by GARY MENGER

Laguna Beach-a stone's throw from Los Angeles, a short hop from San Diego, an hour by plane from San Franciscois unique in California, perhaps in the whole country. This oceanside village invites comparison with Provincetown on Cape Cod, with Sausalito in Marin County, but it's more than and quite different from either.

Laguna always has been primarily an art colony, first colonized and still populated primarily by successful artists and craftsmen. This is no haven for "artsy" drifters and groupies in funny costumerather, a community of individuals who've found what they like to do, do it well, and are busy at it.

Most of the year there's no bustle and rush here; a lazy village dominated by the Pacific Ocean-the graceful wheelings and glidings of the gulls set the pace. Lunch hours are spent strolling on the beach, shoes in hand; cocktail stops are often followed by a trip back to the beach to share a sunset while you listen to the pounding of the surf.

In summer the pattern is broken for a while by-scourge and salvation!-the tourists. They come in hordes; squeeze themselves into every square yard of space; overflow the beds-it becomes impossible to drive and difficult even to walk; there are lines everywhere. But they buy the artists' paintings and sculpture and pottery, pay the shopkeepers' rent, spend well in the local restaurants and make possible another year of happy residence for those who choose to live here.

Nor are they shortchanged. The Festival of Arts alone is worth the trip, and Laguna's Pageant of the Masters is famous around the world. Primarily, the reward is in the beautiful sandy beach that stretches the length of the town, given a unique character and beauty by rocky cliffs and islets formed of lava.

I don't know whether anyone's attempted a survey of the marital status of Laguna gays, but it appears to be largely a "couples" society, with singles showing more interest in the company of friends than the pursuit of part-

ners.

Travel

LAGUNA

The gay gathering places are The Little Shrimp, a pleasant piano bar and restaurant a dozen blocks south of the town's center on Coast Highway, and the South Seas Room of the Coast Hotel, a block further south. Neither place is "cruisy" in the usual sense of the word (a gathering place for lonely singles who eye one another with nervous hunger), because

the tone, relaxed and conversational, is set by the many couples and groups of friends who know and like one another. It's a friendlier society than is to be found in most gay bars, and for that reason cruising is easier in some ways, but for people for whom sex must be furtive, anonymous, and divorced from any social contact, it is of course more difficult.

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