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The last thing in the world that people will care about is the age of your car (or whether or not you have one at all), the clothes you wear, the food you eat or the house in which you live. They are more apt to turn up their noses at you if you spend a great deal of time looking at TV or listening to the radio. You are more apt to be snubbed if they catch you looking at a comic-book. You are more apt to be left off invitation lists if your idea of conversation has to do with the relative sizes of the mammary glands of Miss Lollabridgida and Miss Monroe, rather than subjects on art, politics, and world affairs.
There is one other element in living in art colonies that perhaps has a snobbish sound to it, but is very real to many people. In your usual way of life, assuming that you are an average American with an average job and income, you are not apt to have the opportunity of meeting the celebrities of the world. Even though you may be interested in writing (or reading) it is unlikely you will ever meet Hemingway, even though he might come to the city in which you live. Even though you may be interested in art, and even paint a bit yourself, it is unlikely that you will ever meet Picasso. Even though you are interested in the theatre it is unlikely that you will meet the big name actors, or even a movie star or so. Not if you're the average American.
However, in the art colony the barriers go down.
I am not a "celebrity hunter" myself although I have found that usually those persons who become celebrities as a result of their work are of more than usual interest. However, during the length of only one summer while I was living in the art colony of Tor-remolinos, Spain, I met among many others MacKinley Kantor, who won the Pulitzer prize with his novel Andersonville that year; Paul Lucas, the movie star, lived next door to me; Dominguin, currently the world's top matador, came to a couple of parties I also attended; Ben Stahl, one of America's outstanding painters, became a friend of mine; Count Felix Von Luckner, the "Sea Devil" of World War One, was about town; William P. McGivern, one of the top mystery writers, and Maureen Daly, his wife, who is famous for such books as Seventeenth Summer, were also good friends.
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