The snows of L.A.: Sharon Jones’ Global...

The snows of L.A.: Sharon Jones’ Global Shakeup company sells plastic snow domes, those see-through knickknacks that produce miniature snowstorms.

Jones was holding her latest model--an Elvis snow dome--on a visit to a record company “when this man in the elevator with me said, ‘I want five of these.’ I didn’t recognize him but he sort of acted as though I should.”

He took her card and Jones didn’t think any more about it until a publicist phoned. The interested party, it turns out, is a musician who wants to take the Big E trinkets back to Washington for the inauguration. They’ll be a gift to the President-elect from brother Roger Clinton.

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That toddlin’ town: Frank Sinatra, you’ve no doubt heard, is appearing as the inaugural act at the new $60-million Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Cerritos--the former Dairy Valley--has undeniably arrived as a cultural force in Southern California. Which doesn’t surprise us at all.

We recall 12 years ago when the City Council voted to forbid a new store--Toys R Us--from displaying the trademark backward R in its logo. The persnickety lawmakers contended that the symbol would confuse impressionable schoolchildren.

Eventually, the city reversed itself and voted to allow the toy shop to use its customary sign. No doubt the council also considered the ‘rithmetic of attracting other businesses.

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Singin’ in the . . . The wet weather seemed appropriate for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies at the Century Plaza Hotel Tuesday night.

The inductees included Creedence Clearwater Revival (“Who’ll Stop the Rain”), the Doors (“Riders on the Storm”), Cream (“Sunshine of Your Love”), Eric Clapton (“Let It Rain”) and Dinah Washington (“September in the Rain”). OK, so it wasn’t “January in the Rain.”

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List of the Day: In an article in Westways magazine, writer Peggy Nicoll says she’s found that these are the most-asked questions at parties around the nation:

* “How old are you?” (Southern California)

* “How much is your rent?” (New York City)

* “Who do you work for?” (Washington, D.C.)

* “Where did you go to school?” (Boston)

* “What does your husband do?” or “How’d you get your hair so high?” (Dallas)

* “You’re not from L.A., are you?” (Seattle)

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They didn’t even give her an option to divide it into two payments: Luciana Lino wonders how much interest she’ll owe if she’s tardy paying the enclosed bill from the city of Thousand Oaks.

Of course, Only in L.A. has been leery of numbers put out by Thousand Oaks ever since reading that a survey by schoolchildren in 1964 found that the city actually had 3,422 oaks.

miscelLAny:

It just occurred to us that not only is the toy shop’s R backward, but the correct grammatical name for the company would be Toys R We.