Color

It's hard to know where to look first when you walk into garden designer Jamie Schwentker's tiny bungalow in the Franklin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. At the catwalk over the living and dining room? The staircase resembling stacked Japanese tansu ? The chandelier shrouded in faux butterflies and year-round Christmas lights? "I call it Late Wicked Witch," Schwentker says of the 1923 cottage's style, "which is partly a nod to the whole movie thing and partly because it looks like a fairy-tale house.

Re "Hussein Clan May Have a Billion Ways to Foment Unrest," May 7: Since Saddam Hussein may have millions of dollars of American currency in his possession, isn't it about time that America change the color of its money? This would wipe out many enemies of America, including drug cartels and crooked businesses. Paul E. Seal Palm Springs

Thank you for Lynn Smith's comprehensive article on color in the service of character and theme ("Shading the story," Feb. 16). As one who has researched the effects of color on behavior for more than 20 years and who teaches "Color and Visual Storytelling" at the AFI Conservatory, I can unequivocally tell you that color's influence on the emotions is profound. It influences us to form opinions of characters and identify with emotional undercurrents in a film. In "Philadelphia," as dying Tom Hanks clings to his IV stand, translating the lyrics to an opera whose theme is love and loss, he is slowly enveloped by an intense red light from nowhere.

The cramped broadcast booth for AM 680, the Spanish-language outlet for the American League champion Tampa Bay Rays, is close enough to the infield of Tropicana Field to hear it all. The crack of the bat, the ball's loud pop as it is snared by the second baseman, the crowd cheering. Enrique Oliu, color analyst for the Rays' radio broadcasts, takes these sounds and spins them to life, making the game something a listener can see, even if he cannot. Oliu is blind. "And now, for the play-by-play, here's the friend of apple pie, Ricky Taveras!"

Re "Prayer Finds an Opening in L.A. School," Nov. 20: I read that the Child Evangelism Fellowship has won a lawsuit allowing its members free use of campus facilities for after-school meetings. I hope that this group will not perpetuate the misguided ideas prevalent in our Western society about color. According to the article, the teacher displayed a multicolored floppy top hat. In describing the meanings of each color, she explained that "black represents sin" and "white means clean from sin."

I am very upset about this whole colorization scheme. I adore old movies and think that coloring classics such as "The Maltese Falcon" is an atrocity. The only good I see coming out of this whole process is that the networks are running more classics. Thank heavens for that little piece of home-based technology, the color knob. Ted Turner and other mercenaries like him may have the power to leave their mark like so many dogs on our collective heritage. At least the "general public" still has the power to remove the stench with a flick of the wrist.

Springtime heralds a feast of color, the earth energized with blossoms of pink, yellow, violet, orange and myriad shades that burst forth to adorn the planet in prettiness — millions of little gifts for the senses wrapped as flowers adding up to an indulgence of happy color. Likewise, makeup this season takes a cue from Mother Nature, offering a garden of pretty shades for our pleasure. "This spring is all about bright pops of color in shades like coral, purple, pink, and aquamarine," says Bobbi Brown of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, who answered our questions while she was travelling in China on a recent trip.