Hallmark Couldn’t Have Said It Better

During a visit to Southern California on Sunday, Jeff Bliss was in heavy traffic on the 101 when he noticed a woman in another car trying frantically to compose a message on a Mother’s Day card.

“She had the card resting on her steering wheel and she was steering with her knees,” Bliss noted. “My wife, Colleen, said, ‘You know a lot of thought is going into that card.’ ”

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CITY OF HEADLIGHTS: After reading a few quotes about the City of Angels in this space, Bill Fawcett of Tujunga wrote: “My favorite description of L.A.--the one that comes closest to describing the essence of the city--comes from Adam Kennedy’s 1975 novel, ‘The Domino Principle.’ ”

Kennedy wrote of L.A.: “It’s a place where cars live and the people are just there as some kind of servants to keep the cars alive.”

I used to hate it when my old car’s computerized voice box would nag me when I was low on gas.

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L.A. INSULT OF THE DAY: The author of the San Francisco Examiner’s “Night Cabbie” column wrote, “Driving around these streets all night, I notice that it’s starting to look like the back roads of some Third World province. There seem to be potholes everywhere downtown. San Francisco must have some of the most incompetent road crews this side of L.A.”

Hey, no tip for you.

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EVERYONE’S A CRITIC: The Wall Street Journal reports that at one point during the six hours that a Northwest Airline flight was stranded at a Detroit airport, one passenger loaned a flight attendant his tape of “Citizen Kane” to be shown to his fellow travelers. (The airline no longer offers films on most flights).

Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (1941) is usually near the top of any critic’s all-time best movie list.

It got thumbs down this time. Several passengers started booing only 10 minutes after the film had started.

“Who put this goofy movie on?” someone asked.

Another passenger complained, “Who would watch a black-and-white movie?”

Rosebud.

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IT CAN’T BE THAT BAD: Bingham Cherrie noticed that the marquees at one South Pasadena theater bore gloomy, if not frightening, forecasts (see photos).

miscelLAny:

In an article on the photo radar systems used by cities like Pasadena to observe speeding motorists, Westways magazine told the story of one suspected violator who thought he’d have some fun with the authorities. When he received a notice of his violation in the mail, he sent back a photo “of the cash equivalent of the demanded fine,” the magazine said. Police then sent him “a picture of handcuffs.” The scofflaw promptly “mailed in a check.”

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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.