Insandouts

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Consulting the Crystal Ball

What does the New Year hold in store for business and the economy? Economists may have their fancy models and forecasts, but Los Angeles-area psychics (who see a spike in business this time of year, incidentally) can also predict a thing or two.

Two of the three psychics contacted by the Business Journal foresee an upturn.

“Business is definitely going to improve this year. The economy is on the upswing and things are going to get better,” said Theresa Adams, owner of Visions Psychic Readings in Long Beach.

Ruby Gray, of Readings by Ruby, said after the first couple of months of 1999, “there’s going to be a rise in things.”

But Mrs. Williams of Psychic Readings by Mrs. Williams in Beverly Hills sees the turmoil abroad coming home to roost, while domestic scandals will cool.

“This whole crazy Clinton White House thing will blow over in the next month and business people will get back to what they need to get back to. I think things will be fine,” Williams said. But by the end of the year, the economy could feel the ripple effect from overseas.

“It’s like a wave that will arrive at our shores. There’s nothing we can do,” Williams said. “I think there’s going to be a huge tumble in values.”

Sinking Feeling

Diners at McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant in downtown L.A. will be able to eat the same dishes served during the last dinner aboard the famed Titanic before it struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and sank.

“It’s to celebrate the splendor and beauty of that time and remember (those who were on board),” said Elaine Doran, who handles public relations for McCormick & Schmick.

The five-course meal is a re-creation of the first-class menu of dishes served in the ship’s Ritz Restaurant. The menu, dated April 14, 1912, includes oysters & #341; la Russe, Cream of Barley soup, poached salmon, chicken Lyonnaise, cucumber salad and Waldorf pudding. McCormick & Schmick is even adding nautical props provided by the Queen Mary and reproductions of mementos from the maiden voyage to complement the restaurant’s long corridors, stained glass and dark woods.

The Titanic menu is being done in conjunction with “Titanic: A New Musical” at the Ahmanson Theatre Jan. 5 through Feb. 28, and will be available during the show’s run.

Yukon Wolves in L.A.

Hollywood’s exodus for location filming to Canada isn’t just shaking up the local economy, it’s changing the rules of show-biz scamming.

Take a gambit recently made by an elderly “producer” toward a nubile model while she was lunching alone at a Sunset Plaza Drive bistro. In a move as old as Hollywood, the silver-haired smoothie told the model how much he admired her beauty and announced that he could get her into films. To legitimize his claims, he handed her a business card with a lofty title, printed with the name of an even loftier-sounding movie company north of the U.S. border. He then tipped his toupee and left.

“He’s legit,” the maitre d’ told the model after the man departed. “He’s harmless.”

“Sure,” the model replied. “This happens all the time. But this is the first time I got a business card from Canada.”

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