Q & A : How L. A. Stacks Up

On a world scale, how would you rate Los Angeles’ level of sophistication?

James G. Leaf, executive director, the Los Angeles Children’s Museum:

“This is the new crossroads. Creativity is pouring in to this town in many different ways. It’s going to be messy and parochial, but this is the new Byzantium. Coming here, I found that the greatest strength of L.A., and perhaps Southern California, is the openness to ideas. An idea here doesn’t get an automatic turndown, it’s not going to get dismissed because it’s new. . . . Sure, L.A. is immature in certain ways, but in other ways it’s extraordinarily sophisticated. If you were going to build a children’s museum, where would you go for the best lighting, the best set design--you’d come here, the talent is here. L.A. is initiating things now. What’s going to happen next is coming from L.A.”

Robert Zarnegin, owner, the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel:

“By any measure of sophistication, Los Angeles is a world-class city. Our museums, hotels, dining, music, fashion and theater compare favorably to any place in the world. But the most impressive aspect of Los Angeles’ sophistication is how quickly we’ve achieved it. Just 20 years ago, we were, in many ways, a sleepy Western town. Today, we pace the world.”

Torie Osborn, executive director, the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center:

“L.A. is a growing world leader in art and culture--particularly our brilliant array of multicultural voices--but also in social justice and tolerance. Most noteworthy is the current outpouring of widespread protest by the L. A. lesbian and gay community and L. A. non-gay civil rights leaders, leading the way for California in protecting the American ideal of equality against the highly unsophisticated bigots who would deny us basic civil rights.”

Robbie Conal , guerrilla artist, whose one-person show finishes its monthlong stint at the Jayne Baum Gallery in New York on Monday:

“In the last six years, I’ve put in a lot of midnight street time in almost every major city in the country. I still get the wildest street action in L. A. It’s only here that kids think “Men With No Lips” (his series of posters of former President Ronald Reagan, Donald Regan, Caspar Weinberger and James Baker) is a rock band that gigged at the White House for eight years. L. A. is the capital of American popular culture. Now isn’t that the definition of sophistication?”

Robin Piccone, swimwear designer:

“I think L.A. is almost still like a frontier. It’s not sophisticated in terms of old culture, but in terms of new culture it’s very sophisticated. L.A. has such a lack of precedent . . . . In a lot of senses we’re in our infancy, this is the beginning of a new era and L. A. is at the helm of that. I don’t have the couturiers of Paris hanging over my head. What makes my work here more interesting is that I have a total lack of restriction. It makes you beat a new path.”

Sidney Sheldon, writer:

“I think the level of sophistication here is pretty high. We don’t have London’s theaters, but we do have many good theaters, we have Disneyland, Universal Studios; I’m not sure if you want to consider that culture, but we do have 355 parks, 77 golf courses, seven sports teams, and in entertainment and night life we’re only second to New York. So I think we’re doing pretty well. How do I know all of those statistics? I read a lot.”