There's a lot of fluff to these relationships

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday January 20, 2005

PASSIONS
There's a lot of fluff to these relationships
* Pillows can serve as generic teddy bears for many adults. Experts say that the behavior is common -- and healthy.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

What treasure would you save if a natural disaster strikes?

The key to a lifetime of sound sleep, says one Atlanta attorney. "If there's a fire, what am I going in there for? I've thought about that," says Asim Raza. "Kids and wife. And then -- my pillow. If you're 35 and you've been sleeping on the same pillow for 31 years, you don't take that lightly."

This isn't a joke to Raza, or to the many other adults who are deeply attached to the cushions that lull them to sleep each night. Before getting married, Raza told his fiancee, "My pillow is really important to me." She laughed, so Raza reiterated: "No, I'm not kidding. This is really important." Despite the occasional joke about security blankets, "she has actually been very respectful of it," he says. "She knows what I'm like without it."

Like most people interviewed for this story, Raza isn't anxious to discuss his pillow on the record -- "Don't make me look like a fool," he pleads -- but pillow attachment isn't anything to feel sheepish about, says Carmel Valley psychologist Lee Jampolsky.

"Ironically, people aren't embarrassed about carrying 12 cellphones, but are embarrassed if they have some kind of relationship with their pillow," she says. "It's very common, and at the core it's very healthy. Mine happens to have a name: Pillow."

While Raza refuses to reveal its name, he will chat about his pillow's history. His parents gave him the thin cotton pillow when he was 4 1/2, and it has remained nearby ever since. It hasn't been easy: "As a kid, my brother would steal the pillow and then say, 'Either you do the vacuuming today or you're not getting the pillow back,' " Raza says. You can guess who did the vacuuming.

While attending American University in Washington, D.C., Raza enlisted his roommate to help protect his pillow. Both his mother and his grandmother have made covers for it. "I've got to get buried with this thing," he says. "But I'm a Muslim, and you're not supposed to take anything with you. I'll probably leave it as a family heirloom."

These generic teddy bears provide comfort and company much the way a special blanket may have soothed many of these same adults when they were young. It's a dependent and healthy relationship, experts say, that stretches beyond the human world. A beloved pillow can stand in for, or even come to represent, the feeling of connectedness that all primates require, says USC anthropology professor Craig Stanford.

"Even chimps in the L.A. Zoo ... are very fond of the bedding they're given," he says. "They don't drag around pillows, but they do drag around their sleeping materials sometimes."

"Pilly" goes with Debra Kent wherever the 46-year-old publicist from Bloomington, Ind., travels. "I've never felt this way about anything," says Kent of her 6-year-old feather pillow. "I didn't have any attachment objects when I was a kid. No pacifier or anything. But this pillow, it just means home to me." On road trips, Kent keeps it in the car. "My kids bring their pillow and blankets," she says. "Why shouldn't I bring mine too?"

Kent's friend, animal control officer Vicki Minder, can't make fun of her -- after all, Minder sleeps with her own 24-year-old pillow, named "Pink."

Adults who still sleep on their childhood pillows say they imbue bedtime with the same kind of warmth and safety they felt when Mom and Dad used to kiss them goodnight and tuck them in. As Raza puts it, "Harmony, music and warm milk all combine into a pillow.... The smell of my pillow just immediately relaxes me ... the same smell since I was 4 1/2 years old."

Chicago philanthropist Kathy Posner can't sleep or watch TV without cradling her 44-year-old "Happy Pillow." She cried into the pillow when she was 16 and her father died, and she embraced it six years later when her mother passed away. She carried it to college and to wherever she moved since. She totes it on trips when she can fit it in her luggage.

Posner has a recurring nightmare: She's a teenager, sitting in her family's living room, when the phone rings and her mother screams -- and Posner learns for the umpteenth time that her father is dead of a heart attack. After she is startled awake, she hugs Happy Pillow. It is her salve. When she was a girl, it was "something I could hold onto," she says. "That's still the case."

Pillow attachment "is something I encounter quite a bit with my clients," says Los Angeles therapist Yvonne Thomas -- and it's a healthy alternative to addictions and vices, she says.

"There are so many ways a person can comfort themselves. They can smoke, gamble, have sex indiscriminately," Thomas says. "Let this be the way a person copes. Instead of drinking, instead of overeating, let them reach for their pillow when they're sad and stressed."

Chiropractors and allergists tend to disagree.

A pillow should be a tool to keep yourself in correct alignment as you sleep, says Jerome F. McAndrews, spokesman for the American Chiropractic Assn. -- and broken-down cushions don't provide the level of support that your head and neck require. "If you get in the habit of sleeping.... with an old pillow that gives no support, you're going to encourage disk and joint degeneration," he says.

Then there's the ick factor.

An old pillow may well be "one of the dirtiest places in the home," says Jonathan Corren, medical research director of the Allergy Research Foundation in Los Angeles. Pillows that aren't regularly cleaned and protected, he says, can become a repository for dust mites, dirt, volatile organic compounds such as wood finishes, pet dander, even mold.

If you have allergies or asthma, Corren recommends that you either toss the ancient pillow or use one of the many hypoallergenic casings available. Or leave it in the freezer overnight to rid it of dust mites, says Glen Needham, associate professor of entomology at Ohio State University.

Many of the pillow-obsessed say they sheathe their sleeping aids in miteproof covers. But Raza says he would never trade his pancake-thin pillow for an orthopedic one, even if it meant assuaging the back pain that has long pestered him. "What I would gain in lack of back pain, I would lose walking around with bags under my eyes," he says.

Kim Garretson's pillow became "an anchor" when he faced down illness and made life changes. The 54-year-old marketing director from Minneapolis says he was "consumed with work" for much of his adulthood. Then in 2001 a diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer shook him. After undergoing surgery -- with a "surprisingly good outcome" -- Garretson retreated to a cabin in northern Minnesota for a long November weekend, taking with him his dog and his then 6-year-old pillow.

When he emerged, he abandoned his career as an entrepreneur and opted for a corporate gig that allows him to spend more time with his family. His foam pillow, now 10 years old and going strong, remains with him.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

A guide to pillow talk

How do you know when it's time to trade in that old pillow? Some tips on when to let go and what to look for in something new:

Test it out

To find out if it's time to replace your pillow, try this:

Lay pillow on a flat, hard surface, fold it in half and squeeze out the air. Then release it. If the pillow unfolds and springs back into its original shape, it has some life left in it. If it remains folded, it's time to throw it out.

Use your head

When choosing a new pillow, put as much time and thought into it as you would a mattress.

"Take the time to lie down with it in the store," says Jerome F. McAndrews, spokesman for the American Chiropractic Assn. "Your head should not be propped up, and it should not be slumped. You want to keep your spine and neck straight."

There are three basic types:

* Firm pillows are best for side sleepers because they're strong enough to fill the gap between the top of the mattress and your shoulders.

* Medium-density pillows provide the best support when sleeping on your back because they cradle your head while supporting your neck.

* Soft pillows are best for people who sleep on their stomachs or change positions frequently.

When in doubt, err on the side of softness, says McAndrews. "You can always get a floppy pillow and crunch it up to where you are comfortable."

A natural, inside and out

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday January 06, 2005

GOING GREEN
DESIGN
A natural, inside and out
* Once considered the terrain of hippie holdouts, ecologically sensitive thinking has entered the mainstream of home design, building and decorating. In a special issue, we meet a couple who turned a conventional house into a thoroughly green space, and offer tips, terminology and tools to make your own world greener.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

"Feel my windows," Al Rosen tells you. Feel his windows?

But you do, and the floor-to-ceiling glass enclosing Rosen's den and living room is cool to the touch, despite the blazing weather outside. This is triple-glazed glass filled with argon gas, and it lets in sunlight (which saves electricity and lightbulbs) and insulates against heat in the summer and cold in the winter.

When Al and Myra Rosen bought this house in 1997 -- it then had a darker interior filled with heavy marble slabs -- they began an eco-remodeling effort that continues to this day.

Try a glass of the Rosens' chlorine-free purified water from the low-flow kitchen faucet. Have a seat on the curved blue couch in the sunny living room, built from wheat board and formaldehyde-free foam and upholstered with untreated cotton fabric. Its pillows are filled with kapok, a natural seed fiber.

One glance through the house will tell you that green building isn't the same thing it was a decade ago, when eco-consciousness first began to drift into the corners of the mainstream. There is nothing plain, stark or utilitarian about this 4,000-square-foot house resting on the edge of Mandeville Canyon; instead, sunlight drifting through windows and skylights illuminates an interior landscape constructed of clean, modern lines and infused with vibrant color. It isn't palatial, but neither is it ascetic, not by a long shot.

As the Rosens testify, living green is no longer a kind of countercultural penance in which you must forgo comfort, personal style and your retirement savings in order to give back to the environment. In the last five years, green architecture firms, publications and building materials have leapt from relative niche obscurity to the forefront of culture and design. Even the big home improvement chains such as Home Depot and Lowe's now stock green materials -- say, certified wood harvested from renewable sources -- and independent green building stores are opening throughout the country.

Five years ago "you would mention green building and get a lot of blank stares," says Alex Wilson, executive editor of the monthly newsletter Environmental Building News, a veritable bible for anybody leaning toward green. "Today it's a known term for an increasingly large portion of the population."

That "known term" is relative, of course. What "green" means to one person is rarely what it means to another. By most estimates, green living mixes varying amounts of ecological sensitivity, social responsibility and concern for your health. These days builders and remodelers can easily put together a diverse palette of materials and techniques that fulfill all three requirements.

A clue to green's newfound popularity lies here with the Rosens. This is their second stab at eco-renovation; their first project, redoing a Santa Monica condominium in 1992, began as a purely aesthetic endeavor. They had heard talk of "sick buildings," Rosen says, "of people who lived in mobile homes which were made out of plywood and were very tightly sealed, and these people were getting sick." So in the spirit of caution they decided to avoid oil-based paints and materials that contained formaldehyde.

Rosen pulls out an article about a 2004 decision by the World Health Organization to upgrade formaldehyde -- a chemical found in many household products, such as glues, plywood and furniture foam -- from a probable carcinogen to a known one. Once considered junk science, the theory that chemicals in building products tend to "off-gas," or seep into the indoor environment, and thus into our lungs has by now gained significant scientific credence.

"It's that new-car smell," says Monica Gilchrist of the Green Building Resource Center in Santa Monica. "It's the smell of a new carpet. It's that new-desk smell -- you bring in a new desk, and the panels are put together with a glue that contains formaldehyde. Off-gassing is the continual emission of the chemicals from the product. And these chemicals are found in blood levels over time."

The Rosens say that finding nontoxic alternatives wasn't easy in the early '90s, but the difficulty only galvanized their intent. They pored over what literature was available and plugged into the fledgling green building community centered at Eco Home, a modest Los Feliz bungalow that since 1977 has been the home and laboratory of self-taught green renegade Julia Russell. And then they met Rick Graham, a Studio City-based designer with an interest in sustainable design. Graham has remained a friend and trusted advisor ever since. When the Rosens wanted their own house, Graham walked with them through the Mandeville Canyon property and began planning its greening.

The health component of green building is intertwined with energy efficiency, with trying to live within our environmental means -- after all, a dilapidated planet is perhaps the largest health risk imaginable. Like a growing number of folks, the Rosens believe that our indulgent lifestyle is hardly sustainable. As "ozone depletion" and "global warming" enter the mainstream vocabulary, as hybrid cars begin to frequent our freeways, what was once perceived as a leftist rant is becoming a societal priority.

Buildings, it turns out, use twice as much energy as cars do -- and roughly 70% of all electricity in the United States goes to power buildings, says Robert Watson, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City. And much of that electricity comes from the consumption of nonrenewable fossil fuels.

In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set a goal of 1 million buildings producing solar energy by 2018, with half of all new homes powered by the sun. The Rosens have joined the effort: About a third of their electricity comes from photovoltaic cells installed on the roof, while a separate solar panel heats their hot water.

Systems like these are expensive, but as Rosen sees it, you have to look at the entire equation rather than simply the start-up cost. When the photovoltaic cells produce more electricity than is currently being used, the excess energy feeds back into the grid and the calibrated power meter actually runs backward, reducing the couple's utility bill. By Al Rosen's calculation, he and Myra should recoup their investment in about 10 years -- and then start saving money.

Working closely with Graham, "we have done almost everything you can do on the list of environmental and nontoxic construction," Rosen says.

Just look around the living room. The hardwood flooring is certified cherry, protected with a sealer made from vegetable oil and natural waxes. The blue-and-gray throw rug is woven from natural fibers and dyed with plant pigments. The coffee table, designed by Graham, replaces formaldehyde-laden plywood with wheat board -- literally boards made from wheat straw, held together with formaldehyde-free adhesive -- and it's veneered with cork and painted with nontoxic paint. Graham also designed the couch.

The walls beyond are coated with paint that emits no volatile organic compounds, and if the walls were opened you would see that much of the plywood has been replaced with wheat board and other natural alternatives. The typical fiberglass insulation has been replaced with recycled cotton insulation -- and cotton is also embedded beneath floors and above ceilings to increase energy efficiency.

Nearly all of the materials in the house are of natural origin instead of petrochemical alternatives -- wood, granite, slate and other stone, copper, steel, glass and ceramic, cork, linoleum. Virtually all of the paints, sealers, adhesives and coatings are low in toxicity and are environmentally sensitive. As with many green projects, each new material had to go through a "life cycle analysis" before being used:

* Where does the product come from?

* How much energy did it take to create it?

* What does it do during its lifetime -- does it off-gas?

* How does it end its life, at the dump or by being recycled?

The Rosens can trace the life of many products in their house from birth to death, and the renovation won't have ended until they've constructed an environment that they're happy living in. Why look for an ending when you're enjoying the process?

"I just got the permits pulled yesterday for our next project," Rosen enthuses. "It's an advanced water treatment system that uses no chemicals -- it uses aerobic bacteria. If you pour the output into a glass, it would look and smell like tap water. You can use the water for irrigation. This is the first one approved for a residence in the city of Los Angeles."

Most indications suggest that building is going to get greener, and quickly. Industry has already begun to react to the demand for green products at cheaper prices.

"Mainstream building products have become greener in the last decade," says newsletter editor Wilson. "The paints, across the board, have much less off-gassing than had been the case. All fiberglass is 20% recycled content." At the same time, he says, small start-up companies have begun producing innovative products "ranging from shingles made with recycled plastic, to decking materials made from a composite of recycled plastic and wood fiber, to more efficient ventilation systems."

Green values are infiltrating the commercial building landscape too, and for good reason: A slew of recent studies suggest that people learn faster, work harder, purchase more freely and are generally happier in well-ventilated, sunlit environments.

The nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council instituted a green certification program in 2000; called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), it certifies building projects using a four-tier rating system. Since its debut, 167 commercial building projects have been LEED certified, which is about 5% of the U.S. new construction market, says Rick Fedrizzi, president of the organization. Schwarzenegger has mandated that all new California government buildings be LEED certified, and other states are considering doing the same. The council plans to unveil a residential LEED certification in mid-2005, which should help the rest of us agree on a definition for "green."

If Fedrizzi is custodian of the green movement, then Charlottesville-based architect William McDonough is its prophet. McDonough might be considered a hopeless idealist -- except that his uncompromising vision for a sustainable society is being embraced not just by green-for-lifers, but by politicians and industry alike. McDonough pairs his own stringent interpretation of green philosophy with a stream of new prototype projects demonstrating their practical applicability in the world of today.

Who would have thought that when Ford built a massive new plant in Dearborn, Mich., the company would hire McDonough to top it with the world's largest green roof? "It's 10 1/2 acres of roofing that's also a habitat for animals," says McDonough, who also convinced Ford to install "parking lots that absorb water, which then goes into a giant water filter and gets run through constructed wetlands. By the time the water gets to a river three days later, it's pure."

Other projects include a building at Oberlin College that's designed to eventually make more energy than it needs to operate; an eco-sensitive shoe (Nike), chair (Herman Miller), corporate campus (Gap), line of carpets (Shaw) and concept car (the Ford Model U); and a fabric called Climatex Lifecycle, made from wool and ramie fiber, that is fast becoming a material of choice for airplane seating -- "if you find yourself at 40,000 feet with a fiber deficiency, you could eat your chair," McDonough quips.

As science begins to validate the underpinnings of green philosophy, and as trailblazers lead the way toward sustainable engineering that's aesthetically pleasing and affordable, greenies are no longer just the Birkenstock-clad, granola-munching contingent. They are also real estate investors (Al) and retired business owners (Myra). They green their homes and their lives not out of a desire to climb a soapbox but rather because, as Al Rosen puts it, "you have a choice, and one way is responsible. Why not do the responsible thing?"

Before you leave, come outside -- there's something Rosen wants you to see. He's proud of his worms. There are something like 15,000 of them, digesting food leftovers and bits of newspaper, wriggling around in a brown plastic compost bin. He pulls up the top of the bin and points to the layer of soft, fine black soil that will fertilize his herb and vegetable garden and the California native, drought-tolerant flowers and foliage beyond.

"Anything that can be composted, we put in here," he says. Recyclables wind their way to the other side of the house, into their corresponding containers. "For a whole week, we only have about 6 inches of trash," says Rosen, grinning. "Over here. I'll show you."

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Step by step to a healthier home

So you want to live in a more ecologically sensitive environment, but you don't have the wherewithal for a complete remodel? Don't fret, says Alex Wilson, president of BuildingGreen Inc. (www.buildinggreen.com) -- there's a lot you can do short of opening up the walls. Here are six easy steps you can take to "green" your house without breaking the bank:

Lighten up: Replace incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents. We used to think of fluorescent lights as being cold and flickery -- like cheap grocery store lighting -- but advances in the technology mean that you likely won't be able to tell the difference. And you'll be saving energy.

Fill in the gaps: Address the leakiness of your home. Very often, more than half of winter heat loss and summer heat gain comes from leaks that can easily be sealed. Bring in a weatherization specialist who pressurizes or depressurizes your house and can plug leaks with caulk and gasketing materials.

Be water wise: Install water-efficient shower heads and faucet aerators in bathrooms. This saves both water and energy. Most showers have screw-on fixtures, so you can buy and easily install a high-quality low-flow shower head (about $20) that provides a satisfying aerated stream while using much less water than before. If you want to test the efficiency of your current shower head, position a large bucket to catch the flow, turn on the shower and time it for a minute. If it produces more than three gallons of water, a two- or two-and-a-half-gallon shower head would be a good investment -- with the savings on your water bill, it'll usually pay for itself in a matter of months.

Lose the fumes: The next time you paint anything, choose paints that produce no volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Most major paint manufacturers now offer lines that are zero VOC. If a zero-VOC paint doesn't fit your design scheme, look for one with extremely low levels -- less than 20 or 30 grams of VOC per liter.

Don't waste heat: Tune up your heating and cooling equipment. Replace filters on air conditioners and heat pumps on gas furnaces. If you heat with oil or natural gas, bring in a technician to check the burner efficiency. You can often boost the efficiency of the heating system by 5% or 10% if it hasn't been tuned up and cleaned recently.

-- Steven Barrie-Anthony

Going Green: Mixed media

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday January 06, 2005

GOING GREEN
MIXED MEDIA
The indoor solution
* Homes That Heal -- And Those That Don't Athena Thompson New Society, $26.95

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

Sure, you've heard of "sick building syndrome" -- the idea that the buildings we live in can make us ill. Tenants have alleged just that in a slew of recent public lawsuits. But you obsessively clean your house, so this can't happen to you, right?

Wrong, writes Athena Thompson. Even the cleanest home is filled with toxic chemicals and materials, she says, and even the most conscientious homeowners can make themselves and their loved ones sick if they don't try to detoxify their home. Some scientists and green theorists suggest a link between the rising rates of various childhood diseases and children spending so much time in polluted indoor environments.

It's surprising to find that all this bad news makes for kind of fun reading. Explanatory passages are interspersed with fictionalized scenarios that may evoke some giggles. In the end, this is less a doomsday analysis than a fun, practical -- and inspiring -- guidebook.

Going Green: Cheat sheet to the lexicon

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday January 06, 2005

GOING GREEN
WORDPLAY
Cheat sheet to the lexicon

By Steven Barrie-Anthony

Eco-terms aren't really as complicated and obscure as they seem, says Monica Gilchrist of the Green Building Resource Center in Santa Monica. Here's a primer:

Dual-flush toilet -- A type of water-conserving toilet that is relatively common in the commercial sphere but is only now becoming available for the home. After each use you have a choice of low flush (using as little as 0.8 gallon) or a more powerful flush (about 1.8 gallons).

Energy Star (www.energy star.gov) -- An energy-efficiency rating system sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency. A high Energy Star rating means that the product -- from small household appliances to entire homes -- is designed to minimize its energy consumption. Using as little energy as possible helps protect the environment, conserves fossil fuels and saves you money on the electric bill.

Forest Stewardship Council (www.fsc.org) -- A third-party certification for wood, wood products and forests. The FSC tracks the wood from its forest of origin all the way through the chain of custody to where the product is sold. If a product is FSC certified, you can count on its having been harvested and produced in a stringently eco-sensitive manner.

Formaldehyde -- A toxin found in many adhesives, such as those in plywood and panel board; it also can be found in paints, caulks and other building materials. The World Health Organization recently upgraded it from a possible carcinogen to a known one. When present in the home, it tends to "off-gas" and pollute the indoor environment. These days there are plenty of formaldehyde-free alternatives, such as nontoxic paint and the plywood alternative wheat board.

Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (www .usgbc.org/leed) -- Developed and administered by the U.S. Green Building Council, the LEED rating is the most widely known and accepted green certification program. LEED for commercial projects was unveiled in 2000, and since then more than 167 building products have been certified. A LEED certification for residential projects is scheduled to be available in mid-2005.

Life cycle analysis -- The process of tracing a product, material or practice from its origin through its final disposal or reuse, from factory to landfill or

recycling plant. Ask yourself questions like: Where does it come from? How much energy was used to create it? What will it do to your home environment? Does it off-gas? What happens to it when you can no longer use it? Looking at the whole picture is a tenet of green philosophy.

Linoleum -- A natural and eco-sensitive alternative to petrochemical-based vinyl. Linoleum is typically made from the renewable materials jute (used for backing), linseed oil, pine resin and sawdust. Eclipsed by vinyl in the 1960s and '70s, it's now experiencing a revival; it comes in both sheets and tiles, in a wide variety of colors.

Low-flow faucets and shower heads -- Installing low-flow fixtures is a simple and cheap way to conserve water. If you're in love with your current faucets and shower heads, you can instead choose to amend them by installing aerators, which slow the flow and disperse water. These simple steps can reduce water use by about 10%.

Off-gassing -- Also known as outgassing, this is the emission of chemicals from building materials, furniture, textiles, bedding or other products in the home. Many of those "new house" smells that we've come to enjoy are actually hazardous to our health -- they accumulate in the bloodstream and have been linked by some scientists to the increasing rates of asthma and some cancers, particularly in children. The best way to avoid off-gassing is to look for natural products that don't contain toxins such as formaldehyde.

Recycled content -- Refers to the amount of recycled (reused) material in a given product. There is post-industrial recycled content, which refers to the use of scraps from industrial manufacturing, and post-consumer content, which is the reuse of products that consumers have used and thrown away.

Solar -- Simply put, solar processes harness energy from the sun. The solar panels that most of us associate with solar energy are called photovoltaic panels; they transform the sun's rays into usable electricity. Solar thermal processes can be used to heat our hot water. Technological advances in recent years have made both photovoltaic and solar thermal systems amazingly effective. And prices are more affordable nowadays, in part because many utility companies and local governments offer rebate programs that lower the initial costs of purchase and installation.

Volatile organic compounds -- The toxic or noxious chemicals that are found in or released from paints, stains, adhesives and sealants. Whenever possible, look for products labeled as having low, no or zero VOCs.

Who's winning battle of the trees?

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday December 23, 2004

ON THE RADAR
Who's winning battle of the trees?
* It depends on who is doing the spinning. Everyone agrees: Fewer trees are going up.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

That fresh-cut Christmas tree in your living room has a press agent and a marketing campaign. That's if you've put up a tree at all.

Fewer than 7 in 10 Americans reportedly will bother with a tree this year, and the number who will spring for a fresh-cut tree is in dispute. Reports put the number of people who've embraced faux trees at a whopping 70%.

The people at the National Christmas Tree Assn. prefer to say that the market for "real" trees is on the upswing, that when this season closes they will have sold a million more trees than last year. Still, 4 million fewer trees were sold in 2003 than in 2001. It's enough to cause the St. Louis-based trade association to treat a hallowed tradition -- which in America stretches back to 1747 -- much like a Happy Meal promotion.

The campaign includes a link to Warner Bros.' "The Polar Express" -- a $3 discount per tree, with a movie ticket stub presented at participating Christmas tree lots -- and a "Help Santa Find the Perfect Real Tree" essay contest for kids. (Grand prize: Something even Santa would be hard-pressed to deliver: a $10,000 college scholarship.)

Rick Morris of Smith & Harroff, the Alexandria, Va.-based public relations firm that's trying to get people to warm up to the extra work of a fresh-cut tree, says that if you're concerned about the environment, you should spring for fresh-cut: "Real trees are recyclable; you can use them for mulch, to put in ponds for fish and wildlife."

Real trees, he says, suck up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, which is pretty important stuff. And nearly all Christmas trees are grown on farms, "just like corn -- it's not as if we're going into the forest or taking down trees in parks." Faux-tree makers counter that their unnatural versions last at least 10 years, so wreak less environmental havoc.

Fresh-cut trees have taken a hit, admits Morris, but the industry is pinning its hopes on the generation coming of age and on future generations. For them, buying a real tree "is almost a kind of retro thing," he says.

Environmental impact aside, the real-tree people are battling an increasingly sophisticated impostor crafted of plastic and silk, and most likely made in Asia. With vintage aluminum trees last popular in the 1960s again in vogue, it's enough to make the fresh-tree growers set up a computer game on their website called "Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees."

Really.

In the game, "the artificial trees have mutated and are sucking the spirit out of Christmas," according to the website. "Help the elf beat these bad guys by hitting them with snowballs!"

There is no fight to join, says Leon Gamze, owner of the artificial tree store www.treeclassics.com, who is declaring more than virtual victory. "Live tree-ers have lost a tremendous amount of business to people like myself."

Since Gamze launched his Web business in 1995, he says it has grown 30% every year. Trees with the lights already wound around the plastic branches are bestsellers, as is a simulated Fraser fur, Gamze says. Others trace the popularity of faux trees to the boom five years ago in prelighted trees.

Still, anecdotal evidence across the country shows signs of resurgence of a tradition that can be traced to pagan ceremonies -- often celebrating rebirth, renewal or the winter solstice -- in ancient Egyptian, Roman, Chinese and other societies.

"At a wholesale level, we've sold about everything we can ship this year," says Ron Hudler, national spokesman for the tree association and owner of a North Carolina tree farm. And every grower he's talked to has "had a better year than they had last year, or the year before."

Both sides say that aging baby boomers are a factor -- once the torchbearers of the real tree tradition, perhaps their backs have grown too weary to wrestle these trees home. The fake-tree folks say that their product is easier on the back and maintains tradition, while the real-tree purveyors argue that in our ever-more-virtual society, a tree that's touched by nature is something worth having.

But why even put up a tree, especially if your nest is suddenly empty? The trend toward having no tree "is alarming, and it's on the upswing," says Jay Smith of Smith & Harroff.

Finally, something both sides agree on: Christmastime without a tree -- whatever it's made of -- is not Christmastime at all.

Her gratitude is ringing true

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Tuesday December 21, 2004

Her gratitude is ringing true
* Shaking a Salvation Army bell is tedious, but it's Terri Brown's way of saying thank you.

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

Sav-on Drugs on Sepulveda at National -- too hot and dry to be nearly Christmastime. Too hot and dry to be standing out in the sun swaying back and forth and ringing a bell at 11 o'clock on a Wednesday morning, but somebody has to ring the bell because if nobody rings it, then people forget to toss their extra pennies and dimes and quarters into the red Salvation Army kettle, and the change ends up on dressers and in laundry lint traps, doing not a whit of good.

So somebody has to ring the thing. And it might as well be Terri Brown, whose debt to the Salvation Army is second only to her debt to the Lord, whose husband, Cedric, is also a bell ringer, who, with her brown-black curls and kind green eyes, tries to remember, with each flick of the wrist, where she's coming from and where she's going to.

God bless you, merry Christmas. God bless you, merry Christmas. God bless you, merry Christmas....

Hers is just one of 299 bells ringing across Los Angeles County, bells that have heralded Christmas for 114 years but may not be ringing as loudly much longer. Volunteers are scarcer than ever, holiday shoppers leave stores with credit card receipts rather than loose change, and Target and some other national chains are sweeping solicitors from their sidewalks, including bell ringers and their iconic red kettles. So it's Sav-on for Brown.

Most people avert their eyes this morning, but that's OK. Brown keeps smiling; she can't afford to look down on anyone. Remember where you're coming from. Remember when you were 17 and your baby girl died and the pain was like a heart attack and you had to run away to keep on standing. Remember being raped, each of four times. Remember smoking crack on Los Angeles' skid row. Remember sleeping with the rats.

The kettle and the bell saved her, the kettle and the bell and Jesus -- when Brown and Cedric and their six kids found themselves homeless in Vegas three years ago, the Salvation Army sheltered and fed them and Brown tossed the crack pipe for good and began shaking a little silver bell. She rang it in Vegas and she rang it in San Francisco, and now she's serenading Angelenos.

Doesn't pay much, minimum wage, but who cares? Try to understand that some day Brown aims to start her own shelter that lifts up homeless people, physically and emotionally and cognitively. Try to understand that some day Brown will fill a book with the lessons she's learned over 37 years. That's why she's smiling, and also because her children are honor students living with their grandmother in Moreno Valley, and because when the Salvation Army van drops her home each evening, she and Cedric watch the news and read the Bible and remember where they've been, beam together at how far they've come.

Staying upbeat

Sure, there are people like the fiftysomething man wearing an American flag cap who flies out of Sav-on at 12:42 and insists to the world that Brown wants to take and take and take everybody's last hard-earned cent.

God bless you, merry Christmas.

Or the homeless guy in a soiled green afghan who sets up camp nearby and explains to Brown and to anybody who stops and roots for change in pockets and purses that Jesus is a punk.

God bless him too. Brown won't ask him to find another sidewalk -- she can't be that person. She can't whitewash this moment of its sadness and ugliness because, even while he slanders her god, she sees herself dressed in his afghan, feels his hunger and desperation deep in her gut, knows his hell.

If anybody will stop at the kettle, children will. They point their tiny fingers at the oscillating bell and yelp and giggle. They pull their grown-ups by jackets and pant legs toward this red-vested woman. And when they leave, their curiosity hardly satiated, they stare back at Brown and she tells each of them goodbye, sweetheart. Merry Christmas, sweetheart. Goodbye.

The Christmas spirit isn't universal; many people walk by and stare straight ahead without giving, without God blessing in return. That's why the Salvation Army can't find enough volunteers this year; it's why many shoppers in the Southeast will be greeted by cardboard bell ringers built with motion sensors that trigger a recording, ding-ding-ding.

When too many people don't believe in Christmas, Brown slides on her headphones and hums and sways to gospel. Today, it's Karen Clark-Sheard who helps her remember, helps her smile. Then an old woman stops and spends six minutes dredging the pennies from the folds of her ancient change purse.

God bless you, merry Christmas.

A retired Verizon executive named Pearl stuffs a bill into the kettle. Target is terrible, she says, never shopping there again, she says, Target ought to be ashamed.

The shrill ding-ding-dinging follows Dana Troubridge and her frizzy purple sweater into Sav-on, it wafts from cosmetics to the candy isle, it echoes in her skull as she waits and waits at the register. Since the brain injury, noises like this hurt her, they puncture her.

It's not fair to make me hear this. She shouldn't be ringing a bell in my face. It's not fair to force your holidays on people.

God bless me? Merry Christmas?

Happy Hanukkah, she tells Brown, and Brown smiles.

Kevin Considine from Amsterdam isn't into that religious thing, either. And the bell ringing is annoying; it makes sense that they're getting kicked out of places, really, but he drops his change into the kettle anyhow, because there are lots of hungry people out there, because he's not one of them.

It's too hot and dry to be standing and ringing, and it stays that way until about 4 o'clock, when the rough concrete wall of the Sav-on begins to throw a shadow over the sidewalk and into the parking lot. If not Jack Frost weather, it's certainly cooler, and Brown and her bell ringing seem less ridiculous because it feels a little like Christmastime, and now maybe one in three people stops to chat or donate, and a few go as far as to God bless Brown too.

At the end of the day the take is $150.85, which isn't bad, but the kettle is locked so Brown can't know this and so this isn't what makes her day. What makes her day, if you really want to know, is the old man wearing tan slacks and a pristine gray sweater -- he could be a banker -- who shows up at 5:30 to do the jitterbug on her sidewalk.

He bobs to-and-fro, bends his knees and sways, taps Brown on the arm and grins. Somebody -- a brother, a friend? -- drops him off every day so that he can hang with the bell ringer. There's something wrong with this guy, definitely, but there's something wrong with most of us, and Brown knows you either like somebody as they are or you don't like them at all.

That's why she'll be here tomorrow. Because people like this are counting on her, counting on her bell and on her smile. That's why she can't give up, on this or on herself, because, as she sits in the van heading home, she remembers to remember all the obstacles that stand in front of her, that she wants to overcome.

Molding, a Paramount production

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thursday November 18, 2004

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
Molding, a Paramount production
* Looking for a rare pattern, style or period? Insiders head through the studio gates, to the 'best-kept secret around.'

By Steven Barrie-Anthony, Times Staff Writer

When Pacific Palisades architect Virgil McDowell needs classical French moldings that look as if they were made in the 1920s, he takes his drawings and heads to Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, to a shop whose business it is to leapfrog through place and time -- the Paramount Pictures lot.

Most people don't realize that Paramount Wood Moulding is open to those who will never compete for an Oscar or hold a SAG card. In addition to work for Paramount and other studios, about 30% of the shop's projects are for nonindustry clients who hear about it through word of mouth.

"They're the best-kept secret around," McDowell says. "They actually sit down and work with you. Whatever you want in wood, they can do. They are really artisans. Other places hand you a catalog and ask you to pick between a, b, c or d -- and if you ask for custom work, they laugh at you."

Paramount is the foremost of a few remaining industry molding shops (Disney and Fox run smaller operations) where customers can rub shoulders with fully costumed movie and TV stars. After making an appointment, customers drive directly onto the lot, which is its own ecosystem: golf carts instead of cars, trailers instead of houses, a gated community peopled with famous faces and with set designers and craftsmen busy transforming soundstages into alternate worlds.

Mark Goldstein, owner of local Madison boutiques, arrived on the lot clutching glossy cutouts of fireplaces from Decor magazine and Architectural Digest when he was remodeling his Brentwood home in 2002.

"I had gone to fireplace stores, but I just didn't like the fireplaces. They looked too tract-homey," Goldstein says.

Paramount replicated Goldstein's cutouts -- "one fireplace is painted ebony brown and antiqued," he says. "Another is white and looks like it was taken from a 150-year-old house in Connecticut."

Goldstein was so pleased with the work that he ordered his other moldings from Paramount as well.

"They just have interesting moldings that you don't find at any molding stores," he says.

Moldings are priced slightly higher than at Home Depot or other national chains -- per-foot costs range from 21 cents (window stop) to $9.74 (large crown molding) -- but clients say that Paramount's moldings are far more diverse, detailed and have larger profiles than what can be found elsewhere.

The shop itself, near the set for the TV show "Charmed," offers a view of the entertainment industry that few of us get to see: union workers feeding raw lumber into giant machines that chisel it into molding and spew sawdust into tubes snaking up and along the cavernous ceiling; boxes and piles of baseboards and casings and all variety of trim fashioned from sundry hardwoods and softwoods; custom-made doors and window frames and columns leaning against the walls.

"On a busy day, we fill a 16-foot-long dumpster with sawdust," says Mark LeCompte, head of Paramount's wood molding department.

Because there is never a lack of molding, wood turning and custom door and window orders to be filled and filled pronto, and because sets are rarely recycled, most days are busy. All profits are folded into the studio coffer.

Paramount moldings are also sold through Anderson Moulding in Culver City, Topanga Lumber in Topanga, and the lumberyards at Warner Bros., CBS and Sony Pictures.

The Paramount shop is a favorite of architects and designers who are looking for rare and custom molding -- and the workers' set-designing expertise makes them uniquely suited for these jobs, says Paul Staheli, production designer for the WB's "Charmed."

"Generally speaking, the molding we get out of here has a lot more detail to it than what you would normally get in your houses," says Staheli.

Filming requires exquisitely detailed molding, he says, because the camera picks up variation, and if the molding doesn't clue you in to place or period, a room is "nothing but a square or rectangular box. My office, for example, is nothing, a zero space. But if I were to trim out the windows and doors, I could turn it into a Victorian room, an Art Deco room. Name your period."

If you've watched TV or movies in the last 90 years, you have undoubtedly seen molding and other woodwork by Paramount. Angelenos may have also seen the shop's work around town, such as at Pasadena's Castle Green, an 1898 Moorish Colonial and Spanish-style structure refurbished last year with Paramount detailing.

Or at the former SAG office building at Sunset Boulevard and Sherbourne Drive in Hollywood, which was restored in 1999 using Paramount moldings.

Alan Graybill, whose carpentry company C Six contracted the Sunset and Sherbourne job, says he removed all deteriorating moldings and asked Paramount to duplicate them exactly.

On a recent morning, LeCompte demonstrates the process of creating a custom molding.

"Because we're so in tune with doing one-of-a-kind things for movies, we don't mass produce anything," he says, trudging up a sawdust-covered staircase into the storage room where he keeps a scanner and computer-controlled saw called a router.

Hundreds of custom knives and sample wood moldings spill out of dozens of boxes emblazoned with the Paramount logo. The Hollywood sign is visible from a nearby window.

"This used to be the breakaways glass room," LeCompte explains, where the studio manufactured faux-glass items like windowpanes and bottles that shattered without injuring actors.

First, LeCompte scans the molding he is duplicating or the customer's drawing into a computer-aided design program, and the router cuts a fiberglass knife template. The template is sent downstairs to the grinder, a sandpapered wheel that works like a key cutter to shape a steel plate and sharpen its edges.

The customized knife -- or knives, if it's an intricate molding -- is mounted onto a cutter head, which fits into one of four molding machines. LeCompte and his workers use rip saws to size lumber down to a fraction larger than the intended molding, then feed the planks through the molder, which cuts all sides at once.

And that's the easy stuff. Complicated wood turnings, such as ornate radius castings, have to be carved precisely by hand on a lathe. "They know how to turn and mill columns, how to do what people did in the '20s and '30s that nobody else does anymore," says McDowell, the architect. "When we use their moldings in a new room, people come into the room afterward and say, 'Wow, this looks old. A fine restoration.' "

Seems like a lot of work considering that many of their creations are blown up in action scenes or for special effects, and that even surviving sets eventually land in the trash.

But LeCompte, who has clocked 26 years in this industry and whose father ran the now-defunct Universal Studios molding shop, doesn't mind. "Putting them in the trash is good for business," he says with a chuckle. It keeps the orders coming.

For clients outside of the industry, Paramount moldings are more than quality detailing -- they're also conversation pieces.

"You feel special," says Michelle Smith of Cypress who ordered a set of oak double doors. "You get to see a realm that we've all wondered about.... And when somebody asks me where I got my doors, and I say 'Paramount Studios,' they look at me dumbfounded."

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

How to get on the lot

Paramount Wood Moulding is open by appointment only -- call (323) 956-4242 and arrange to drop by 555 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. You can also view the catalog online at www.paramountstudiogroup.com (click on the links "enter the studio group," "production" and then "wood moulding").