Dear occupant--Hope you still have something to...

Dear occupant--Hope you still have something to occupy: Lorraine Hillman of Encino received a letter addressed to “Residents”--but it wasn’t junk mail. It was a handwritten note of sympathy from Cathy Martin of Vidor, Tex., who grew up in the house where Hillman lives.

“I’ve been watching TV and seeing all the damage,” Martin wrote. “I really do hope you didn’t get hurt or suffer any damage. . . . I went to school at Reseda High. I have very fond memories there. If there is anything I can do, please let me know.”

Hillman says: “I thought it was very touching and I plan to respond to Ms. Martin--after I clean up.”

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But do we have that much rope?”Riots, fires, recessions--and now an earthquake,” London’s Economist said in a recent issue.

“In times past, a Savonarola or a Moses would have warned Los Angeles that the gods had to be appeased. Sex-mad screenwriters would have been strung up along Sunset Boulevard; bureaucrats would have been trussed in their own red tape; defense workers would have created a massive altar out of old Stealth bombers.”

Hey, let’s not get carried away! We’re sure that stringing up the sex-mad screenwriters should be more than enough to satisfy the gods--not to mention us mere mortals.

Burrito wisdom: Earthquake songs are common, but there’s a kind of irony in “Sin City,” written 25 years ago by onetime Flying Burrito Brothers Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons.

They were living in Reseda at the time.

“Sin City”--yes, the title refers to L.A.--warns:

This old earthquake’s going to leave me in the poorhouse

Seems like this whole town’s insane

On the 31st floor, a gold-plated door

Won’t keep out the Lord’s burning rein

“It was meant tongue-in-cheek,” Hillman says now.

Except for the high-rise reference.

That forecast, Hillman adds, was directed at a resident of a Sunset Strip condo--his ex-manager.

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Whittier in shorts: Laurel Hall and Katy Ayer each sent along photos of a timely marquee in their hometown. “We in Whittier know from experience what you really appreciate after an earthquake,” wrote Ayer, referring to the 1987 Whittier Narrows jolt.

It’s interesting to note that the city was founded by a religious group whose name now takes on a sort of double meaning in seismic California. Aren’t we all quakers?

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Even panhandling campaigns have sequels: A street gent with the ubiquitous “Why Lie? I Need a Drink” sign was spotted in Long Beach, standing next to a colleague, whose sign said: “Me Too.”

miscelLAny:

The publishing notes in “Finnegan’s Week,” by ex-L.A. cop Joe Wambaugh, reveals that the book is cross-indexed in the Library of Congress under several categories, including “Hazardous wastes--fiction.”

A novelist might be insulted by such a description, except that this mystery does involve a toxic spill. It’s a real whodumpedit.