Driven to contemplate the sunny state of things

I was driving down 101 from Salinas the other day when I became aware of the different weather patterns I was passing through. It was drizzling when I left Steinbeck Country, gloriously sunny around Paso Robles, damp and foggy near Goleta, misty in Santa Barbara and, as usual, weatherless in L.A.

It was a meandering drive with frequent stops, just me and the road, and by the time I got home I was feeling pretty relaxed and mellow, which is a condition of bliss I generally try to avoid.

You might say I was in a Southern California mood, which implies a dazed state of existence coupled with the vacuity that often characterizes those of us who live in the lower part of the state. It has something to do, I think, with the effect of gamma rays on bare heads. People who wear hats possess drive and determination, while all the others kind of shuffle along aimlessly, at peace with the butterflies and banana slugs.

I have lived about half of my life in Northern California and half down here, where, except for infrequent tropical storms that wipe out entire communities, the sunshine, occasionally hazy, is eternal. So it was good to pass through different weather biomes on my way home, singing to the tempo of the windshield wiper as it whisked away the dampness.

All of which leads to the reason I am so Californic today. I have in my possession two new books dealing with who we are, what we are and maybe why we are what we are in the Golden State. The books are Jon Winokur’s “The War Between the State,” which nicely pits north versus south in a battle of wits, and “My California,” a collection of essays that attempt to put us in proper perspective.

Winokur, author of “The Portable Curmudgeon” and other excursions into the sour, but funny, side of humanity, brings us a batch of quotes relating to the state’s two acrimonious population centers, such as: “Nothing important has ever come out of San Francisco, Rice-A-Roni aside.” “[Los Angeles is] a large city-like area surrounding the Beverly Hills Hotel.” “[San Francisco is] a condition in love with itself.” “Los Angeles is, like some incurable disease, a balefully organic phenomenon.”

Then there is Berkeley: “a town in which half the people are seeking to overthrow the federal government, and the other half are seeking the perfect croissant.” And the San Fernando Valley: “Picture Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, overlaid on Wichita, Kansas, and you’ve got the Valley.”

All the quotes are credited to various wits and megalomaniacs, both living and dead, in and out of various institutions, who believe that who they are and what they are is all that matters. And maybe it is.

“My California: Journeys by Great Writers,” edited by Donna Wares, seeks to operate on a higher plane, defining the state through the eyes of prominent authors who bring whimsy, drama, mythology and insight to their view of a state endlessly in transition. The authors worked for nothing, their generosity intended for the benefit of the California Arts Council, which hovers on the brink of extinction.

Some examples of the contributions from authors, novelists, poets and journalists:

Patt Morrison (of the L.A. Times) on downtown L.A.: “Los Angeles is a city built by centrifugal forces, and what’s in the center of a centrifuge? Not much.”

Gerald Haslam on Oildale: “As a kid, I used to think everyplace else smelled funny -- no sulfuric belch of crude oil in most places, no texture to their air.”

Edward Humes on Seal Beach: “I can’t help but remember Crystal Cove and its vanished paradise, and just how fragile our dreams and myths really are, at least the ones that count.”

Thomas Steinbeck on Big Sur: “No other site in California can claim itself equal in majesty, magic or myth. Perhaps this will appear a dastardly piece of bias, but I don’t care.”

Daniel Weintraub on Sacramento: “The weather is just uneven enough to give residents a sense of the changing seasons and the rhythms they can bring to life, the shared discomfort of dealing with the damp winter cold and the blazing hot summers.”

Mark Arax (also of The Times) on the Central Valley: “A few miles past Selma, where the ‘Raisin Capital of the World’ has thrown its lot to car dealers, a tractor clears another 80 acres of prime farmland. You can read what kind of year a farmer has had by looking at his field in late winter. If he hasn’t pruned his vines yet, you can bet he’s had a tough year.”

Percival Everett on Riverside County: “We live in towns called Banning and Temecula and Cabazon, separated not by an avenue, but by mountains or expanses of desert. We used to be orange groves and wheat fields, horse and cattle ranches. Now we’re tracts of affordable houses.”

Years ago, a writer living in Mendocino began a campaign to divide California into two states. Calif would get San Francisco and Ornia would, er, win L.A. I’m glad it didn’t work. I couldn’t take living in a place called Ornia.