World's Cultural Capital

[Seeker]

The US West Coast for Pop Culture.

Then there are the old world cities which have Timeless Culture:

Athens
Kyoto
Roma
Paris
London
Dublin
Vienna
Milan
Venice

[Hydey]

Melbourne, australia is the arts capital of the world, or was that arse capital

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Culture has little to do with inteligence. If it did Wagner wouldn't be considered cultured considering what an oaf the man was.

Wagner may not have been a nice man, but he was by no means unintelligent. He was a genius. Sure, he was an audelterous, Anti-Semetic jerk, but he was still a genius.

[Saint Marcus]

seems to go between New York and Paris

[Ethelred]

I wasn't intending to say he was stupid. Just that Culture isn't a sign of much except Art rather than anything else. Nothing in it is inherently superior except in artistic terms and even that is a matter of opinion, see Combat Ingrid for an example of a different oppinion on what constitutes good art.

Me, I am listening to E. Power Biggs playing Bach organ music, specificaly The Great Fugue in G minor BWV 542 . Not in the mood for rock of any kind at the moment, much less brain burning stuff like death metal. Sometimes even rock that I really like makes my brain buzz, especially when I need more sleep.

[Boris Godunov]

Well, calling someone an "oaf" generally means you're calling them stupid.

There is an excellent fully orchestrated version of the Great G Minor Fugue by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy. It achieves an even more epic scope.

[Giovanni Wine]

I'm surprised of the absence of Florence.

A city that gave birth to people like:
Leonardo, Galileo, Dante, Macchiavelli and many others (the list is too long)
That has a lot of cultural centers and art museum etc...

Anyway, I think that from the list the two biggest ones are Paris and Rome
Closed seconds are NY and Athens
A little bit belowe I would but Beijing, St Petersburg and Kyoto (not in the list)
And I think there are too many American cities in the poll (what Chicago and Atlanta ever did culturally?, same for LA (if you exclude Hollywood) )

Saluti

[Anodyne]

Umm... the kultural capital of the world?

You have none of the real cultural centres in that poll at all...
Amsterdam
Kristinestad
Goa
Mänttä

[Datajack Franit]

NO NO NO! I and others have voiced our support for Boston, and only Boston has actually had a viable historical defence for its cultural importance out of all the cities in this thread!

Please, tell me you were making sarchasm

what Chicago and Atlanta ever did culturally?

Someone thinks that Coca-cola is a cultural achievement

[Boris Godunov]

Amsterdam--they're all too busy getting baked to create culture these days!

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit

Someone thinks that Coca-cola is a cultural achievement

Well it is on dinner tables all around the world. And the Fat Jolly Santa Claus was created in a Coca Cola add campaign.

[Datajack Franit]

Santa Claus created by Coca cola? Oh what's next?

[Anodyne]

Not the original santa, but that fat red bastard. He's landed in Finland, too. Our original one was a gray-clad, skinny old alcoholic guy.

[Ethelred]

Not Santa Claus himself. Just the Fat Jolly version. With all that red and white.

Although the Snopes Urban Legends site tries to claim that the standard came earlier they are glossing over the fact that it wasn't actually standard till Coke started its add campaigns.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

[Pandemoniak]

Dont make the huge mistake to think LA could be a cultural capitol just because of Hollywood. Even considering Hollywoodians films as culture, as I do, the cinematic grammar has been invented in NY, regarding the USA. And actually, France and ex-URSS have had, about cinema, much more influence than any other place. Hollywood has created a genre of films, which was famous during the late 40's and 50's, and which is called "Hollywoodian classic". This genre of film is not totally outdated, but it is obviously not the mainstream of nowadays culture.

And if you consider LA highest culture place in the world because thats where many films are done, change your vote to Marocco, since thats the place were about 90% of mainstreams films are made.