Live review of an Antony & The Johnsons concert at the Vic Theatre in Chicago on February 12, 2009. Photo by Kirstie Shanley. Posted on the Venus Zine Web site on February 15, 2009.

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ANTONY  & THE JOHNSONS SHED THEIR TEAR-WORTHY LIGHT ON CHICAGO
February 12, 2009, at the Vic Theatre

When Antony Hegarty opens his mouth to sing, he makes you feel as if you’re the only person in the room. And he does this by completely ignoring you; by singing to himself, for himself. These lyrics are so personal that they could not have been written for any reason other than a cathartic one. His lilting melodies and smooth voice transport you into a dream — his dream — and you feel as though you are intruding on a magical moment. It is like you are looking into his diary, reading the entries that he wrote just for himself to get through the especially dark, painful nights.

Seated at the bench of a massive Steinway, Hegarty occupied more than half the stage, leaving little room for the six Johnsons that accompanied him on Thursday night. As his soft and pudgy fingers danced across the ivory and ebony keys, the Johnsons accompanied Hegarty on all manner of instruments, producing the sort of orchestral sound that completely envelops the listener. These things — the orchestral sound, the intimate and impassioned lyrics, the unique vocals — are what Hegarty and his band are known for. They are also the reason the show at the Vic was sold out. One thousand fans packed into the walls of the old venue and argued over plastic chairs that are not normally there but were placed specially for this performance. (The organizers knew that this would not be the kind of show where you need to be standing and swaying. In fact, better to be seated where, when you start to sob, you will have your own small bubble of personal space.)

This stop was part of a national tour to promote the band’s third album, The Crying Light (Secretly Canadian), which hit shelves in mid January. Tickets, which initially sold for $28, were going on Craigslist for about $80 the day before the show. It was obvious, though, that the audience were not new converts to the church of Antony. Hegarty gained a new audience when he appeared as the singer on Hercules and Love Affair’s breakout, dance-inspired single “Blind” in early 2008, but those fans were nowhere to be found. Older hits such as “You Are My Sister” and “For Today I Am a Boy,” off the 2005 release I Am a Bird Now (Secretly Canadian), were met by enthusiastic cheers and matched word-for-word by the crowd.

After each song you are jarred awake by thunderous applause and realize, for a brief moment before the next song starts, that you’re not the only one in the room. But it doesn’t matter: those three minutes alone with Hegarty and his music are all that you — and anybody else in the room — needs.

Live review of a Les Savy Fav concert at the Epiphany Episcopal Church in Chicago on January 31, 2009. Photo by Erica Gannett. Posted on the Venus Zine Web site on February 2, 2009.

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LES SAVY FAV LEADS THE WHITE-KID CONGREGATION IN CHICAGO
January 31, 2009, at Epiphany Episcopal Church

It’s about 9 p.m. on a Saturday and I’m in church. Tim Harrington and the rest of his New York-based rock quintet, Les Savy Fav, took the stage in front of a whole litany of religious figured. Harrington, dressed in some modern interpretation of a cassock, dropped to his knees, hands clasped and pointing towards the ceiling that is buttressed high above him and started to pray.

The crowd went wild and would have burned the church to the ground if he told them to do so. Harrington is their god and, after more than a decade of writing and touring, a major figure in the post-punk music scene. Through the years, the sound of Les Savy Fav has become decidedly more mainstream — now, every once in a while, you might even hear the band being played on the radio. Before, this was virtually impossible. It’s something to note, though, because it was obvious in the crowd that night; Les Savy Fav, which began as a collective of college friends, has kept its core group of fans from the beginning and picked up a whole bunch of new ones along the way. Indeed, the performance was sold out.

The Epiphany Episcopal Church sits on the corner of Ashland Avenue and Adams Street, a “community of faith” that not only serves as a house of worship but also plays host to events like the one happening on January 31. The pews are pushed up against the walls and two makeshift beer tables are set up in the back. As opening act the Jai Alai Savant, played through its standard set, the beer line snaked across the room. Everyone was warming up for the main act. “This place is fucking awesome,” said the girl in front of me in line to the guy she was with. That’s as true a statement as any; many accepted definitions hold.

It was the perfect setting. Around the second or third song, Harrington always jumps into the crowd (this time it was the second, and he made it halfway in), he always lifts his T-shirt up over his head and loses various pieces of clothing as the concert goes on; he is predictable in his unpredictability and that’s what everyone loves. At a Les Savy Fav concert, one is always filled with the sense that the entire room is on the verge of chaos, but it never comes. Inside of the cold brick walls of the Epiphany Church, on the run-down Near West side of Chicago where ER is filmed and minorities comprise approximately 75 percent of the population, that feeling was more palpable than ever.

The crowd was almost completely white and everyone looked like they would make the ideal target for a bully: ironic mustaches, sweater vests, and too-skinny jeans. Later, they would leave the church in packs, shuffling from one pool of light to the next on their way to the nearest mode of transportation out of this neighborhood. But as “The Year Before the Year 2000″ started to play, they flailed their arms and stomped their feet. The giant crucifix watching over the crowd took on the appearance of a mass confession. Shaking droplets of sweat off of the tips of their hair, everyone in the Epiphany Church released frustrations that had built up since they last enjoyed the a true performer who knows how to just let go.

Press release detailing the success of Northwestern Student Holdings, the parent company of Chicago Unzipped, a guidebook I was associated with from 2005 through 2009. Posted on the Northwestern University NewsCenter Web site on August 12, 2008.

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NORTHWESTERN STUDENT-RUN BUSINESSES OFFER REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE
Undergraduated looking to gain first-hand experience in launching and managing businesses have found themselves drawn to Northwestern Student Holdings.
By Charles L. Loebbaka

EVANSTON, Ill. — Northwestern Student Holdings (NSH) is the real deal when it comes to student-run businesses at Northwestern University. Undergraduates looking to gain valuable first-hand experience in launching and managing successful businesses have found themselves drawn to the parent company.

“Students are truly excited to work for us because we are making things happen, both on and off campus,” said Nihar Shah, co-CEO of NSH and a junior in economics and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences. NSH’s other CEO is Ravi Umarji, a junior in applied mathematics and economics, who spent the summer working for the global investment firm Goldman Sachs in New York. “What I enjoy most about NSH is how real it is,” Umarji said. “We are literally starting businesses, providing students with unparalleled experience while simultaneously enriching the Northwestern community.”

NSH’s most successful enterprise is Chicago Unzipped, a guidebook to Chicago and Evanston. “This part year, we took Chicago Unzipped to a new level, selling out the entire inventory of the second edition in just five months,” Shah explained. “For the third edition, which has just been released, we have printed more than three times the number of books. And thanks to sponsorships from several Northwestern departments, we will be able to give a copy to every incoming freshman,” he said.

Jeff Coney, director of economic development at Northwestern, is chairman of NSH’s board of directors — a nine-person committee that includes both faculty members and people from the business community at large. Coney also acts as the lead student advisor for the company. “NSH provides students with real-world insight into what is involved in starting and running a business — the nuts and bolts aspect,” Coney said.

A big reason for NSH’s success lies in its vetting process of business plans. Chicago Unzipped, created in 2004, has performed well because its proof of concept was solid. It is a unique product, aiming mostly to divert people to lesser-known areas of the city, such as Armour Square and Edgewater, while also covering the typical beaten paths of the city, such as Michigan Avenue and State Street. It also has a section devoted exclusively to Evanston.

This year NSH is looking forward to the launch of a new business, NUTutors, an enterprise designed to offer tutoring services to local middle school and high school students. Its main focus is on preparing students for SAT and ACT exams. What makes NUTutors an appealing business opportunity is the need for a low-cost tutoring service in the local community. Private services such as Kaplan and the Princeton Review charge more than $100 per hour, but Northwestern’s service plans to charge about $40 to $50 per hour.

On campus, NUTutors has created quite a stir because of the salary it can offer. Northwestern students hired as tutors can expect to earn between $20 and $30 an hour — far more than most other student employment opportunities at the University.

But running business, especially startups, isn’t trivial. “Like every startup, we’ve had some wrong turns and slip-ups that we’ve had to push through,” said Matt Cohlmia, former president of Chicago Unzipped, who graduated this June with a degree in industrial engineering. “The second edition almost didn’t make it to print. We once nearly lost the entire book when a hard drive crashed, and now we’re trying to bring the book online to add new features — a task that’s proving incredibly difficult,” Cohlmia explained.

But with every obstacle the students have overcome, they’ve grown more knowledgeable and enthusiastic. “At one point last year, Ravi and I were putting in more than 30 hours per week for NSH-related work,” Shah said. “But the reason we were able to put so many hours in was because we didn’t think of it as work.”

“With people as passionate and hard-working as we have in our organization, the amount of things we can accomplish is staggering,” Umarji added. “Equally important is making sure we take on what we can handle and keeping in mind that consistent progress is sometimes preferable to rapid growth.”

Press release celebrating the publication of Chicago Unzipped, an innovative guidebook to the city that I was associated with from 2005 through 2009. Posted on the Northwestern University NewsCenter Web site on August 08, 2008.

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CHICAGO UNZIPPED CITY GUIDE OFFERS INSIDE LOOK AT CHICAGO
The new guidebook created by Northwestern students offers review of more than 1,400 restaurants, stores, bars and other establishments.
By Alan K. Cubbage

EVANSTON, Ill — A new guidebook created by Northwestern University students provides an insider’s look at Chicago and its neighborhoods. “Chicago Unzipped,” now available for purchase, offers reviews of more than 1,400 restaurants, stores, bars and other establishments, as well as maps and directions on how to find all the neighborhood hot spots.

“We wanted to create a guidebook that goes where others don’t and really let people know what it’s like to live like a Chicagoan,” said Nicholas Jackson, editor-in-chief of Chicago Unzipped.

More than 50 writers and photographers fanned out across Chicago’s neighborhoods for more than a year, interviewing in-the-know local residents and checking out shopping and dining spots across the city. The result is a lavishly illustrated 384-page guidebook that gives detailed information on places to eat, shop and visit in 25 featured neighborhoods, in addition to the city’s main tourist attractions.

The guidebook is a project of Northwestern Student Holdings, a student organization designed to encourage entrepreneurship among Northwestern undergrads. Northwestern students handled the entire production of Chicago Unzipped, from original concept to final production.

Chicago Unzipped is available for purchase online at www.chicagounzipped.com, Beck’s Bookstore and the Northwestern University Norris Center in Evanston and at Poster Plus in Chicago.

A critical look at the plan renowned architect Peter Eisenman presented at the 2008 Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RISA) meeting. Posted on the Encyclopaedia Britannica Blog on May 28, 2008.

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ARCHITECTURE IN THE AGE OF MEDIA: EISENMAN’S STRANGE SIX-POINT PLAN
Nicholas Jackson — May 28th, 2008

We’re all living in a state of passivity — at least we are according to renowned architect Peter Eisenman. In mid-May, Eisenman used the platform provided him at the 2008 convention of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RISA) to denounce the effect that a “prevalent media culture” has had/is having on architecture.

The 75-year-old American is known for stirring the pot on occasion, so the six-point plan he presented at RISA comes without the shock and awe of earlier controversies. As one of the first architects to embrace a style that would now be filed under Deconstructivism — a term not used to describe an architectural approach until the late 80s — Eisenman’s most famous buildings appear to most critics disconnected from both historical context and their surrounding environment and caused much debate.

It appears, for the sake of controversy, that Eisenman’s rant on his newest target — our virtually-supported sense of reality — will work, if anything, to undermine nearly all of his creative output produced in a decades-long career. With fewer commissioned projects on the architect’s drawing board, it seems as though Eisenman is turning now to powerful, carefully crafted language to create a firestorm instead of creative, carefully crafted structures to enhance our built environment.

A summary of the six points in Eisenman’s “plan” (read the entire text here):

1. Architecture in a media culture: Thanks to iPhones and other technological advancements, it seems we’re connected to a computer at all times. “Less and less,” Eisenman says, “people are able to be in the real physical world without the support of the virtual world.” As a result, architecture is focusing more and more on “spectacular imaging,” architects building icons without meaning.
2. Students have become passive: Well, everyone has become passive because of the prevalent media culture we live in, Eisenman argues. Students, though, are the group he chooses to focus on because they are the ones that should sit — pen and paper in hand — jotting down everything the aged professor has to say, right? “[Passive] people demand,” Eisenman insists, “more and more images, more visual and aural information and in a state of passivity people demand things that are easily consumed.” What does this mean for the future of architecture?
3. Computers make design standards poorer: With a computer, we no longer need to learn how to draw. Eisenman’s third point focuses on the fact that “architects used to draw volumes” and could illustrate the differences between Le Corbusier and Palladio. Now, our work is merely connecting the dots on a screen. “Photoshop is a fantastic tool for those who do not have to think,” he says.
4. Today’s buildings lack meaning or reference: Eisenman seems to be saying here that an architect should always be able to answer the question “Why does this building look like this?” with a nod to historical example or cultural meaning. Today, the answer is “Because the computer can produce it.”
5. We are in a period of late style: “Late style” is a nod to Edward Said’s book On Late Style, which, Eisenman says, “describes lateness as a moment in time when there are no new paradigms or ideological, cultural, political conditions that cause significant change.” Eisenman posits that we are currently in a period of late style, but offers no conjecture as to what follows the end of a historical cycle.
6. To be an architect is a social act: Architecture has always been a social act, Eisenman argues. Not in the sense that architects work to build “houses for the poor or shopping malls for the rich” but in the sense that architecture must engage with society by “operating against the existing hegemonic social and political structure of our time.”

When I first read this list, I immediately thought of the work of Frank Gehry, particularly his most recent designs (the Jay Pritzker Pavilion bandshell in Chicago’s Millennium Park, the Walt Disney Concert Hall (pictured) in Los Angeles, etc.) and their defining similarities: cold steel exoskeletons carved and curved like the chocolate topping on a French Silk pie, a design made possible only through the use of modern computer software, a design based on “spectacular imaging.”

Typically I think of Frank Gehry’s work as being in a category all to itself because his buildings seem almost indistinguishable from the others; yet, it’s hard to compare Gehry’s work to that of any other working architect. However, in a strict classification of architectural styles, it would be hard to place Gehry anywhere outside of the Deconstructivist label. His work, due to its trademark fragmentation and use of unusual shapes, is eerily similar to the later work of Eisenman himself.

Eisenman’s latest major project, a multipurpose stadium constructed for the University of Phoenix, looks remarkably like a work by Frank Gehry. The stadium became globally known when it hosted the 2008 Super Bowl and has been recognized by Business Week as one of the 10 most impressive sports facilities in the world, but regardless, it is still an odd structure — completed only two years ago — for an architect now critical of architecture without meaning or reference. Because of its multipurpose nature, the stadium — officially the home of an NFL team — has hosted soccer matches, concerts, trade shows and more. Not only does the exterior — crafted of curving Gehry-like steel that could be created only on computer software — fail to evoke historical reference or cultural meaning, the interior has been consciously designed to schizophrenically play host to any number of events

Eisenman’s latest creative work stands, quite literally, in strict contradiction to his latest academic work; it’ll be interesting to see if the architect takes his own ideas into account when laying out his next structure or if this, his most recent presentation, stands as just a small blip on a career built on creating controversy.

Garrett Kelleher and @properties work to sell condominiums in Santiago Calatrava’s record-breaking Chicago Spire in a down economy. Posted on the Encyclopaedia Britannica Blog on February 13, 2008.

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CHICAGO SPIRE TO REACH NEW HEIGHTS
Nicholas Jackson — February 13th, 2008

The economy is crumbling. People are worried about a recession. The housing market is dead. And, with the arrogance that Chicago has often been known for, @properties, a real estate firm, opened the main sales office for the planned Chicago Spire last month, hoping to sell an unprecedented amount of luxury real estate.

With the massive Trump International Hotel & Tower nearing completion of the river and several other condominium units reaching for the skies, there is no shortage of high-end living spaces in and around the Second City right now. Yet, preliminary construction began on Santiago Calatrava’s Chicago Spire in mid-2007 and is expected to be completed by 2011. In the three years between now and then, @properties is hoping to sell out what will be the tallest residential building in the world when the last plate is welded on approximately 2,000 feet above the sidewalk. The tower will also become the tallest building anywhere in North America, dwarfing Toronto’s CN Tower.

The Spire will house about 1,200 units, including a two-story, 10,000 square-foot penthouse that is on the market for $40 million, or $4,000 per square foot, more than any condominium has ever sold for in the city, according to a recent article in The Chicago Tribune. It appears as though “low-end” 500 square-foot studios will run in the $750,000 range.

Garrett Kelleher, the building’s developer, attributes the record-breaking pricing to the large influence of the designer, Calatrava, on the building. It has yet to be seen how many of the condominiums will pre-sell in the coming months. We do know, however, that the Spire is getting a lot of international media attention and the hype is building. For example, the global sales campaign launched in Dublin this week where it is reported that more than 1,000 people turned out to the four-day exhibition.

“The initial response from the global community has been overwhelming,” said Dominic Grace, Head of Savills Residential Development and leader of the global sales campaign. “Our sales team has been busy writing contracts every day. There is simply nothing like The Chicago Spire anywhere else in the world, and the privilege to live in a residence of its significance is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Interview with two energy experts to accompany a profile of Matthew Simmons, “the most fervent apostle” behind the idea of peak oil, by Mimi Swartz. Posted on the Texas Monthly Web site on February 1, 2008.

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SNEAK PEAK
Texas Monthly talks with two online energy experts concerning peak oil and the future of energy demand.
by Nicholas Jackson

NATE HAGENS is an editor of The Oil Drum, an online community that seeks to raise awareness about energy issues. A Ph.D. candidate in Natural Resources as the University of Vermont, Hagens’s particular areas of interest are the principles of net energy and the bio-physiological factors that drive our energy demand.

MATT SAVINAR is the editor and writer of Life After the Oil Crash, a blog which paints a bleak picture of what life on earth will look like when natural oil supplies run out. Savinar recently received his J.D. from the University of California at Hastings College of the Law, and his work is quoted extensively on the floor of the United States Congress.

One article in this month’s issue of Texas Monthly centers on Matthew Simmons, a Houston investment banker described as the most fervent apostle behind the idea of peak oil. How does the apocalyptic world that Simmons and other energy pessimists foresee in the near future — massive food shortages, a falling standard of living, wars — compare to your own predictions? What does the world look like with less oil?

HAGENS: Oil is the lifeblood of industrial civilization because it is so embedded in our transport system. Over ninety percent of our goods arrive by way of an engine that uses liquid fuels. One barrel of oil has the same amount of energy of up to 25,000 hours of hard human labor, which is 12.5 years of work. At $20 per hour, this is $500,000 of labor per barrel. The average American consumes over twenty-five barrels per year. So each of us has a huge subsidy of energy behind the scenes that we often take for granted. Less oil, and much more expensive oil, will have huge implications.

SAVINAR: The key point is how people and nations will react when the energy pie begins to shrink. Human nature is the key variable here. As violent as the 20th century was, the violence was kept in check largely because the energy/wealth pie was increasing for all the major parties. Yet we fought two world wars, both motivated in large part by the need for oil. As bad as that was, it’s about to get a whole lot worse as the pie continues shrinking.

What are your thoughts on the idea of peak oil? How concerned should we be?

HAGENS: The questions that remain are the timing of the peak and the subsequent steepness of the global decline rate. Individual well, regions, and nations all peak in oil production, then enter permanent decline. This happened in 1970 in the United States, where our production has declined almost every year since. When the U.S. peaked, we had cheap coal and natural gas to switch to, and vast reserves in the Middle East and other countries to pay for with dollars. We have no new Middle East to go to when the world peaks. So, I’m extremely concerned.

Some of the most fervent pessimists say that the worldwide oil peak—the date after which production begins to decline—was reached in 2005. The most optimistic supporters of the idea put the date at 2037. What year do you believe we did or will peak?

HAGENS: One problem is we’ve already started to aim at a moving target. The high in crude oil production was in May 2005. If we count Natural Gas Liquids, ethanol, and biofuels as oil, then we are still making all-time highs as recently as November. But all “liquids” are not equal. Not only so ethanol and NGPLs have less than seventy percent of the energy as crude oil, but we have to consider that we are using more oil and other energy sources to procure much of this new production. We should be more concerned about the “net.” Production of cheap oil that was found forty years ago, but is now watering out, is being replaced by oil that costs $30, $40, or even $70 per barrel to find and develop. Furthermore, exporting nations are increasingly using more of their oil and gas internally, freeing up less for the world export market. I expect by 2012, we will look back and say we peaked between 2005 and 2010.

SAVINAR: The more data that comes in, the more it looks like 2005 or 2006 was the peak. Unlike the pessimists, most of the optimists have never actually worked in the oil fields. They tend to be economists or business majors who have spent their careers moving around abstractions or looking good in suits while others did the real work. But asking “when is the global peak?” is largely a moot point. The question for a nation like the U.S. is when exports peak, since we are so dependent on imports. Once exports peak, our way of life comes crashing down.

What does peak oil mean for Texas in particular—a state strongly considered the energy capital of the world? How will a deteriorating oil industry affect the state’s economy?

HAGENS: There is a large difference between oil resource, oil reserves, and oil production. Clearly, there are large amounts of oil left underground, but if it costs $100 to get it out, and it only sells for $90, the “resource” isn’t of much help. Texas will have an advantage with expensive energy in general because the natural gas, oil, and wind energy that Texas creates will go up in value more than the average products that other states produce. And the oil industry doesn’t have to deteriorate—it can use more advanced recovery techniques. But throwing good money after bad is a real risk in oil exploration in this country. People have to look ahead not only at oil revenues, but the costs.

SAVINAR: Once exports peak, the U.S. will have to get by with its own domestic production. The bulk of this comes from Texas, California, and Louisiana, with some pockets in other states. I expect full-blown regional oil wars in these areas as everybody jockeys for what’s left here domestically. People—particularly the former middle classes—are going to be very angry. They’re likely to blame the oil industry for the high prices or unavailability of fuel. In their minds, if gas isn’t nearly free, there must be a conspiracy by the oil industry to personally screw them over.

When the demand for oil begins to significantly outweigh the supply, where will we turn? By the time we start to use alternative energy forms in earnest, will it be too late?

HAGENS: The bottom line is we are going to be increasingly dependent on oil imports. A recession started by the credit crunch may temporarily cause the drop in oil demand to exceed the decline rate—hence lower prices—but, in general, we are in for a permanent, and perhaps dramatic, increase in oil prices for the rest of our lives.

SAVINAR: We won’t get seriously motivated to invest in alternatives until oil is in the $200 [per barrel] range. At that point, gas will be $10 [per gallon]. This will collapse the economy and set off massive wars. The capital and resources necessary to power some type of transition will thus be in short supply or all together unavailable.

Something must replace the oil industry; some form of energy will always be needed. Is there room and time for Houston to shift from one industry to the next to retain its place as an energy capital?

HAGENS: Alternative energy is essential, but all energy is not equal. Oil has particularly unique properties in its energy and power density, and it is liquid at room temperature, making it easily transportable. Natural gas and coal aren’t as plentiful and cheap as they used to be either. Texas has a large advantage in wind, which has similar energy returns to oil, so to scale wind as much as possible might retain Houston’s reign as the energy capital. The ultimate answer, although few want to address it, is on the demand side; using less energy and living more locally. In fifteen to twenty years, Texans will be proud when they look abck and see that they successfully planned for water, food, energy, and environmental systems in a world of expensive energy.

What steps are needed to significantly decrease the demand for oil in the U.S. on the kind of drastic timetable that oil and energy pessimists are predicting we will have to follow?

HAGENS: Oil is far, far more valuable to our civilization than we have been paying. In Europe, they have taxed gasoline heavily for many years, and people have therefore designed their lives a little better around higher gas prices (in Norway, gas is over $8 per gallon, even though Norway is a big oil exporter). We need to gradually, but stiffly, increase the price of gasoline and electricity. We live on a finite planet, yet we have a growing population with nearly infinite desires. The intersection of these two trends is rapidly upon us.

A personal reflection on the career path taken by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, and former member of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Board of Advisors, Zaha Hadid. Posted on the Encyclopaedia Britannica Blog on February 1, 2008.

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THE ZAHA HADID PLAN: WORKING BACKWARDS (THERE’S HOPE FOR ME STILL)
Nicholas Jackson — February 1st, 2008

This past June when I walked into the Chicago offices of Encyclopaedia Britannica to begin my stint as an editorial intern, I knew little about the company. I was a wide-eyed college student majoring in magazine journalism (I still am), doubting that a career with a magazine was my life’s calling (I still doubt) and trying to gain some experience in other forms of media and publishing.

As a high school student I had dreamed of reading the entire set from cover to cover. I thought that if only I could retain just a fraction of what I read (a la A. J. Jacobs in The Know-It-All), it would help me in everything I would encounter in life. Other projects managed to get in the way, and, in fact, still continue to get in the way. I imagine I won’t have the time to read a complete set until I’m retired and for that I’ll need a new reason. I’m going to do things backwards.

One of the few things I did know — thanks to my extensive Googling — was that Zaha Hadid held a position on the Editorial Board of Advisors with several well-known intellectuals, university presidents and distinguished prize winners. (Ever heard of the Nobel and Pulitzer?) As if this did me any good. As if the advisors to Britannica regularly make rounds of the office, giving pep talks on the future of the encyclopaedia and the importance of truth in editorial. As if I’d meet her, she’d fall instantly under my spell and get me a job after college.

It’s unknown to me when she joined the board, but I imagine it was, in part, a result of the Pritzker Prize she was awarded in 2004. Widely considered architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel, Hadid was the first — and still the only — female to snag the prize. Before that point in her career I dare say she was relatively unknown outside of the architectural community, having few constructed pieces connected to her name. The majority of her work was wither still on paper or done in the classrooms; she had held several positions at major universities around the world. Britannica lives its intellectuals, and Hadid’s work at Harvard, Columbia, and other prestigious institutions must have had some sway.

A loss to Britannica, a gain for the rest of the world, Hadid has since left her post on the Board of Advisors and has been making dents all over the news this past week.

The New York Times reported that the Baghdad-born, London-based architect will be designing the new Art Museum on the Michigan State University campus in East Landing. Building Design Online wrote that the architect known for bold, unconventional forms is working on an extension to Oxford’s St. Anthony’s College. Archinect, Time, Architectural Record and others all reported similar stories. Oh, and she’s also overseeing the 20-year construction of her radical island plan next to Bilbao, Spain, that will host 6,000 homes and more. All of this while working extensively on building plans for the up-and-coming Dubai with Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel and Tadao Ando, arguably the three most famous living architects. Some say that Hadid deserved to be a member of that exclusive club; one of the most famous living architects.

And she did it all in the past few years. She did it all backwards. Now, at 57, Hadid is just beginning the career — in earnest — of an award-winning architect. Maybe there is still some hope for my way of doing things after all.