Mattress

As horrible as the human race can seem at times, it may be said at least that we invented the musical comedy, that alongside our peerless capacity for self-destruction there glows a spark that can conceive of a world in which men and women burst into song or dance just because the moment demands it. It is as unlikely a thing, the musical, as it is easy to accept.

AS I understand it, the reason for the power outage earlier this week was that someone cut the wrong wires. While undertaking the domestic equivalent of plugging in a toaster, he snipped the cable that supplied power to a good part of Los Angeles, fouling traffic, silencing daytime television and muting my e-mail system. That hurt. The electrical failure came on the heels of Monday's column in which I was critical of the president's efforts in the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Eleven family members died in their apartment in Marrero after a mattress caught fire and got stuck in a door as they tried to drag it out, authorities said. The fire was started by candles the family had been using because they had moved in hours earlier and did not yet have electricity, Sheriff Harry Lee said. Four family members escaped. The dead ranged in age from 6 months to 42 years.

For years, stained-glass artist Beglar Merlich has pursued his craft from his daughter's garage, an inconvenient spot for midnight soldering, and even worse for trying to teach eager students. Last week, though, Merlich arranged to rent a studio in a cavernous, defunct mattress factory that is the latest reflection of Ventura's effort to turn itself into a haven for working artists.

The throng of tanned spectators at the U.S. Open throbs with standard surfer chic. Except these two guys. Their dyed black hair contrasts with their pasty skin -- a sheen they strive to protect with the highest SPF sunscreen. One wears oversized sunglasses from the 1980s that say "Wild Thing" across the lenses. The other has a stud in his lip and big metal bolts in his ears. Often when they're out in public they wear girls' pants because they are tight and weird, they say.

Whenever I have guests in my car, they remark about how clean I keep the interior. It's not rocket science. Whenever I have any trash, I just chuck it out the window. Paper wrappers, empty coffee cups and wads of unpaid parking tickets can create a real mess in the front seat and reflect badly on my character. So I just roll down the window and say good riddance as that stuff floats away. It's not just paper either. After finishing a beer, I promptly toss the bottle or can out the window, too.

A fire that apparently started in an electrical panel destroyed a mattress warehouse Friday afternoon. Sparks from the panel ignited nearby mattresses about 4 p.m., and flames swept swiftly through the 8,000-square-foot building at Central Avenue and 134th Street, fire officials said. Firefighters couldn't quell the blaze, which burned the structure to the ground. No damage estimate was immediately available. Eight employees in the building escaped unharmed, officials said.

People with back pain have long been told to invest in a firm mattress -- the more solid, the better. Now it turns out that a firm mattress may not be the best choice. In one of the first studies to put mattress firmness to the test, scientists from the Kovacs Foundation, a nonprofit Spanish research institution, swapped out the beds of 84 men and 229 women with chronic low back pain. They randomly replaced the beds with either a firm spring mattress or a medium-firm spring mattress.

Regarding "Commercial Interruptions" (Aug. 19): I'm no fan of political ads, but if they can preempt certain mattress ads for any amount of time, I'll take them. George Shearer Verdugo City

Charles and Trudy Hess know that standard financial advice is to keep a cash reserve equal to three to six months of living expenses. Yet the Dallas couple, both in their late 50s, now maintain a cash hoard that could carry them through two or three years. And as money comes in from their small home-based art and collectibles business, that, too, goes into short-term savings accounts. Like many Americans, the Hesses could be investing in the depressed stock market.