Hideous

Anyone who still maintains that documentary films are the domain of the dry and donnish has never seen the work of Ondi Timoner. Her latest effort, "We Live in Public," which opened in Los Angeles on Friday, is an aggressively hip telling of the rise, fall and reinvention of new media mogul Josh Harris. With a dizzying visual style that is a headlong rush of imagery, editing, music and ideas, "We Live in Public" -- which won the Grand Jury Prize after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, making Timoner the first filmmaker ever to win that award twice -- is culled from 5,000 hours of footage shot over 10 years.

You ever see a Heisman Trophy? It's a monstrosity. So where do you put it in your house? You display it, and anyone who drops by notices your ego is as big as your monstrosity. You don't put it out, and what's the point of having it in the first place, which pretty much explains as far as I can tell why Bush gave it up. Over the years I've chosen not to win awards because how would it look to have them hanging all over my house? Why would I want my house to look exactly like Plaschke's ?

Now that the graffiti artists have switched media, using those hideous flower tiles instead of spray paint to deface our freeway sound walls, can't Caltrans do something? PAUL HOFFMAN Irvine

Anyone who still maintains that documentary films are the domain of the dry and donnish has never seen the work of Ondi Timoner. Her latest effort, "We Live in Public," which opened in Los Angeles on Friday, is an aggressively hip telling of the rise, fall and reinvention of new media mogul Josh Harris. With a dizzying visual style that is a headlong rush of imagery, editing, music and ideas, "We Live in Public" -- which won the Grand Jury Prize after its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, making Timoner the first filmmaker ever to win that award twice -- is culled from 5,000 hours of footage shot over 10 years.

Richard Rouilard stresses that L.A. is a great city because "we've got the stars." It is a sad commentary on life if that's the best our city has to offer. He then describes Paramus, N.J., incidentally my hometown, as a "hideous place where people await in the cold at malls to see celebs hawking their newest perfumes." Paramus is a town with great schools (students attend classes unarmed), safe streets, clean air and beautiful homes. And this is what Rouilard refers to as hideous?

Re William Schneider's "Not Your Father's Democrats" (Opinion, July 12), he makes a strong point in comparing the "beast," GM's hideous Caprice, to the Democratic Party. However, I would like to continue the analogy. If the Democrats are the Caprice of political parties, the Republicans are the Bradley tank: useful only in battle; relatively safe for the few inside; outrageously overpriced and inefficient, and completely irrelevant to the needs of the people in the twilight of the 20th Century.

Christopher's column makes a compelling case for halting further proliferation of nuclear weapons. Regrettably, he overlooks one obvious recommendation: Our government should accept Mikhail Gorbachev's standing offer to immediately end all further testing of nuclear warheads. In fact, we and the Soviets promised we'd do just that when we signed the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The truth is that we lack authority to bring about an end to nuclear proliferation when we continue to test these hideous weapons.

I have, in the past, written you with my complaints when the fashion layouts featured hideous hooker-type clothes or bimbo-y, starved (yet always big-busted) models. So I wanted to write to commend you for photographer Kate Garner's lovely Style layout ("Sheer Pleasure," Nov. 3). Claire Forlani looked simply beautiful and classy, and the styling was so elegant. Please keep up this more respectful attitude toward women and the clothes we are made to covet. Rebecca Segal Studio City

I am in a state of utter confusion as well as pain from the way Reed Johnson quoted me ("War in All Its Awful Beauty," April 20). Not only am I adamantly against Karlheinz Stockhausen's hideous perception about the attack on the twin towers on 9/11, which occurred about half a mile from my home and which I witnessed, but I also have friends who were murdered there. To insinuate that I have reduced my friends' lives and deaths to artistic or formal expressions is irresponsible journalism that further inflicts violence on the memory of my friends and the rest of those who died on that day. Raul Zamudio New York City

I have read with interest the recent objections voiced in The Times by ladies to the imminent return of the miniskirt. There is, indeed considerable justification for their stand. But, let us think a moment. Does it not seem poetic justice that women must now pay for allowing the dress designers to inflict the horrible skirt length of the past few years on us? The length and style that made our attractive women of all ages look like 19th-Century grandmothers. And to compound this obscenity, many women wore boots with these hideous skirts which made them look like Russian soldiers on duty in Siberia.

Despite appearances to the contrary, John Krasinski, the rangy costar of NBC's "The Office," does not fit into the category of actors who really want to direct. Even if the movie passion project he wrote and directed, "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men," is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival tonight. "I never wanted to be a writer, never wanted to direct anything," Krasinski, 29, said in West Hollywood last week. "People talk about being a triple threat.

Awaited since a Roland Garros printer spit out the draw, the French Open quarterfinal between Serena Williams and Justine Henin proved that people sometimes await the wrong things. This particular thing fizzled Tuesday, then deflated, then ended, 6-4, 6-3, in 78 spark-less minutes during which Williams played as if one of the world's many meeker humans had occupied her body. The Australian Open champion whose father saw her Paris posture and deemed her "ready to grab a ...

Some may call it a tale of beauty and the beast. But Sam, a 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested, and a three-time champ in the World's Ugliest Dog Contest, is the dog of Susie Lockheed's dreams. Lockheed, 53, enjoys massaging Sam's fleshy, thin, potato-chip ears and running her fingers through the small patches of white hair on his head. She likes kissing Sam's hairless frame, littered with blackheads, brown warts and moles. Even his hindquarters have a large hernia lump.

Martha Stewart said in a new interview that her nickname in prison was M. Diddy, that house arrest is "hideous" and that her prosecution was about bringing her down "to scare other people." In the interview, Stewart told Vanity Fair magazine that she agrees with those who say her crime -- lying about a personal stock sale -- is far different from massive corporate scandals such as Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and Tyco International Ltd.

When Hutu began murdering Tutsi in Rwanda 10 years ago this week, many Rwandans had to decide whether to desert their loved ones. At a church in the town of Kibuye, two Hutu sisters, each married to a Tutsi man, faced such a choice. One of the women decided to die with her husband. The other, hoping to save her 11 children, chose to leave. Because her husband was Tutsi, her children had been categorized as Tutsi and thus were technically forbidden to live.

Re "Actor Breathes New Life Into a Warrior's Ways," Nov. 28: To many people of Asia, the word "Bushido" evokes painful memories of brutal military expansionism, colonial subjugation, civilian massacres and barbaric beheading contests, as well as images of kamikaze attacks and ritualistic disembowelments. It may be an excellent money-making vehicle for Hollywood, but there is nothing noble, chivalrous or nostalgic about it. Robert Tsou Victorville

Bush thinks that abortion is criminal and should only be performed under special circumstances. Yet, he is for the death penalty. If abortion is murder, then why is the death penalty not murder? This paradox smacks of sentimentalism and revenge. If Bush sat and talked to a man on Death Row and discovered that this criminal had lived a life of hideous neglect and abuse, had been unloved and unwanted, he might come to understand the anger and the pain which caused this criminal to have such terrible self-worth.

Re "Factory Cancels Shifts After Death," Dec. 4. What [a] hellish place the Keysor-Century factory must be. It contains a machine that dragged a man into it, grinding him to death, and it has been the scene of a fire that caused the evacuation of more than 50 nearby homes. If that weren't enough, the owners of the plant were fined at one time for spewing 145 pounds of a hideous carcinogen into the air. And yet this foul place remains closed for only a weekend to give the employees time to grieve the loss of a co-worker.

I am in a state of utter confusion as well as pain from the way Reed Johnson quoted me ("War in All Its Awful Beauty," April 20). Not only am I adamantly against Karlheinz Stockhausen's hideous perception about the attack on the twin towers on 9/11, which occurred about half a mile from my home and which I witnessed, but I also have friends who were murdered there. To insinuate that I have reduced my friends' lives and deaths to artistic or formal expressions is irresponsible journalism that further inflicts violence on the memory of my friends and the rest of those who died on that day. Raul Zamudio New York City

MARY McNamara getting all warm and fuzzy about storage facilities ("Where Dreamers and Pack Rats Rule," April 29) was bad enough. However, showing a photo of the hideous Public Storage building in Glassell Park with a caption calling it "a pretty sight" waves a red flag at the charging bull of public opinion in that neighborhood. Once the gateway of Glassell Park, the intersection of Verdugo Road and Eagle Rock Boulevard presented a breathtaking view of "the seven hills," a beautiful, natural feature of the northeast corner of Los Angeles.