Lights

Get ready to fade to black. Millions of people around the world are expected to turn off their lights at 8:30 p.m. local time Saturday -- no matter what time zone they're  in -- to observe Earth Hour . Never heard of it? It was started in 2007 by the WWF conservation organization to make a statement about energy overuse and how it affects the planet. Times Square, the Golden Gate Bridge , the Las Vegas Strip, Niagara Falls, the Opera House in Sydney, and many more landmarks around the world plan to douse the lights, according to Earth Hour's website.

Who needs a cabin in the woods when you can find one in the city? I recently came across a little wooden homestead clinging to the side of a multistory building at 447 Bush St. in downtown San Francisco. The lights were on behind curtained windows, and I half expected to see the little chimney puffing smoke. My first impulse was to book the room for at least a night (some have tried), but I was fooled by the structure that sprouts from the side of the Hotel des Arts and floats above Le Central restaurant . It's strictly for art's sake, a project called "Manifest Destiny!"

Cami Winikoff commutes an hour and 15 minutes to work from Malibu Park to Century City every morning. The long drive is the sacrifice she makes so that she can go home to natural darkness. "People who live here, live here to have dark skies and to have that lifestyle," said Winikoff, 49. Winikoff is one of numerous Malibu residents outraged by a years-long effort to install permanent lights at the local high school's athletic field and keep them on for as many as 61 nights a year - a move critics say would disturb the neighborhood's natural environment.

Divali, also spelled Dipawali, will be observed Sunday by Hindus. Called the "festival of lights," it culminates a festive period of nearly two weeks. TRADITION: Although Hinduism varies in traditions and celebrations according to regional and language differences, most Hindus consider Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, as the main patroness of the festival. Merchants, for whom the holiday is especially important, begin their new year from this point.

I'm one of the "local residents" who strongly opposes any further lighting of the Hollywood sign. This is what we endured during the 1984 Olympic Games, when the sign was lit each night from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Each evening at dusk a group of cars would assemble at the bottom of our driveway, blocking it completely. "No Parking" signs were ignored. Litter was dropped. Much loud partying took place while these bored trespassers waited for the lights to come on. Cigarettes were lit and tossed, still burning, into the bone-dry canyon despite the "Extreme Fire Hazard" signs.

I hate to think about the movie viewing future for "fashionably late" Christie D'Zurilla ["Trouble for the Tardy," May 12]. Eventually she will join the ranks of all those elderly folks who habitually arrive late for matinee showings. Seems they either don't own a watch, never look up show times, or just have such a hectic retirement life that they simply cannot get there before the lights go down. Instead of printing "show times" and "feature times," Loews should print "senior seating times" about 15 minutes before the actual "show time."

On March 16 my wife and I were driving in West Los Angeles along Wilshire Boulevard around 8 p.m. On passing the Federal Building near Sepulveda Boulevard, we could not help but notice the brightness of the building due to every darn light in the building being illuminated. Either there were a lot of federal employees working late into the night (yeah, sure) or all those state and common-sense) admonitions about conservation simply do not apply to government buildings. Can this be possible?

What's being touted as the "latest dining trend sweeping Europe" has arrived in L.A.: eating dinner in the dark, waited on by visually impaired or blind servers. "A journey of taste, sound and touch, all in the dark," promised the invitation. It sounded intriguing enough to go. A private company called Opaque-Dining in the Dark puts on the event, a series of dinners prepared by chef Eric Earnest of Chi restaurant in the Hyatt West Hollywood.

Office buildings are blazing with light 24/seven, including government buildings. Even if office tenants are not required to pay their own bills, owners could afford to pay someone to turn off at least the overhead lights with what would be saved. Business signs and billboards not on solar power should be turned off at 7 p.m. Thermostats in every building should be adjusted for overnight unless the business is staffed 24/seven. People are pawning possessions, for crying out loud, to pay their power bills.

LIGHTS OUT IN WONDERLAND A Novel DBC Pierre W.W. Norton: 352 pp., $25.95 Let's be clear from the outset: Gabriel Brockwell is an unlikely suicide. The narrator of DBC Pierre's third novel, "Lights Out in Wonderland," is uproarious, dissolute, disrespectful, but he lacks the suicide's inward-turning anger, the yearning to erase oneself. I mention this because Gabriel would like us to believe otherwise; as he observes in the book's opening lines, "There's no name for my situation.