My friend Bill Couch pointed me to this story by Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell. Bill also works at said newspaper, so if he points to an article, I tend to pay attention
No style, no brains, but oh, our pizza . . . -- OrlandoSentinel.com

No. 1 for family vacations and top 10 for our weather, pizza and barbecue.

But after that, things got ugly.

O-Town was either near the bottom -- sometimes even dead-last -- when it came to everything from our museums and art galleries to our classical music and "underground arts scene."

But forget underground. They don't like what's above-ground either. Visitors panned our architecture, historical sites -- even our skyline. And Buddy Dyer has spent a lot of money on that skyline. Other people's money, but money nonetheless.

They don't like our farmer's markets, our jewelry shops or our antiques offerings.

In every one of those above-mentioned categories, Orlando ranked 21st-25th.

Here's my comment:

Oh Scott, they don't know us so well. Underground art? We've got loads. Pizza? Where did they get that notion? Thanks for saying "Buddy spent a lot of money" and working for the Sentinel in the same breath. That takes guts.

One reason why people don't think we have good art and music is because they seldom get out and support it. We have enough population to support several art scenes, but no motivation. There are some efforts, like those Creative Village Wierdoes, Apartment E, Assembly Art Party, the Florida Creatives and other gatherings of geeks and freaks like Pandora's Box and the like all over the city, but it feels like a very small echo chamber. We promote our own stuff to the same people over and over again, and when they don't show up because they've been hit over the head with it, I'm not surprised.