L.A. woman: It’s always helpful when the...

L.A. woman: It’s always helpful when the victim of a crime can furnish officers with a good precise description of a suspect, as this story in the Telluride (Colo.) Times-Journal illustrates.

A Telluride woman told authorities that she left her sunglasses on a counter in a store in that city “for less than a minute while she was reaching for her checkbook (and) noticed that a ‘Los Angeles-looking woman’ was standing next to her.”

The victim explained “that the woman asked her many questions and was wearing a big puffy jacket.” When the Telluride woman “went to gather her belongings, she noticed that both the glasses and the ‘L.A.’ woman had disappeared.”

The Times-Journal says that officers, “furnished with a description . . . were able to find the suspect who denied that she took the glasses, claiming she mistook them for her own. . . . “

L.A. explanation.

Sports Inflated: Scott Kaufer of Hollywood received a subscription offer from Sports Illustrated that seems to be a bit more costly than the newsstand price (see excerpt). The least S.I. could do is throw in one of those sports blooper tapes. Or a magazine blooper tape.

List of the day: Some quotes that should have been included in the 16th and latest edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations:

* Real estate agent Mike Glickman, on filing for bankruptcy in 1990: “I had to end the negative energy that we had.”

* Bob White, when he was a Norwalk city councilman, on why the city should not hire an outside public relations firm: “I think we should be doing things in-house instead of out-house.”

* Angelyne, star of billboard ads but a bust as an actress: “I’m the first person in the history of Hollywood to ever be famous for nothing.”

* L.A. City Councilman Hal Bernson, after telling reporters which council members had “died” in a simulated earthquake disaster at City Hall: “We won’t talk about brain-dead.”

* Singer Peter Holm, on how he discovered that wife Joan Collins was filing for divorce: “One day we agreed to have lunch at the Studio Grill. She wasn’t there.”

* Jim Lampley, then a KCBS anchorman, opening a newscast in 1990: “Good evening, I’m Bree Walker.”

* Bill Clinton to Jerry Brown, during the 1992 campaign: “Chill out. You’re from California. Chill out.”

* Sonny Bono, admitting that he was less articulate than the other U.S. Senate candidates: “If I could be like these guys, I would love it. But, you know, that’s something I guess I’m gonna have to learn, how to throw that articulation out there.”

L.A. motorist: KNX radio traffic guru Bill Keene relayed a report phoned into the California Highway Patrol from someone who said a passenger in another car on the Pomona Freeway was waving a banana like a gun.

Noted Keene’s colleague Skip Tucker: “It’s a jungle out there.”

Say good night, Skip.

miscelLAny:

Optimism, Inc., a Calabasas company, recently filed for bankruptcy.