Stadiums usually offer seating in a 360 degree configuration, allowing a spectator to sit anywhere and watch the proceedings on the center field. For this reason, stadiums offer insight into human perception, and the difficulty of governing our collective affairs. Arguably there are better seats, such as those situated right on the field, or those in the spacious comfort of a private box. However, from any seat, a spectator can still see what’s going on, and his or her viewpoint is as valid as the viewpoint of the air-conditioned execs in the private box. But what do each of them perceive? And how do we arbitrate this fundamental difference in perception so that we can agree on what reality is?

Lounge singing is one of the perennial occupations of pop culture. Most elegantly embodied by Frank Sinatra, and most cheesily realized by karaoke, lounge singing is a cultural touch-stone, a greasy but instantly recognizable symbol. What is it about the sight of a man leaning up against a piano, tie slightly askew, a once primo cocktail disintegrating into the watery dregs, that digs so deeply into the soul? It is every man’s dream to prowl a softly-lit stage, tossing off harmonic platitudes to a crowd of clingy drunks?

In a profession where a graduate level degree qualifies you to cut paper and a fifty hour week is considered part-time, architect Eric Owen Moss is fairly easy-going without being easy. Ask a seemingly simple question of Moss, and you shall elicit an answer that draws on philosophy, symphonic composition, and a good-natured frontier sensibility. While Moss has won major competitions in China, Mexico, and Russia, and is currently designing the Patent Office Building of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., he is still something of a hometown secret. He lacks the studied grandeur of some of his more well-known contemporaries, but to good effect. Without that PR sheen, it’s possible to have an actual conversation with him, if actual conversations are defined as extended discussions about the construct of history.

Let’s face it: Century City is still not happening. Despite the hilarious CAA building, a glass structure with a giant empty hole in the center that seems almost too perfect a representation of Hollywood intelligence, Century City fails to enliven. This is human brokerage central, the hub of deal-making and commerce, where eating is for slackers and the elevators only work if you have an access-fob. And really, who doesn’t love a motivated professional with shark teeth and the ability to balance both a yogurt and a starlet’s career in one hand?

Let’s put aside the grammatical heartbreak of text messaging (or, txt msng, if you prefer). English, that great weird bargain bin of romance languages, Teutonic asides, and Latin root verbs, is starting to slide into obscurity. Don’t worry—this is not a disguised ode to William Safire’s “On Language.” This is more about the fact that this whole alphabet thing—the 26 separate letters representing vowel and consonant sounds—is starting to vanish into obscurity, to be replaced by a much more compact and efficient written language system, a la the kanji utilized in Chinese.