So, You Thought 1995 Was a Strange Year?

Well, I’m glad to hear that Y2K has come and gone. Oh, yes. Author Kurt Vonnegut points out that there’s scientific evidence that Jesus was born in 5 B.C.

“So the year 2000 has already come and gone,” he told the Wisconsin State Journal awhile back. “It was actually what we mistakenly called the year 1995.”

And, he added, we all know the apocalyptic event that occurred that year.

The O.J. Simpson criminal trial.

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LANGUAGE! John Blowitz, publisher of Long Beach’s Grunion Gazette, sent along a piece of junk mail from PacBell that listed a “vice message” service (see accompanying). I don’t even want to know what “touch tone” means in this context.

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ANGELENOS ON THE ROAD: No, that wasn’t a costume jewelry shop that Carl Boyer of Santa Clarita spotted on a visit to the Sultanate of Oman (see photo). Across the street, Boyer said, was this sign: Faiq Money Exchange.

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COFFEE BREAK: In a Jan. 7 column I noted that it was the 42nd anniversary of a Times story reporting that Truman B. Carl, a city employee, “today rounded out 27 years of coffee drinking from the same oversized china cup.”

In case you’re wondering about the fate of that hardy vessel, Nancy Parker wrote me the other day:

“Truman B. Carl was my mother’s father, and she still has the cup that you wrote about. When we went to look at it, there was the original article that someone had written on Jan. 7, 1947. My mother is 82, and I could see that she was touched in regard to your article.”

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HE SHOULD START BY LEARNING THE COMMANDMENTS: Phyllis Marks of Glendale noticed a police log blurb about a woman who said “someone stole a Bible from her car and broke a knob off her car stereo.”

“Let’s hope the thief gets religion,” Marks commented.

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DANGEROUS LANGUAGE: Xerox is not exactly a four-letter word. But personnel in the L.A. Unified School District have been warned in a bulletin to be careful about using that name “under threat of legal action by the Xerox Corp.”

“On-site administrators, faculty and clerical staff are hereby notified not to use the terms ‘Xerox,’ ‘Xeroxing,’ ‘xerox,’ or ‘xeroxing’ when using any photocopiers . . . unless the office equipment is a Xerox copier machine,” said a bulletin from the district’s business manager.

Oh, yes, in case you’re suspicious, there’s this addendum: “The Xerox Corp. has stated through its attorneys that it in no way is attempting to coerce the district into purchasing Xerox office equipment.”

Teacher Alan Warhaftig commented sarcastically, “The public should be pleased that LAUSD is addressing this important educational issue and should have no doubt that, as a result, test scores will rise.”

In case you’re wondering, Warhaftig sent me a Canon copy of the order.

miscelLAny:

No sooner did the “Titanic” musical open in L.A. than a magazine dug up this 1912 front-page headline from the old Los Angeles Express:

“All Passengers Are Safe--Report From Titanic.”

Don’t you just hate it when someone gives away the ending to a show? Of course, the headline is quoted in the Columbia Journalism Review as part of a story titled “Bloopers of the Century: Blunders, Hoaxes, Goofs, Flubs, Boo-Boos, Screw-Ups, Fakes.”

And by the way, that’s “fakes,” not “Faiqs.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached by telephone 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.