The end of the year is approaching,...

The end of the year is approaching, which is a traditional time for reflection and no doubt explains why Los Angeles Magazine has taken up the question: What’s the worst public sculpture in L.A.?

The answer isn’t easy, with so many candidates.

Hundreds of Beverly Hills residents, for instance, have complained about “Moon Dial,” which resembles a series of rusty pumpkins on poles on a grass strip off Palm Drive. Actress Yvette Mimieux termed it a junk heap.

But a poll by the Los Angeles Downtown News found that the sculpture its readers liked least was “Homage to Cabrillo: Venetian Quadrant”--known to some as “The Overgrown Can-Opener”--at 9th and Figueroa streets. “Homage” edged out the “Triforium,” the defunct music box, near City Hall.

Los Angeles magazine’s choice for the worst, however, is “The Big Wave,” a span across Wilshire Boulevard that “most people have never seen . . . since it looks like some phone wires that have lost control.” One elderly woman, though, did complain to the Santa Monica Arts Commission that she feared it might fall on her during an earthquake.

The zig-zag gate, incidentally, marks the border between Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The magazine sounds as though it hopes the “Wave” will suffer the same fate as the Berlin Wall, if only to foster peace between the two cities.

Speaking of which, KNX entertainment commentator Tom Hatten asked Friday: “If the Berlin Wall does come down, what do you want to bet that Michael Jackson tries to buy it?”

How do you punish a prisoner who’s already facing the death sentence? When convicted serial killer Richard Ramirez was caught damaging an air vent in the shower at the Men’s Central Jail, he was placed in “administrative segregation” for 10 days.

One of the penalties: No television.

That’s Hollywood:

A Seattle attorney says that William Stevens, once described as a suspect in the unsolved Green River murder case, is close to signing a book deal with an L.A.-based crime writer. Attorney Craig Beles says he’s negotiating a contract between Stevens and Roderic Thorp, author of the novel that became the movie, “Die Hard.”

A must-see for L.A. tourists in the old days was the Brown Derby on Wilshire Boulevard. Soon to appear: The Green Verdugo Reservoir Cap in Sunland. Perhaps it won’t rival the Derby as an attraction, but the city hopes that by installing a floating rubber cap to cover the entire reservoir, it will protect the water from small animals, bird droppings and debris.

It wasn’t Santa’s fault:

A vehicle carrying 50,000 pounds of toys skidded out of control and overturned on the Santa Ana Freeway in Norwalk. But it was a truck, not a sleigh, and the driver was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.

A 40-ish male customer, overheard growling at a high school kid in a Santa Monica coffee shop:

“So you’re a student, and you’ve got Veterans Day off. And I’m a veteran, and here I am going to work!”