Some experts are saying the recession is over. Ask most business owners in Somerville if we're still in an economic slump and the experts may get an earful. In Somerville, however, we have a significant economic advantage: the arts.

In Union Square, ArtsUnion has attracted customers to area businesses with funky events such as What the Fluff. One study estimated it brought in over $350,000 to shops and restaurants in new business.

This week, the Independent Film Festival of Boston opens at the Somerville Theater. It's expected to bring some crowds out to Davis Square restaurants and bars and it's a welcome sign of how Somerville can fight through the recession.

Also this week, the Zine Library opens its doors for the first time at its new Pearl Street location. This free library archives more than 13,000 self-produced, Xeroxed publications devoted to free speech and radical thought.

Indie films, radical ideas and marshmallow fluff festivals may not be for all of us. But the fact that these events are more welcome in Somerville than in Boston and Cambridge is a good sign for the city's future.

And your cranky neighborhood business owner.