Mattress

It's a bit heavy on the metaphors, a few fun supporting players prematurely vanish and there are tonal issues (what's with the homeless assassin?), but the offbeat comedy "Gigantic" remains quite the confident juggling act. First-time feature director Matt Aselton, who co-wrote the darkly funny, well-observed script with Adam Nagata, has crafted a disarming tale that's one of the better independent films in recent memory.

In revenue-strapped Nevada, where foreclosed homes dot suburban streets and poker tables sit empty, it's come to this: A state legislator wants to talk about legalizing -- and taxing -- prostitution in Reno and Las Vegas. "It's almost de facto legal. It's running unregulated," said state Sen. Bob Coffin, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Taxation Committee. He also said legalization would better protect sex workers.

In this Ohio city, it seems, it really is tough to stop the bedbugs from biting. When complaints about the bloodsucking insects first trickled in to Cincinnati's public health department three years ago, officials assumed it was an anomaly -- or perhaps the overactive imagination of a bug-phobic public. After all, Cimex lectularius had all but vanished here by the 1950s because of the frequent use of DDT and other now-banned pesticides.

Mohammed Fawzi Radhi makes his living putting people to sleep. His is a trade on the edge of extinction, but as Iraqis come to appreciate the comfort of his hand-fluffed cotton mattresses, Radhi says, business is picking up. Like many other businesses in Iraq, Radhi's was affected by the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. In his case, newly imported merchandise competed directly with his age-old trade after Iraq's borders opened up and foreign goods poured in.

Of all the big cities in the United States, Los Angeles is the one where the mattress and furniture recyclers, the bottle and can collectors, the food vendors and other street hawkers are most ubiquitous. Their workshops -- where they repair the items they've salvaged, do piecework for sweatshops, make pinatas to sell to variety stores or craft mantelpieces to sell to their neighbors -- are often in rented garages or in their backyards. Driven by the need to survive, these fringe workers -- often young Latino immigrants -- work at their own pace, setting their own schedules and acting as their own bosses.

Gallery Corp., owner of 52 mattress and bedding stores in Southern California, has filed for bankruptcy protection. The Los Angeles-based company listed debts of $20 million and assets of $15 million in a Chapter 11 filing Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Gallery, the operator of Mattress Gallery stores, blamed the filing on a decline in the housing market and increases in wholesale prices by manufacturers. Gallery received a commitment from Ortho Mattress Inc.

. -- Tired of watching fellow legislators bicker over the state budget and delay its passage for more than 100 days past a July 1 deadline, state Rep. Tom Nelson decided to stage a one-man protest. He packed up his pajamas, an air mattress and a toothbrush and moved into the state Assembly chambers at the Capitol last week, setting up camp on the plum-colored carpet between his wooden desk and a marble pillar. Nelson vowed not to leave until the budget passed. Friends think he's lost his mind.

LOVE the article on new bed technology ["Memory Foam Mattress? That's So Last Night," May 3]. Very informative and helpful. Too bad we didn't have it three weeks ago when we bought our expensive Simmons mattress. You should do a follow-up article about sheets. Our mattress is 17 inches thick and a California King. I purchased the appropriate sheets for deep mattresses; however, the flat sheets are not adjusted for the deep mattress, and I cannot tuck the ends under. When will the industry formulate a new size for the flat sheets?

IF it's been a year or two since you've shopped for a mattress, you're in for some surprises. That memory foam bed that once seemed so novel? It's now decidedly mainstream. Latex is the hot material of choice. And that's not all that's changed. Choices are multiplying -- especially on the luxury end -- and prices are too.

By a window with a view of a lake, two men hand-stitch a mattress pad in a time-honored manner by passing a foot-long sewing needle back and forth through a frame. Nearby, a worker stuffs a pillow casing with pure wool while another attaches mattress springs, one by one, to a grid. But this is not a quaint bedding museum.