Seattle: Surf City?”OK, how many people in...

Seattle: Surf City?”OK, how many people in L.A. still want to move to Seattle?” Art Dedman Jr. of Pacific Palisades wrote in The Times’ Letters to the Editor section.

Personally, we don’t own a pair of dark glasses so we’ll stay put. As of Wednesday, sunny Seattle had received just eight-tenths of an inch of rain this year compared to 11.6 inches here in Bog Angeles.

Good news, Reseda!It was heartening to hear President Clinton pay tribute in his inaugural address to a region of L.A. that has too often been the butt of comics’ one-liners.

“From this joyful mountaintop,” Clinton intoned, “we hear a call to the Valley.”

The area code, incidentally, is 818, Mr. President.

The search for Alfred (cont.): Our interest in Alfred E. Neuman began when we saw him on a 1932 L.A. postcard and wondered if the City of Angels was his birthplace. But several readers, to whom we’re indebted, have since traced Mad Magazine’s What-Me-Worry guy back much further. Tim Estle of West Hills found the smiling boy’s mug in an 1895 newspaper published in New York.

That date also rules out another theory advanced by some readers--that Alfred is the twin brother of ABC’s “Nightline” host.

Zapper to the Stars: The Hollywood Dog Training School offers a product called “Invisible Fencing”--Rover is fitted with a collar that emits a sound that warns him when he is straying too far (as into a neighbor’s yard). He is taught that if he ignores the signal, he’s zapped with an electronic charge. The school’s customers include the hounds of several celebrities, from the Smothers Brothers to Zsa Zsa Gabor.

An interesting concept. The terminology reminds us of a case of a Beverly Hills lawyer who appealed a citation for walking his dog without a leash. He argued that the animal was so well trained it was controlled by a “psychological leash.” A jury fined him and ordered him to employ a leather leash along with the psychological one.

Elevator paws: Here’s one condo dispute we’d never heard of before. Audrey Franklyn of West Hollywood claims that one of her neighbors objected to riding in the complex’s elevator with Franklyn’s dog Mimi.

In fact, once, according to a letter from Franklyn’s attorney to the neighbor, “employing shouting tones with menacing gestures and a startling demeanor . . . you grabbed her dog, which was attached to a leash held in Ms. Franklyn’s hands, and forcibly propelled her dog . . across the elevator door’s threshold. . . . The elevator door began to close upon the leash, still held in Ms. Franklyn’s hands, in such a way as to jeopardize the personal safety of Ms. Franklyn and the animal. . . .”

Franklyn was uninjured as was Mimi, whose right to ride in the elevator has been upheld by the condo. The neighbor has been advised that criminal charges will be brought against him if he repeats his conduct.

Or perhaps the man could be fitted with an Invisible Fence collar.

miscelLAny:

L’Ermitage, a Beverly Hills hotel that was sold for $12 million recently, was listed in the phone book as Le Ermitage and Hermitage as well as L’Ermitage. Its identity problem stemmed from the difficulty that non-French speakers had with the name.