Odds and Trends

Thinking Man's CB Reading a book without using hands or eyes is made pleasantly possible by a Los Angeles company called Books on Tape. An immediate hit with housewives and commuters who drive to work--not to mention armchair listeners suffering from workaday eye-strain--the audio tomes are cassettes that are rented by mail at prices ranging from $6.50 to $7.50 plus $1.75 mailing charge for a 30-day period. Recorded by professional actors, the tapes for bookworms are grouped arbitrarily in six main categories: Americana (e.g., H.L. Mencken, Ring Lardner), Classics (Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain), Contemporary Fiction (Joseph Wambaugh, Irving Stone), History and War (Alan Moorehead, Hanson Baldwin), Fiction (Louis Auchincloss, F. Scott Fitzgerald) and Travel and Adventure (James Ramsey Ullman, Joshua Slocum). Current best renter of the more than 80 available titles: Walden. B.O.T. pays authors or their estates 10% of its rental fee and calls its service, not immodestly, "the thinking man's CB."

Guess Who? First there was a secretary to answer the phone. Then there were telephone-answering machines for office and home. Now there are taped messages featuring what sound like the voices of Richard Nixon, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Marlon Brando, Peter Loire and some 25 other celebrities. "I've temporarily stepped out of the office--you are being taped on a machine guaranteed not to erase," says the voice mimicking Nixon. "Listen, could you make an 18-minute message so I could get those (bleep) off my (bleep)?" Then the voice fades, saying, "I will be back ... I will be back ..."

These taped messages, called "Helios," are the brainchild of Mark Roy, 47, a Los Angeles record producer who was tired of hearing the same boring messages on the phone machines of his friends and business associates. So far, Helios are available only in California and Baltimore, but $300,000 worth of them have been sold since January. The cassettes ($9.95 each) appeal to people who either dislike the sound of their voice on tape or are too shy to face a microphone. The company, Communico, plans to add a new series of messages with the voice-alikes of Columbo, Edith and Archie Bunker and Jimmy Carter. Hello, you all.

Hot Ride What to do with ski slopes in summer? One answer: build concrete shoots and go down them in sleds. First and longest (4,060 ft.) of the so-called Alpine Slides was installed for $400,000 last year at Bromley Mountain in Vermont and drew more than 170,000 riders at $2.75 each. There are now 18 of the German-designed tracks in operation, some with nighttime sledding. The one-man plastic chariots on the twisting, toboggan-like runs go up to 25 m.p.h., but can be braked to a halt. Who needs snow?

Volks Art The Beetle, that Volks hero of the American highway, is undergoing a psychedelic transformation. Dressed up in brilliant decals and ad slogans for products ranging from hamburgers to cigarettes (complete with Surgeon General's warning), the little cars are making the scene as mobile billboards. Some 5,200 Beetleboards are now bringing Pop art to the highways and streets of 253 communities, and their number is expected to double by year's end. The idea of putting wheedle on wheels came to Charles Bird, now 36, a former Los Angeles advertising consultant. Beetle owners who qualify --their cars must be insured and log at least 1,000 miles a month for "exposure" --get a free paint job along with the advertising motif, plus $20 a month. Aimed initially at college kids, the campaign has enlisted doctors, professors, lawyers, businessmen and bankers. Themes have included a mustachioed, sombreroed Mexican against an orange background (Ole Tequila), a red baron flying high in a blue sky (Seagram's Gin) and a hearts-and-cupids background emblazoned HOW'S YOUR LOVE LIFE? (Ultra-Brite toothpaste). Owners of Lincolns and Cadillacs have tried to enroll their cars, but to no avail. This form of beetlemania is for Volkses only.

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