> little literary, musical, or otherwise artistic culture I think one of the problems is that you've forsaken the people who like to "run around naked and high

> little literary, musical, or otherwise artistic culture I think one of the problems is that you've forsaken the people who like to "run around naked and high in the desert"; all the creative types I know love Burning Man. Sure, you're not going to find the tea & crumpets type of art scene in SF, but there's definitely plenty of passionately creative people. There's also a tendency amongst tech people to just socialize with tech people, but I don't really get a kick out of it. You should definitely branch out to non-tech social circles and get out of the Rails/Django/Clojure echo chamber. From your description of the playa it sounds like you've never been out there... you should really try it. No, it's not all "naked and high" people, btw.