S l e e p e r

The Best Sleeps in Film, Cont'd.

Speaking of the Peabody Hotel, and Memphis, Sleeper just re-viewed one of her favorite films, Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train. In "Far From Yokahama," the first of the three episodes, Jun makes a beautiful little series of gestures to get Mitsuko to open her eyes in the morning. She murmurs, "sleep is so wonderful..."

When I was very young I used to be afraid that one day I would never wake up. Now the idea that you don't get to sleep, or, really, that you don't get to fall asleep anymore after you die, seems much sadder.

The seedy hotel is the true star of this movie. The rooms with their perfectly distressed gorgeous rotting wallpaper in stripes and whorls and the yellow-and-green coverlets that clash with them so perfectly make me want to swap out my white sheets. That blue bedside radio...

The Best Mattress I Didn't Sleep a Wink On

Now. You're thinking, finally Sleeper will talk about that one thing she never talks about. Not today. The subject of mattresses is uppermost in everyone's mind, judging from the amount of e-mail I get and the proliferation of articles on the subject.

I can't recommend this mattress — a Simmons Felicy — but it's not because of the pillowtop (as you recall, pillowtops are a bad investment because the pillow wears out before the mattress) and not because it wasn't heavenlily comfortable. You see, this is a story about the weirdness of the mattress industry.

One day recently I checked into the grand Peabody Hotel in Memphis. I'd spent the previous night at a dastardly Holiday Inn — noisy, musty, and, worst, my bed was still unmade at 2 p.m. After Sun Studios, a nap is essential.

The lovely gold-and-yellow room at the Peabody featured this Simmons Beautyrest Felicity. Was it our cocktail with the Peabody ducks that kept me up all hours? Was it the bed itself, firm but plush, a bed that seemed to breathe from the depths of its very coils the words "you're safe here"? The hotel experience is too seductive. All the same, I decided to do a bit of research on the Felicity, because I was enchanted by it.

You can order the mattress (queensize, $1,200) from the Peabody gift shop, on whose site it is for some reason called the Peabody Dream Bed, but if you ring them, you get a person in a call center who knows nothing about mattresses. If you call Simmons, they tell you to call a different number altogether, a "department" that fulfills orders for these mattresses, which are made only for the hospitality industry.

The words "hospitality industry" make me cringe. Frette's sheets manufactured for hotels are a disappointment. What is this bed, and why can't you, reader, lie down on it at a Simmons store? "It's like this," the Simmons hospitality bed man said. "You buy direct from us, it keeps the price down. People are going crazy for these beds. We can't keep them in stock." But why can't Simmons simply sell them in stores? "Look," he said. "Any other mattress of this quality, you'll pay twice as much for at a Simmons store."

"So Simmons is competing with itself?" I asked.

"How many people stay at a fancy hotel and want to buy the bed in it? People like you are a tiny percentage of mattress buyers."

"But you just said you can't keep these beds in stock."

Hospitality man had no response to that, but he said he would e-mail a fact sheet about the mattress, which he never did. It's almost, but not quite, enough to dash the memory of the Peabody.

The take-home is this: Buy a mattress from a store you trust, preferably an independent shop not beholden to one or two brands (even if you're at a department store, you'll likely be talking to, say, a Hästens rep, not an impartial source). Ask how long the bed should last, whether it will feel different on a platform (if you're planning to skip the box spring), and how to care for the fabric. If you feel like you aren't getting helpful answers, leave. As you can see, buying a bed can be like buying a used car.

If can't sleep a full night on a mattress before you decide on it, consult fair-minded sources who describe beds with the care that a good wine reviewer would lavish on a good Bordeaux.

A Review of Tempur-Pedic

You've heard the hype. You've seen the cheezy infomercials. What's a Tempur-Pedic really like? Springy and soft. That's rather surprising if, like me, you always imagined that it would feel like a barely defrosted Sara Lee pound cake. Still, is it really crucial that a glass of wine left sitting on the bed (you're always doing this, right?) doesn't tip over when the co-sleeper gets up to, god knows, spear another cherry tomato? That's the question I pondered setting out to investigate these beds.

Beneath the fabulous art and handsome vizsla above is Abby Messitte and Derek Eller's kingsize T-P. "I read Donald Antrim's article in the New Yorker a while back about buying a Duxiana bed* while his mother was dying, and after that I could not stop thinking about mattresses," Abby says.

It took a few years, until Derek, 36, was waking up in knifely back pain, to ditch their college-era relic. They bought a Tempur-Pedic because Derek's 80-something stepfather had slept on one for years and told them how much it helped his own back pain. Actually, they got a memory foam top for their old mattress first, which was like putting a kleenex on a brick. "It didn't work," Abby says. Potential T-P buyers, take heed: I've spoken with more than a few people who bought the mattress overlays, which cost around $800, and were disappointed. I've also talked to people who bought faux Tempur-Pedics that felt great but went to mush in six months. If you're going to buy a Tempur-Pedic, I'd say best to jump right in. If you order it from the company's web site, you can return it within 30 days. Plenty of people do.

Some just don't like the feel of this mattress. Others say it makes them sweat. The bed is made of synthetic foam, which doesn't sound promising for August in the northern hemisphere. But it is covered with a thick terry-velour fabric or, in the "Celebrity" series, cashmere — not that that sounds nice in deep summer, either. At any rate, I sleep hot and tested it on a hot night, and I was very comfortable. On the minus side, one might lie awake nights thinking about the fact that the memory foam is a petroleum byproduct.

Abby's first night on the real T-P was "weird," she remembers. "There was no give. It was unlike any kind of mattress I'd slept on." After night No. 2 she was hooked. Abby describes the feeling of sleeping on a Tempur-Pedic as "body-cradling" and firm.

I would call it a combination of soft and firm. The way I imagined it, the mattress would take an impression of your body, so that if you changed positions you'd be lying in a shallow depression, like you'd rolled over on wet sand. But I discovered, happily, that "memory foam" doesn't mean the bed forgets you're a kinetic being. It springs back when you push on it with your hand or roll around. It's soft to the touch, yet because there are no springs inside, it's entirely missing the bounce of a traditional mattress. It is a little strange at first, but not if you've slept on a natural latex mattress.

In short, I really, really wanted to dislike this bed — products people get fanatic about make me twitch — and I just couldn't. If I had an old mattress or one I was displeased with (rather than our Englander), I would consider a Tempur-Pedic.

Price: $2,100 for a queensize deluxe. Feel: An oddly beguiling combination of springiness and startlingly lush stillness. Velvety. Steady and comforting. Emotionally it's like walking into a familiar room when the power goes off and realizing, with complete calm, that you can do everything you need to by feel. Drawbacks: People who sleep on Tempur-Pedics get addicted to them and can have trouble sleeping on regular mattresses, making hotel and romantic life complicated. (Tempur-Pedics seem to cause a high number of fights between couples.) Doesn't feel the same without its native box spring, so it won't work with a platform bed.

*Antrim returned his Dux bed.

"Hotel" Sheets Claim Another Victim

A reader writes:

Dear Sleeper:

I found sheets I love when I stayed at the Wynn Las Vegas, but they are not cheap: 700 thread count Supima cotton hotel linens, made in India. Is it bad that they are made in India? A fitted King sheet runs about 300 bucks. Is this a rip-off? Am I better going with Sferra or Scandia as far as sheets go?

Stephen

Dear Stephen:

Oh no! You're in the clutches of the Hotel Linens Monster, which is smooth to the touch, deadly on the wallet, and hunts for prey in the gift shops of upscale resorts.

Yet "Hotel" sheets' true allure is the hotel association. You sleep well there, yes. But mostly that's because you've stepped out of your life for a minute and into a very nice world where someone brings you a stirred manhattan when you push a button. The hotel would love you to think the sheets have the power, but in fact you'd probably be let down when you put them on the bed and weren't emotionally transported back to the Wynn. (I'll get to good hotel-style sheets in a minute.)

Supima is a name coined by a group of U.S. growers of pima cotton. It's the same thing as pima, with soft, strong, long-staple fibers. It's good cotton. But unless the package says 100% Supima cotton, there might be only a shred of it in there.

700 thread count? Doesn't mean a thing. These are no doubt soft sheets: The higher the thread count, the more a fabric drapes. But some of the best sheets I have ever slept on had a 200 to 400 TC. It's the quality of the thread that matters, not how many threads per square inch. Not to discredit your good taste — I only mean to decode the marketing.

India has a long and glorious history in weaving fabrics. Sheets made in India, no matter the price range, can be wonderful. They also make wretched pilly sheets in India, and everywhere else, including Italy.

Frankly, I always feel like kingsize sheets are a rip-off. They're one of those mysteriously expensive things on earth, like bras. Still, $300 is up there. Scandia's percale runs $200 for a king. That's better, but still high. It's possible to find terrific sheets for less money at, say, Bed Bath & Etc. if you're up for a hunt. Now that you know the kind of sheet you like, trust your hand in evaluating them.

I like Anichini's hotel sheets. They are soft, thick but not heavy, and just generally delicious. A whole king set will run you about $400, or half the price of those Wynn sheets.

Given how well Scandia pillows are made, I'd be inclined to try their sheets. If you're not ready for the whole investment, buy the pillowcases first and see how they feel and launder. As always, trust the hand, not the brand.

One more thing: hotels press their sheets. You could do that, or pay someone to. It could bring you one step closer to Vegas.

S.