Brave New World

    A young lady named Joan got a bright vision of the future a few days ago while driving over Coldwater Canyon.  As she reached Mulholland Dr. she was fascinated to see a helicopter land in a clearing and a well-dressed man carrying a traveling bag walk over from a parked Cadillac, where he had been waiting, and get in.  A moment later the chopper took off and quickly disappeared. 

    When she drove past the spot 12 hours later the car was still parked there and Joan has mentally filled in the empty spots in the puzzle.

    The way she figures it the man, obviously an impatient tycoon, discarded the idea of fighting traffic to the airport and phoned for the 'copter.  Obviously he is a man with more money than time.  Or perhaps a lucky stiff with an unlimited credit card.

    DURING THE FIRST THREE DAYS of bitterly contested divorce trial in a  L.A. court a few days ago the judge sat grim and taciturn on the bench,  just listening.

    On the third day the husband was on the stand and the wife's attorney was chopping him into little pieces over the amount of money he was alleged to have wasted.  Battered by the verbal assault, he finally retorted defensively, "But the only thing I've bought in months was a new spinning reel!"

    The granite-faced judge, showing interest for the first time, stopped the questioning, leaned toward the witness chair, and asked eagerly, "What kind?"

    COUNTDOWN
Counting calories is fine,
Just as long as they aren't
    mine.
    MARGARET MAHAN

    IT IS IN THE nature of college students to puncture pompousness wherever it appears, sometimes when it only threatens to appear.  Evidence of this compulsion was indicated a few days ago at a dedication of a  Burroughs computer at Caltech.

    On the bulletin board of Spalding Hall, the engineering building, Bob Forest of Burroughs staff discovered a neatly printed card stating, "We men of science may be momentarily daunted, but this unending quest for truth will drive us on to the eventual victory."  In tiny type at the bottom of the card was the perverse credit line, "Terry and the Pirates — January 1947."

    AFTER DONATING a pint of blood for a heart surgery patient a young woman at the Red Cross blood bank jokingly asked Mrs. Yetta Davis, volunteer worker, "If my blood is type B and my husband's turns out to be type O will our baby have BO?"

    A YOUNG MAN applying for a job as a meter reader with Department of Water and Power finished filling out the necessary forms and headed out the wrong way.  "Don't go out that door," the secretary said, "take the one over there."

    "I've only known you 10 minutes," the young man, feigning despair, retorted, "and already you're telling me where to go."

    A DIABOLIC fellow with the initials G.B. is conducting a one-man protest against unsolicited mail. He bundles as much as he can get into a  business reply envelope, making sure it is overweight and will require extra postage, covers the "No Postage Required" imprint with a cut-rate premium stamp that usually comes with the stuff, and mails it, happily assured the sender will have to pay postage due.  The man's a sadist.

    AT RANDOM — Sudden thought which occurred to visitor watching Mabel Stark coax a big cat up on a pedestal at the Thousand oaks jungle compound:  "Always say please to a tiger" . . . Travel note:  M. Hillary Salter, just returned by jet from a  six month round-the-world trip with his family, explains his luxuriant mustache: "I wanted to bring back something duty and weight free!" . . . Political prediction:  Approximately 63% of the answers given by political figures on TV interviews during the conventions will be prefaced with "Well, uh."