After reading an article about a photographer who murdered a model, something struck — and stuck with — Darryl Roberts, writer and director of How U Like Me Now. Roberts asked 200 women if they felt beautiful or attractive; only two said they did. These interviews inspired Roberts to a five-year study of human frailty and the conventions of beauty, as explored in his new documentary, America the Beautiful. Roberts held a Q&A session after an advanced screening of the documentary on April 10 at the Block Museum.

Investigating everything from the chemicals in makeup to plastic surgery, the topics, characters and conclusions are more shocking and memorable than any fiction could invent. The documentary focuses on a supermodel named Garren. She’s more than six feet tall and incredibly skinny, which makes sense for a supermodel — but Garren is only 12 years old. The camera follows her on the runway, through middle and high school, ending with her fall from stardom. The juxtaposition of her playful adolescence with her sleek runway look makes the audience second-guess the “ideal” form that appears on magazine pages.

One of the things Roberts discovers is that it’s more about money than looks. Listen to Roberts explain how capitalism has fostered the “beauty myth”:

Personal anecdotes and Roberts’s voice mollify what could be a preachy social statement. His soft-spoken narration is often intimate, such as when he discusses the woman he left when he thought he could find someone more beautiful. When he interviews his subjects, he seems less like a determined documentarian and more like a friendly guy just trying to understand a complicated issue. He never moralizes or looks too far into things, and he doesn’t play the documentarian-hero like Michael Moore.

Perhaps the documentary flows so well because Roberts did not originally intend to use his own voice. “The film was disjointed and we needed a narrative thread to bring it all together,” he said.

Unintentionally hilarious interviewees also keep the documentary from becoming a somber social statement. Roberts, a Chicago native, said he was interested in incorporating humor because he used to study comedy at The Second City and Improv Olympics. The humorous characters — meet a young man who cannot justify why he needs a six pack — make a poignant contrast to more serious characters, such as a mother who laments her role in the death of her bulimic daughter.

America the Beautiful makes viewers want to believe in a world where beauty isn’t skin deep. Listen to Roberts talk about one of the most shocking points of the film, where a man maintains that lighter skin is more attractive than dark skin, and agrees to apply makeup to make a black woman look white:

But as Roberts admitted, it’s not easy to ignore glossy pages filled with supermodels and celebrities. “Advertisers are bombarding and inundating you so heavily with messages that it’s absolutely hard and it will take an absolute conscious effort [to change things],” he said.

America the Beautiful is not designed to raise the self-esteem of high school girls or to stop plastic surgeries (although it might do just that). It’s a powerful call to action in a simple way: it asks every American to tell his neighbor something as simple as “You have a beautiful handshake,” which is what Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers once told Roberts. It’s a beautiful documentary with a beautiful message. Listen as Roberts talk about what he would like to happen after people see the film:

Overall Rating: A

While you giggled at Sarah Silverman’s jokes, rocked out to Wilco, or spurned your friends who managed to get Girl Talk tickets, you might have stopped to wonder how such distinguished guests ended up at the fingertips of a lowly Northwestern student. The answer is A&O Productions, a student group at Northwestern that has been in the business of bringing big acts to campus for more than 20 years. I asked Alex White, the chairman of A&O, some of the questions you might have about your Friday nights on campus.

Why couldn’t I get tickets for Girl Talk?

It’s a question any Northwestern student who didn’t camp outside Norris at 6 a.m. has been forced to ask himself when he’s staring at his lint-covered dorm room floor on Friday night, while practically the whole student body is having a great time.

“This winter was an insane quarter for ticket sales,” White said. “Even popular acts like Jeremy Piven or Sarah Silverman took several days to sell out. It’s funny because everyone has just assumed Counting Crows has sold out, and they’re surprised to see us selling tickets at the Rock.”

As of Wednesday, more than 1,300 tickets had been sold. Forrest Wickman, the director of A&O’s concert committee, said just as many people moved through the box office the day Counting Crows tickets went on sale than when Flight of the Conchords went on sale, and more than when Girl Talk went on sale.

Wickman said part of the reason is simply because the Riviera Theatre, where Counting Crows is playing, is a big venue. All of NU’s venues have problems: Welsh-Ryan Arena is prohibitively expensive, Patten Gymnasium doesn’t have the best acoustics, and both Pick-Staiger Concert Hall and Cahn Auditorium don’t seat many people. A&O and other student groups have been pushing for a 2,000-seat, multi-purpose venue on campus, but White said a new venue isn’t Northwestern’s No. 1 priority when so many other departments want money and new buildings.

The other reason Counting Crows haven’t sold out is, of course, that for the Counting Crows show only two tickets were allowed per WildCARD. White said the number of tickets per WildCARD is decided on a concert-by-concert basis. A bad estimate might mean an early sellout.

How much of my tuition paid for the Counting Crows?

Shows like Girl Talk, Wilco and OK Go make ruminating on the disappearance of a $45,840 tuition a little less painful. But how much does it actually cost to book an act like the Counting Crows?

White wouldn’t say exactly how much one of the top-selling bands in the country costs, but he said production alone (sound, lights, crew, etc.) runs over $20,000. The Riviera Theatre charges a flat fee of $4,500, but security and labor means the number could be much higher than that, according to Theresa Altgilbers, director of sales at the theatre.

White said bus transportation to and from the Riviera Theatre in Uptown costs over $5,000, and A&O only gets 10 to 30 percent of merchandise sales. To do publicity for a show, A&O gets $160, which doesn’t give them enough money to do more than print a couple of fliers and draw chalk crows on the ground.

Tickets for Counting Crows cost $15, but A&O isn’t receiving $15 from 2,000 people. Seventy-five percent of ticket sales go back to the Student Activities Fund (that’s the $44 on your bill every term) to be distributed to all of Northwestern’s student groups. Ticket profits never come close to covering the $70,000 to $90,000 it can take to book a higher-tier act.

So where does the money come from? ASG allocates A&O a budget for each term. According to the Student Activities Finance Board’s Web site, a typical allocation for the A&O Ball, which featured Wilco last year, is about $83,000. That’s enough to buy yourself roughly 5,900 copies of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

How did Northwestern get OK Go to come to Evanston?

Booking a band is a complicated dance between money, venue availability, legal issues and student preferences. White said A&O searches Facebook and surveys students to find out what bands are popular at NU, but unless a band is on tour in the area and fits into A&O’s price range, it won’t work. A&O subscribes to a service called PollStar, which gives approximate costs and contact information for bands.

White said A&O’s dream list would be the headliners of Lollapalooza — bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead — “but then reality strikes, and we par it down based on cost.”

Intangible factors occasionally affect a band’s decision to play for NU. White said when OK Go came to Patten last December, A&O told them how they were working with Dance Marathon by donating their portion of ticket sales to Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation.

“OK Go thought it was really cool, and that helped persuade them to accept our offer initially,” White said.

When A&O finds a potential band, negotiations begin to work out details. Both parties have to figure out everything from the time doors open to ticket prices. Then A&O makes an initial offer, and if the band is interested they send a contract. Northwestern’s legal department and the band’s have to work out contract details before anyone signs. Once the legal hurdles are over, A&O announces the act and you can wait in line for tickets.

If I join A&O, do I get to meet celebrities?

Yes. But you’ll meet them in a professional capacity, not as a fan, White explained.

“You can’t be in A&O and freak out around celebrities,” White said. “You have to pick them up from the airport, you have to get them food or whatever they need. I’ve met every person that’s come here, which has been incredible, but my main concern is bringing acts to Northwestern students.”

So when you see Jack Black in Gondry’s latest flick playing a paranoid, annoying creep, who almost looks like he’s got Down syndrome, grin and bear it because the cliché fades. In Be Kind Rewind, Black plays Jerry, the loser best friend who harasses sane and sanitary Mike (Mos Def) who works in a video store. After Jerry accidentally erases the tapes, the two decide to remake popular movies against the dingy set of their New Jersey neighborhood.

Mike’s myopic stare steals the scene. PR photo.

A girl interrupts the pair’s Harold-and-Kumar style camaraderie. Alma (Melonie Diaz) is the adorable, no-nonsense female recruited to perform women’s roles in the remakes. Her gold Baby Phat earrings and uncertain dynamic with Def ease the action into its pivotal emotional point: The neighborhood lines up to shell out for the duo’s increasingly popular tapes, but it might not be enough to save the store from being demolished and relocated. The trio’s productions become an instrument of community, knitting bonds between neighbors who share the urge to see people like themselves on their TVs.

The film is chock full of Gondry’s characteristic whimsical apparatuses: creations built from junkyard parts serve as sets or special effects for the comedic movie retellings. But the more whimsical creation is Gondry’s stylized, cheery community; it’s barely believable. The ultimate result of the three heroes’ battle for brotherhood just barely propels Gondry’s cliché, merry neighborhood into genuineness.

Overall rating: A-

NBN spoke with Gondry about his new film. Caution: spoilers ahead!

NBN: How did you choose Melonie Diaz to play Alma?
Gondry: I needed somebody who would feel real, who would have the right energy and spontaneity to match with the odd couple created by Jack and Mos. It was a very difficult gap to fill. I saw her in Raising Victor Vargas and she was brilliant, so real. And she’s pretty, but she doesn’t look like a Hollywood star.

Mike and Jerry meet Alma when she’s working in a laundromat. PR photo.

NBN: Why do you leave some of the film’s emotional issues unresolved, like the tension between Mike and Alma, and between Mike and his surrogate father?
Gondry: We had the resolution with Alma and Mike where they were kissing, but we found it inappropriate, so we cut it out. I think I cannot really solve the whole situation — I think it comes together at the end because the city came to watch the film, and they all gathered together. I wanted that to be the main message.

NBN: It seemed that the endings of Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine seemed unhappy — and then you think about it and you realize it was happy. In this film, I felt like it was the exact opposite because the ending shot is so joyful. Then, you realize that, in fact, the movie store and this little group of people are about to be ejected from the community.
Gondry: I like the way you interpret it. I think a lot of people believe the building will be saved, but, in fact, I like your interpretation better because it is more about the fact that they get together. If you feel they’re going to be ejected and you’re sad about it, I achieved my goal since you realize that they have some pressures. In this film, because this is not reality, it is more important that you as a person think you’re going to miss them because you feel for them. I like to feel emotionally resolved but not factually or intellectually because it keeps it open to discussion but you feel you’ve reached the end of the story when you end the film.

NBN: What film would you make or what props would you use if there were no budget constraints — if you could do the most expensive thing in the world?
Gondry: I’d like to do a science fiction movie and really change the world around the characters completely. But my brain always tries to find solutions to make it inexpensive! I’d like to do a science fiction movie, and I’d like to use an airport as a city because they look like the city will look in the future where everything is recreated for a function and is collected together in a specific way. So stopping an airport from functioning for a couple days and redressing it as a city would be a lot of fun to do.

NBN: Your films ride the line between drama and comedy. Do you think it’s dangerous for people to take themselves too seriously?
Gondry: Well, yeah. I think humor is very important. It’s a great value or tool to express deep feelings and it’s sort of like being naked in a way. It’s so nice I think… I don’t like cynicism and I think I see my nature as unpretentious. If I don’t have humor it can become really ridiculous. I think you need a bit of humor in general — in every situation.

NBN: How do your own emotional states inspire or affect your films?
Gondry: A lot. Maybe not so much in this one, but in general, the emotion is just like when you hear music, and you feel you’re in a special place. I wake up from a sudden dream, like I did this morning, and if I were writing a scene, I would have the direction. It would give me a background, a direction to write it in a certain mood, so I am very attentive to my own emotions, and I use them when I create a story.

Gondry explains a scene on the set of Be Kind Rewind. PR photo.

NBN: Do you have final cut privilege?
Gondry: Well, I had it twice, and I didn’t have it twice. It didn’t make a lot of difference because, at the end of the day, you really make a film with other people, you don’t make your own film. A couple of different parts in this one, I said ‘I’m sorry I have the final cut and I’ll stick to it.’ And, of course, my producer would say, ‘Well, we don’t want to be against you just because we want to fight for the film.’ And they can make a lot of pressure, but, generally, my job is to find what’s good about outside suggestions and try to use them as much as possible to help the film. If I feel they’re against the film, I would tend to resist them. But like [with] Eternal Sunshine, I didn’t have the final cut, but I don’t think I would have changed anything if I’d had it. I don’t like the idea that people make their own version of the film years later, if there was a conflict. I think most of the time if you pick the right person, you make the same film, and you work with the same energy and the same direction.

NBN: Other filmmakers like Werner Herzog have said that hyperbole is a better way to tell the truth than telling the truth itself. Do you agree?
Gondry: It’s interesting, I thought of that when I read Maus by Art Spiegelman, the Holocaust story done as a comic book with all the characters wearing the face of animals. I thought that was a most vivid expression of Holocaust memory because of the distance that was created by the drawing. So I think that kind of reflects what Werner Herzog says.

When it is a movie, you know it’s going to be makeup, actors, [and] you know it is going to pretend that they’re starving when they are all people having a comfortable life in real life. So, I sort of agree. But you know every director has their own truth and they’re interesting to hear, but you have to find your own truth. I like to hear what people have to say, but I think as a director, as an artist, or as a person, you have to be able to reason, to contradict strong statements. Otherwise, only charismatic people would have their voices heard, [and] only charismatic people are not necessarily the most interesting people.

NBN: Do you have your eye on any actors for the future?
Gondry: For some reason I’ve been thinking of Vince Vaughn lately. I’ve always liked him since he did his first movie. Now he is slowly becoming a more and more important actor. He didn’t lose anything he had when he started. I want to work with him, Bill Murray, Steve Martin… funny people who have the dimension to be dramatic as well. I wanted to do a movie with Bjork, but she got burnt out with Last Frontiers. Last Frontiers, that’s a good way to put it for her. I think she would have been great — she was great in his movie but she really didn’t like the process.

NBN: Do you have any advice for aspiring filmmakers?
Gondry: Generally when I’m asked this question I give two pieces of advice. The first one is to finish your project and the second one is to start it. So it looks like a contradiction — you cannot finish it before you start it. But it is in terms of importance, not in terms of chronology. Of course you have to start your project, if you want to finish it! But starting is the second most difficult thing, the first most difficult thing is to finish it, because you have so much doubt once you start and so many reasons you give yourself to stop, that you really have to separate the inspirational mode from the executional mode.

A lot of people think you don’t have to make concessions, that you have to be really true to your art. But I think it’s important to make concessions. It’s one thing that I always quote from Spielberg, which obviously is totally reflected in Be Kind Rewind. It’s, “As a filmmaker you always have to take advantage of your limitations.” And that is one of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard.

NBN: What was the best movie that came out last year?
Gondry: I don’t have this type of judgment because I don’t look at them all. I remember watching Maria Full of Grace and really being impressed with it and loving it, and I saw Superbad and I really liked it.

How do you feel about doing these interviews?
Gondry: It’s exhausting. Most people come in and ask how I came up with this concept and I try to give a slightly different answer each time, because I don’t want to repeat the same sentence. I’m trying not to lie at the same time. So I dig a little deeper to find, ‘was there exactly this reason why I did this movie?’ or ‘was it this moment that made me do this film?’ So I try to dig deeper and find different answers. Ultimately that gives me ideas to do more films and understand maybe what I’m good at, what I’m a little weak at, and I try to get the best of it.

NBN: I might as well ask it then. How did you get your idea?
Gondry: I’ll try to find an answer that I didn’t give to anyone. I liked the idea that two guys, two people, make a big mistake. They’re trying to fix the problem in the most absurd way. In the process they become creative against all the odds, and successful against all the odds and against all logic. I wanted to talk a little bit about community, and talk about things I believe could work if people were given the chance.

Advertisers aren’t the only ones aware of our finances. Since Evanston is Chicago’s rich, stupid cousin, it makes sense that the homeless population and those planet pushers in the green coats down by the Arch will treat you like a walking money bag. And by the second group I mean Greenpeace, whose disarming smiles and dripping noses almost tug your heartstrings enough to make you pause on your way to University Hall.

But this isn’t a fact vs. fiction article about global warming or nuclear energy. I’d just like to offer a few strategies I’ve used to preserve the pennies and quarters in my pockets. You never know when you’ll need to buy some Homies.

1. Work on your “city face.” That’s the squinty, hard look you see on a lot of city folk. Try to look angry or constipated. You can also try looking preoccupied with something particularly gruesome, like murder. This is the easiest strategy since you won’t actually have to talk to anyone — if you are doing it correctly, nobody will dare approach you.

It’s similar to playing the game where you walk in the center of the sidewalk and refuse to break your pace or move for others. If you go downtown during rush hour, you’ll notice this game and the “city face” strategy are favorites among urban professionals.

2. Be polite. Very polite. If the homeless person or the Greenpeace guy has initiated conversation, you’ve lost half the battle. You look like a sucker. But it’s too late now, so be polite. When they ask for money, tell them thanks. I try to say it at least five times, and do it while I’m still walking. Smile, and tell them, “No, thanks, though! Thanks so much! Thanks, no! No, thank you! Naw, thanks! Nope, but thanks!” They’ll be disarmed and confused by your politeness, and by the fact that it’s totally senseless to thank somebody asking for your money.

Generally, people leave me alone when I make this face.

3. Make a funny face. This is my favorite approach. Nobody’s feelings get hurt, and it raises everyone’s spirits. It gives them something to talk about, and it gives you the chance to test out that face outside of the bathroom.

This strategy can also be used to save somebody else from money-grubbing. If you notice that Greenpeace has one of your peers in its verdant clutches, walk behind the Greenpeacian and make a face at him or her that only the victim can see. You’ll sleep easy knowing that you made those uncomfortable moments when someone is forced to lie about his wallet easier.

4. Think of a short, inarguable and melodramatic statement. Memorize and recite. It’s easy. My favorite is, “I don’t try to validate my existence by supporting global causes.” A ham-handed statement about your worldview has no possible comeback, especially from somebody with his own pre-recorded script rumbling around in his brain. No matter what they say, they implicitly agree with you and let you pass by. Even something as inane as, “I’m too busy living my life!” should do the trick.

Just don’t make an excuse, because that gives them something to respond to. Unless you approach knowing today is the day that you want to put your money somewhere you’ll never see again, you’re only wasting your time (read: life) by talking to them.

Even a valid excuse, like the one I used a month ago on my way to Ogilvie Transportation Center (”I’m going to miss my train!”), didn’t stop a homeless person from chasing me down Washington Street yelling, “I’m better than you!” Life, as they say, is like a box of chocolates, and you never know which nougat creation is inedible. I do know that I might’ve missed my train if I hadn’t been running from that homeless guy.

Maybe I got it wrong, and the song is actually about a mouthwatering chili concoction. Either way, “Three-Way” is a delicious song to open Distortion, the latest disc from genius songwriter Stephin Merritt and his band The Magnetic Fields.

Merritt is the front man of a string of bands including The 6ths, The Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. He might be best known for the epic three-disc conceptual album 69 Love Songs, or for the audiobook versions of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The Gothic Archies, a self-described “goth-bubblegum band,” performed the songs for Snicket. Maybe Merritt feels like he sold the Archies out, and that’s why Distortion, a Magnetic Fields disc, sounds like the Archies’ album The New Despair. Distortion sounds like the anesthetic wall of a benzodiazepine buzz. It’s heavily distorted.

Too bad the distortion doesn’t work as well as it did on a couple tracks of The New Despair. Maybe it’s because Shirley Simms’ voice sounds too much like a prepubescent youth who didn’t get the video game she wanted for Christmas. On the tracks where Simms is whining, Merritt’s signature ironic lyrics lose their snarl and instead sound stupid. On “Please Stop Dancing,” Merritt and Simms sing a duet of teenage angst to each other: “Please stop dancing in my head / I have cried ’till I’m half dead.”

Merritt’s untrained bass voice can make those lovelorn songs work, so it’s rough that Simms shares the spotlight in Distortion. In “Old Fools,” “I’ll Dream Alone” and “Mr. Mistletoe,” Merritt’s distinctive purr sucks you into his love-lost atmosphere and won’t let you escape, until you hear Simms butting in again.

The gleeful, Morrissey-like cynicism that echoes through so much of Merritt’s work isn’t so poignant in Distortion. But he doesn’t entirely let his loyal listeners down. We need a modern drinking ballad, and “Too Drunk to Dream” is perfect. There’s more than one kind of distortion, and I think Merritt nails it when he’s singing about alcohol:

“Sober, life is a prison / Shitfaced it is a blessing. / Sober, nobody wants you / Shitfaced they’re all undressing…”

But when Northwestern graduate Alan Wolff says he hated NU, it’s more than a passing remark. He’s not talking about a midterm he missed or the foul Chicago weather; he’s talking about a lifetime of failures that he’s finally made good.

Alan Wolff. Photo by Rena Behar / North by Northwestern.

Wolff dropped out during his junior year almost three decades ago, but used the time off to learn about himself and why he was pursuing his education. Now he’s a proud graduate, having received his Ph.D. in computer science and electrical engineering in December.

Wolff started out at NU as an undergrad in the fall of 1978. A self-proclaimed punk rocker, he felt he didn’t fit into the Northwestern social scene. His GPA hovered around 1.4, and after being placed on academic probation, he realized he couldn’t make the grades to stay at NU.

“I was here because my parents wanted me to be here,” Wolff says. “I had no clue what I should be doing.”

Wolff returned to his home in Maryland and graduated from the University of Maryland in the mid-’80s with a degree in history. After graduating, Wolff applied for a job as an air traffic controller, thinking the job might be like playing video games. However, when he moved to Oklahoma City for training, he failed it.

“It was almost like déjà vu,” Wolff says. “I was put in a new situation, it was my chance for a career and I failed it. I was in my mid-20s and I had no career, nothing, and no way to support myself. It was despair again.”

Finding acceptance

Wolff could have moved back to Maryland. Instead, he went to the one place he had ever felt accepted: the University Bible Fellowship in Evanston.

When Wolff first met the University Bible Fellowship, he was a jaded atheist who had once organized a petition at his high school to ban clergy from graduation. He mocked the Fellowship and their beliefs, and pushed them as far as he could to see how they’d react.

They accepted him. After NU kicked Wolff out, he joined the Bible Fellowship in Maryland and decided to become a Christian in his first year with the Maryland group. When he was down on his luck in Oklahoma, Evanston’s Bible Fellowship seemed like the right place to go.

Sarah Barry, the retired general director of the Evanston fellowship, has known Wolff since his freshman year at NU. She says she respects Wolff for overcoming so many obstacles, and is encouraged to know a person who doesn’t give up.

“Alan sets goals and goes after them,” Barry says. “I never doubted he’d get that PhD. Maybe someday he’ll be president of Northwestern.”

Wolff moved back to Evanston and spent time transcribing Bible materials until the pastor told him to get a job. He went to NU’s Career Services and saw a listing for a computer programmer, a job he’d never done. Wolff was hired based on a NU connection and the assumption that if he had been president of his high school chess club, he’d be able to do programming.

Around this time, Wolff met his wife, Vivian. After about a year, he started working for Northwestern’s Controller’s Office and University Enrollment. Wolff’s professional life was blossoming, but he still wanted to get an education.

Third time’s the charm

He applied for the professional masters program in electrical engineering at NU, earned his masters, and did so well that he decided to apply for regular graduate school. Over ten years, he took a couple of classes each term toward a Ph.D. while working full time for NU. Taking graduate classes with a full time job and a family wasn’t easy. The age gap didn’t help.

“Again I felt like a misfit,” Wolff said. “I was an older guy with people who were almost half my age. It was weird, but I made friends,” Wolff said.

Wolff was cramming for midterms when his kids were learning to walk. He was thinking about papers he had to write when he got off work. He finished his coursework and took the Ph.D. qualifying exam for electrical engineering.

Wolff failed it. Twice.

Because he had taken his classes over such a long period of time, many courses had changed entirely. Professors and textbooks had changed, and the material wasn’t the same.

Over the next two years, Wolff tried to think of a way to overcome this new failure. He tried changing his Ph.D. to computer science, which had a simpler qualifying exam. Finally, Wolff passed. Last September he defended his thesis, and three months later he graduated from Northwestern University with a Ph.D. in computer science and electrical engineering.

“People always asked me, ‘Alan, why are you trying to get a Ph.D.? You have a career already and seem to be making money, why are you putting yourself through that?’” Wolff said.

“I’m doing it for my wife. I’m giving my kids something to shoot for, and I’m showing that no matter how many times you fail, you can overcome it.”

Times have changed since Alan Wolff first aspired to earn a NU degree. He has dedicated more than ten years of his life to Northwestern University. Now, according to Wolff, he’s “one of the biggest fans of this place.”

Northwestern’s clock tower. Photo by the Genevieve Knapp / North by Northwestern.

You creep past it at 2 a.m. on the way to Burger King during finals week. You stumble by late Friday night praying your stomach settles long enough to make it to the dorm toilet. When its face turns purple, you’re confused, and then you remember that it does that when Northwestern wins.

If you haven’t given any thought to the clock tower, you’re not alone.

“I didn’t notice it today when I walked by,” Weinberg junior Karan Kunjur said. “And, since I live on north campus, I rarely see it. I don’t have any strong feelings about the tower, and honestly, I don’t see the purpose of clock towers anymore.”

The 100-foot clock tower may not be useful. It may be too short, or too rectangular. It certainly isn’t as innovative as the library or as celebrated as the lakefill, but it holds its head high among campus architecture and may be the first part of campus that a visitor driving to Northwestern sees.

The tower’s Indiana Limestone facade and tall windows tend to raise eyebrows. Lauren Redding, a Weinburg junior studying art theory and practice, said the clock tower’s style caught her off-guard.

“The first time I saw the clock tower I was startled because it seemed to misrepresent Northwestern’s tradition as a place of academic excellence,” Redding said. “Normally when you think of an elite college, you think of colonnades and Greco-Roman-influenced architecture.”

The clock tower stands in the middle of the Rebecca Crown Center, a $3.05 million facility built to centralize NU’s administrative offices, which had been scattered across campus before 1968. In order to build the center, Evanston allowed Northwestern to cut off Orrington Avenue slightly north of Clark Street and University Place just west of Sheridan Road.

“I thought it was important to have a symbol of entry to Northwestern,” said Walter Netsch, the tower’s architect (for a longer feature on Netsch, go here).

The tower’s ties to Northwestern became a little more obvious in 1996, when the university’s seemingly unbeatable team made it to the Rose Bowl.

That’s when Kathy Johnson, an aide working in the Crown Center, had the idea to turn the tower purple. Johnson said she got the idea since the University of Texas at Austin turns their much larger tower orange. She let President Bienen know, and when facilities said it wouldn’t be too much trouble, the lights were installed within a week. The University decided to turn the clock purple every time an NU team won a major victory.

“I like that it turns purple,” Weinberg senior Kate Goodman said.“I think it’s one of the few symbols of unity at Northwestern.”

When NU wins, facilities management personnel journey to the tower and flip a switch that changes to another set of lights. The lights are covered in purple gels, the same things used to change lighting in plays. Eric Youngquist, chief electrician for facilities management, said the inside of the clock tower is a hollow shaft with a hand-over-hand wooden ladder that goes up to the clock’s machinery.

The purple lights were never part of Netsch’s original design. That’s not to say he’s thrilled with how he designed it in the first place — he would do it differently today, he said. But ask him how he would do it over again, and you’ll find out that Northwestern students aren’t the only ones ignoring the tower.

“I’m not sure how I’d do it,” Netsch said, “because I’m not thinking about it.”

The University Library, designed by Walter Netsch. Photo by praetis on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

You might not expect a conversation about Northwestern’s library and architect Walter Netsch to turn into potty talk. But it turns out that a common complaint about Netsch’s structures is the lack of potties.

Walter Netsch, a Chicago-born architect, designed several structures for NU’s Evanston campus, including the Rebecca Crown Center, the science and engineering library, the Frances Searle Building, the Regenstein Hall of Music and the University Library. Netsch’s buildings are some of the most visible on campus — and also some of the most controversial.

To a visitor, the library might seem like a monstrous, gray maze. Step into the center of the circular tower rooms and you’re surrounded by bookshelves, with no exit in sight. But there’s a clue: The aisle with solid carpeting leads out of the labyrinth.

Geoff Morse, a reference librarian who has worked in the library for two years, said that although navigating the circular rooms takes some practice, the tower system works well overall. But he says Netsch forgot a more basic concern.

“People always ask where the restrooms are,” Morse said. “Restrooms are an important part of a building and I wish they were bigger, or there were a few more. I know it sounds silly, but it’s just nuts and bolts.”

For students, navigating the library is an art they’ll learn (or avoid entirely) over four years at college. At the Frances Searle Building, strangers come in every day for health services. Try finding a washroom. You might think you’re on a treasure hunt following clues plastered all over the walls.

Ellen Dunleavy, a receptionist who has worked in the building for five years, said the washroom situation at Searle was always bad, but now that Northwestern is renovating the first-floor toilets, the situation is even worse.

“I feel like I’m gone for half an hour every time I go to the bathroom,” she said.

The Frances Searle building, which holds classrooms, administration and health clinics. Photo by Spencer Kornhaber / North by Northwestern.

Special maps are posted around Searle showing where the usable bathrooms are. Photo by Spencer Kornhaber / North by Northwestern.

Dunleavy said nobody can find their way around Searle. Terrible acoustics in the main atrium space make hearing difficult, and exposed limestone inside of the building makes people ask when the construction will be finished. She said that rather than try to improve the building, they might as well just start over.

“We have clinics here, so there are elderly people coming in to have their hearing tested, people with small children, people who have had strokes… they’re already confused and stressed out, and they come in Searle and are completely lost,” Dunleavy said.

Netsch made a name for himself in the 1950s when he designed the U.S. Air Force Academy, which was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2004. His signature architectural style, called Field Theory, involved rotating simple squares into geometric forms, and came at a time when the extremely minimal, simplistic “skin and bones” architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe dominated American architecture. Netsch was seen as a maverick by his colleagues who drew within the so-called Miesian Box.

Russ Clement, bibliographer for art and art history at Northwestern, is working on a book about the 87-year-old Netsch, slated to come out early next year.

“A lot of people talk about what an intimidating character Netsch was,” Clement said. “He was something like 6′4″ and 160 pounds, so he must have been very intense. I’ll talk to people and they’ll tell me that he was just a terror.”

Physically, some of Netsch’s structures are as intimidating as their creator. Walter Netsch said the best thing he built in his career was the Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, a building Northwestern razed in 1995. The observatory, a graceful but colossal wooden mammoth, was designated as outstanding in its class by the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Northwestern decided not to invest the roughly $1 million necessary to renovate the crumbling building, as light pollution from developments along the northern skyline had reduced visibility.

“When they decided to take it down, I warned them that it was not a post and beam structure, and that it would come down with difficulty,” Netsch said. “I told them they’d have to separate parts, and they didn’t do that.”

Tearing down Netsch’s favorite building failed several times. On Wednesday, Sept. 13, 1995, explosive experts tried dynamite. Lindheimer tilted, but did not fall. The next day, the demolition company tied the observatory to tow trucks with one-inch steel cables. Several cables snapped and the trucks rolled backwards. Lindheimer didn’t budge. Late that night, workers began arc welding to cut the building’s structural tubes and the building tipped, as if humoring NU. Finally, on Friday, they took Netsch’s advice. They brought in cranes and cut the award-winning observatory apart piece by piece.

“It made headlines and news films as it lay there sagging,” Netsch said. “It was quite a lesson in the means of structural form.”

But not all of Walter Netsch’s structures are imposing, innavigable and potty-less. Some are lovely, innavigable and potty-less. Netsch helped design Northwestern’s lakefill in the early 1960s. So far, no fish have complained.

At 7 a.m. everyone was still dancing. They swayed like zombies in the glistening gray morning to the boundless thump of the bass. The night had been frigid; they danced to keep away the chill that hadn’t left the air and the cold in the dew that crept up their legs.

Glow sticks slowly faded as reflective tape caught a few weak sunbeams in the morning light of Sunday, September 16th. It was like a still from Rave to the Grave.

This was the situation on an expansive farm in rural Illinois on the final day of a three-day Earthdance celebration. The farm, in a town called Lowpoint near Peoria, Ill., was one of 340 locations in over 50 countries participating in Earthdance 2007. According to its Web site, Earthdance is the largest international music and dance event. The scale and location of celebrations vary from small private parties to huge gatherings in parks or stadiums.

The farm festival in Illinois booked over 30 electronic artists. Most of the artists performed some variety of trance, a type of music characterized by a breakneck tempo of 130 to 150 beats per minute. Trance music features crescendos and frequent breakdowns, time for dancers to pause, or freeze like statues before the music surges to a furious climax.

Phutureprimitive, the ambient trance project of disc jockey Rain, was the headliner at Earthdance in Lowpoint. Rain, an artist from Portland, Oregon, started DJing in 1992 and kept his sound private until the 2004 release of Sub Conscious on Waveform Records. Rain calls Phutureprimitive “subterranean electronic tribalism.”

Unlike other festivals, music isn’t the primary focus of Earthdance. The celebration, now in its eleventh year, aims to promote peace and support humanitarian causes. Participants worldwide join in a simultaneous peace prayer, and the Earthdance organization requires each local promoter to donate at least half the profits to a local charity. Over $1 million has been donated since Earthdance’s inception, not bad for a group of slovenly hippies.

But while peace and charity are well and good, I suspect that most of those who pitched a tent for the $30 nonstop festival came for the party.

The audience was a melange of hippies and ravers, with everything in between. White-haired ladies, college kids, locals, and a dreadlocked mother pulling her toddlers in a wagon covered with glow-in-the-dark tape were among those roaming the freshly mown grass. I met a guy who said he was an aeronautical engineer, and when I looked impressed, he looked sad and said he hated his job and just wanted to be a music producer.

As would be expected, the drugs were as diverse as the crowd, with everything from marijuana to 2C-B changing hands. A slightly drunk, bored girl told my brother she was friends with the owners of the farm and came to these things all the time. “We can tell who the dealers are, and we just turn them away, tell them to go right back home,” she said. My brother stifled a giggle.

Visual engineers Psymbolic coordinated light shows with lasers that flashed through the crowd and spotlights that wove undulating patterns onto the trees behind the main stage. As soon as it was dark, people began to twirl glow sticks and fire. When a young woman dressed all in black began to weave fire trails in the air, one particularly inebriated man gave her (and her burning chains) a sloppy hug.

My brother and I watched the fire dancers from the edge of a huge campfire. Next to us, some men with heavy Polish accents asked if we liked Beck. My brother told him that we did and that we saw him live at UIC Pavilion last year. He nodded, not quite understanding, and handed us two Becks beers. We sipped them, watching a baby with LED spinners attached to her jacket fall asleep in the campfire glow. It was a second helping of peace and charity.

Village and Bush: Reconstructing Cultural Perceptions of the Environment in South Central Africa

12:00 p.m. PAS Seminar Room / Free
Hear award winning graduate student Kathryn de Luna talk about Central South Africa from 1000 BCE to 1900 CE.

Hear live classical music tonight at NU

6:15 p.m. Lutkin Hall / Free
Concert pianist Irina Kogan will perform works by Brahms, Schubert, and Bartok.

7:30 p.m. Pick-Staiger Concert Hall / $6.50, discount for students
A percussion ensemble with internationally renowned percussionist Marta Klimasara will put on a show featuring “Village Burial with Fire” by British composer James Wood.

Northwestern University Film Festival

8:00 p.m. Pick-Laudati Auditorium, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art / Free
Come see the winners of the Northwestern University Student Film Festival and hear guest speaker Bennett Tramer, head writer for Saved by the Bell.