Chinese Takeout

Did you see who's sponsoring the 18th annual Bug Fair at the L.A. County Natural History Museum? Western Exterminator. Isn't that a bit like having the National Rifle Assn. sponsor an L.A. Zoo event? Up, up and away? Sherri Miller of Tustin saw an ad for Renaissance-style dresses that, oddly enough, seemed to be intended for stewardesses (see accompanying). Another laboratory creation?

Despite the fact that John Stamos doesn't return my calls, I know he's hurting. Great-looking TV stars have feelings too, just like us writers with average hair and questionable posture. Wouldn't a pending divorce from Rebecca Romijn put a damper on your day? I'd stay in bed for a week, probably trying to figure out how I wound up marrying a model-actress in the first place. Lucky for John, I'm here for him.

On Sunday afternoons, Ka, Sunny, David, Ny, Benjamin and Tony come to Koo's Art Cafe to dance: to do head spins. Leg flares. And dizzying footwork. For this group of high school boys--mostly Asian and Latino--break-dancing is a distraction from the toughest streets in Santa Ana. "I was hanging with a gang before," says Tony Trejo, 17, "and then I found out about Koo's. Ever since then, I've just been dancing."

While immigrants typically send dollars to their impoverished countries, a dwindling community of Finns in Brooklyn hangs on with the help of money and experts from the homeland. Once bustling with Finnish cafes and steam baths, the streets of Sunset Park are now lined with bodegas and Chinese takeout restaurants. Only a little-used Finnish cultural center and a Finnish-language newspaper remain as testimony to "Finntown's" glorious past.

There's a particular breed of Californian once called "dreamers of the golden dream" by the state's scribe, Joan Didion. You know who they are. Now see where they live. After all, where would you live if you had a zillion dollars and had veered so far west you were teetering at the edge of the Pacific? How about an iconic John Lautner house in Malibu with glass walls embracing the edge of the Pacific? A little short on cash?

CRITZ Campbell affectionately recalled the bright floral-pattern chairs he saw when he was growing up in the South, the sort associated with white-haired grandmothers in the '30s. But when he created his own version in his Chicago studio, it was far from a nostalgic duplication: The Eudora, named for fellow Mississippian Eudora Welty, was made of fiberglass, fabric encased in resin, and fluorescent tubes lighting up the hollowed-out interior.

For many Jewish people in America, Christmas day has long meant wide-open freeways, Chinese takeout and "It's a Wonderful Life" on a loop on TV. If perchance you find yourself invited to a Gentile household for the holiday, however, Rob Tannenbaum of the spectacularly uncouth comedy-rock duo Good for the Jews has some advice for you. "Go easy on the alcohol and don't expect much in the way of good food," he joked. "Don't get defensive or paranoid. If you think that cousin Heinrich is checking for horns on your head, it's probably just your imagination."

Now it can be revealed: NBC, in a bold programming move, plans to junk its entire prime-time schedule this fall for an all-"Law & Order" lineup. The ratings-grabbing police-and-courtroom drama, already airing in three versions--"Law & Order," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Law & Order: Criminal Intent"--will expand its reach even further. So get the VCR serviced and stock up on tapes. Coming in September: "Law & Ardor"--Det.

INVITED TO: Grand opening of the Airstream Diner in Beverly Hills with performances by Daniel Lanois and Devo. GO WEST, YOUNG HIPSTERS: "There is a Silver Lake mafia, and Fred is the kingpin," says Donovan Leitch (here with sis Ione Skye) of the peculiarly geographical allegiance commanded by Fred Eric, the Vida and Fred 62 restaurateur. Sure enough, the debut of this latest Fred venture, Airstream, a faux '60s trailer-cum-diner, has the Eastside bohos out in force.

"Schott's Original Miscellany" was a bestseller in 2003, though it had no plot, no character development, no "Da Vinci Code"-like twist or mystery. Nothing. All it offered was information in the same riveting format found on a Chinese takeout menu or a parking ticket. Yet, with 2 million copies in circulation worldwide, the book and its siblings -- on food and drink, on sporting and gaming -- have demonstrated that what many readers love is raw, unadorned trivia. Now there's "A Theological Miscellany."