This was the scene at the recent Capitola Art and Wine Festival. Wine was selling as briskly as ever (one of the few truly recession-proof commodities). But many artists, especially among the stalwarts who do this show every year, had to depend on smaller items—cards and prints instead of original art, earrings instead of more elaborate pieces of jewelry—whose sales added up to a show that was good, but not as sensational as in palmier days of yore.

Despite sluggish sales at outdoor shows or in galleries, however, there's a slight uptick in commissions, mostly from private collectors who know exactly what they want and aren't afraid to ask for it. By "collectors," I don't mean philanthropic billionaires cruising in stretch limos, or swanky nobles, à la the Medicis, throwing around purses of gold (not that every artist alive wouldn't love to have a patron like that, but let's try to stay on track, here). In real life, especially here in Santa Cruz, collectors are ordinary working folks with mortgages, families, and property taxes, just like the rest of us. In tough economic times, an artist's best friend can be the collector who already knows and appreciates his or her work.

(Note: Writing humorous essays involving hurricanes during hurricane season is insensitive, reckless and ill-advised. The author recognizes this. She is currently planning a series of pieces on drunk Santas, so clearly has no perception of social boundaries. She feels awful about this.) 

September is underway, another school year has begun, and I, along with legions of my writing peers, had planned an annual ritual dripping with nostalgia: a poignant, amusing column on the back-to-school miracle affecting anyone past the age of … back-to-school, waxing poetic about sharpened pencils and fresh lined paper. I had even undertaken a project to empathize with my kids’ hours of mind-numbing boredom during less than interesting academic subjects. (FYI, I intended to study a topic about which I have absolutely no curiosity whatsoever, find chillingly dull, and causes my eyeballs to melt from lack of interest: What to Expect When I’m Expecting. This took much consideration. My list also included Other People’s Drug Trips and Hedge Funds. Also note— it’s very difficult to think of things about which one doesn’t give a hoot. It’s elementally counterintuitive.)

Recently I moved again. This morning I tacked up a map and grabbed some push-pins and determined that this will be the 19th place I’ve lived in Santa Cruz County. Even serial killers don’t inspire maps with that many pins. And now with all those holes in my wall, I’ve probably violated my lease.

Not that I’m a bad tenant. I pay on time and I’m considerate and I can fix stuff and I only bark when fire engines go by. But when I meet potential landlords with whom I want to make a good impression, I feel the same kind of nervousness I get on first dates or job interviews. I struggle to think of just the right thing to say.

“No pets? Do bedbugs count?”

See now, right there, that’s a good example. In these situations, in what my therapist hand puppet says is an attempt to defuse discomfort with humor, I channel my inner sitcom writer and think up loads of sort of funny but inappropriate comments that I struggle not to say.

Woo hoo. A knife fight and pirate sex in the first chapter! Love it!" This was the very first comment posted on my serial novel-in-progress, “Runaways: A Novel of Jonkanoo,” now going up online, one chapter a week (runaways-jonkanoo.blogspot.com/).

This is the gratifying part of the writing life, feedback from happy readers. It's the part that those of us who toil away just under the radar of traditional publishing crave the most. Yes, the act of writing itself has to be its own reward for so many of us who keep plugging away because we just can't stop ourselves; the stories demand to be told, and we are liable to get pretty snippy about it if they're made to fester too long inside some murky cranial passage or other, waiting to be born. But reader response is both invaluable and irresistible.

My original idea was to entitle this column “At last—success of the mainstream media.” How unlikely sounding that was, so it immediately appealed to my sense of finding dignity in unexpected places.

Alas, it’s not to be.

Let’s start at the beginning. Last month, a mainstream media reporter, Dana Priest of the Washington Post and a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, co-authored a major series in the Post called “Top Secret America.”

Or Who’s That Girl?
A few weeks ago, during a typically foggy, chilly Santa Cruz morning, I decided to take a brisk walk to get the blood moving, revitalize the senses and energize my mental state. It was early in the day and as such I chose to simply hide my comfortable almost-pajamas and disheveled almost-awake self with a black trench coat cinched dramatically at the waist, a pair of extra large sunglasses, and a neatly tied black scarf atop the leftovers of the previous night’s fantastic hairdo. As I headed for the front door, a brief glance in the mirror told me I looked a lot like a movie star in a clichéd disguise, more specifically (and fantastically, in the true sense of the word—the derivative of “fantasy”) I imagined I looked a lot like 1970s era Elizabeth Taylor dodging the public eye. (Need I remind you that it was very early, and I probably had not yet had my reality-inducing first cup of coffee, so humor me.)

People like me who put words on paper are always looking for a trend. I had an English teacher in college who said clues in literature and life come in threes. Later I met a cop who said he didn’t believe in coincidences at all and that CIA agents who don’t see trends are, generally, dead CIA agents.

What I tried not to learn from '60s TV
There we were at Bookshop Santa Cruz, Art Boy, me, and a crowd of fans, listening to my friend and colleague Wallace Baine read from his new book of essays, "Rhymes With Vain." Wallace launched the event with one of his vintage Sentinel columns "Jed Clampett, Molder Of Men," his ode to the male role models provided to impressionable youth on 1960s TV shows.

Nearly two years ago, America elected its first African-American president. Observers by the score commented on the significance of a biracial president, and wondered whether it finally signaled that race relations had improved in America.

So have the intervening months proved anything about prejudice? Do minorities now feel that all things are possible in America? Do whites feel free of their own prejudices?