollander.

“It’s about a script reader who has rejected 999 scripts, but when he reads the thousandth, it changes his life,” said spokeswoman Siri Garber.

The producers originally put out a call to local agents for shelved screenplays and collected about 10,000. Only a thousand were needed, so the rest will be sent to the recycler.

But if it’s any consolation to the would-be Michael Crichtons, they may make history before then. Sensing a chance to publicize the Oct. 30 opening of the play, the Gascon Theater in Culver City has invited the media to view the whole pile Monday morning.

And a rep from the Guinness Book of World Records is expected to be there to immortalize what may be the world’s largest group rejection.

Fade out.

*

THE CURE FOR HOSPITAL FOOD: Michael Connelly’s novel “Blood Work” salutes one of the Southland’s newer and wackier landmarks (see photo).

It’s in a scene where retired FBI agent Terry McCaleb visits the sixth floor of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “The room looked down on Beverly Boulevard,” Connelly wrote. “He saw the string of businesses across the street, the mystery bookshop and the deli with the ‘Get Well Soon!’ sign on the roof.”

The eatery is Jerry’s Famous Deli, which opened there soon after the 1994 Northridge quake, aiming the subtle sentiment sign at patients nibbling on hospital meals. One doctor told me that some hospital patients have had the deli fare smuggled into their rooms.

P.S. In “Blood Work,” McCaleb goes across the street and orders a turkey sandwich with coleslaw and Russian dressing, which he wolfs down in “less than five minutes.”

*

HOSPITAL FOOD, PART II: Dennis Hayes contributed the Self-Dueling Sign of the Week, snapped in Glendale (see photo). “It is at the entrance to a parking lot for a medical building,” Hayes said. “There are two restaurants across the street, and the sign attempts to dissuade diners from parking in the lot. The question is: When?”

*

SOMETHING MORE TO CHEW ON: Joe Crites of Ojai was in a coffee shop when a customer ordered an “everything”--a bagel with a combination of flavors. Crites then overheard this exchange:

Waitress: “Would you like anything on your everything?”

Customer: “I’d like nothing on my everything.”

Asks Crites: “What does it all mean?”

miscelLAny:

Discussing urban folk tales about final exams, the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society’s Web site mentions the story of the college philosophy instructor “who places a chair at the front of the room and challenges the class to prove it exists. One students receives an A for writing, ‘What chair?’ ”

*

Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.