Cathedral projections have more potential

I emerge from the Cathedral at 12:51 a.m. into the sharp Pittsburgh chill, with ragged scraps of… I emerge from the Cathedral at 12:51 a.m. into the sharp Pittsburgh chill, with ragged scraps of void knowledge leaking from my overloaded hippocampus and falling softly onto the cold asphalt behind me. The passersby walked with a distinct aura of obliviousness. But it’s not the distinct aura of obliviousness typical of your average college campus, with the young woman entertaining herself mid-commute with a Sudoku puzzle, or the young man narrowly evading the polite jab of a 71D as he hits the SEND button on his cell phone while wandering into a bus lane. No, this sweeping diversion lies on a different plateau. A couple inexplicably freezes mid-stride to gaze upward. A girl aiming a digital camera at the heavens collides head-on with an emergency police call box. I turn around. Lo! What beautiful, luminescent glory! Spectacular blues, yellows, pinks and violets, all projected crisply onto the very towering obelisk that just hosted my six-hour study session! What vibrant, chromatic splendor! I survey the area. Faint bridges of photons traverse over busy avenues. They originate from gargantuan projectors shrouded in what appear to be even more gargantuan black garbage bags. Some of them are at street level, but one sits majestically above all like a medieval king looking down upon his court. ‘How on earth did they get that thing on the roof of the Union?’ I wonder. I tried to get to the roof of my apartment building once. I had to blackmail my landlord. ‘Did you happen to catch the spectacle last night?’ I ask a classmate the next morning. ‘What?” ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘Upon the Cathedral.” ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘Oh, you mean the light pattern thingy. Yeah. Pretty sweet.’ The original pattern, designed by French artist Lucette De Rugy as a homage to the Gutenberg printing press, has since been replaced by an equally glorious mathematics-themed design. But gazing at its vivid, geometric brilliance one evening, I couldn’t help but wonder: How can we capitalize on this revolutionary technology once Pittsburgh 250’s Festival of Lights celebration comes to its heart-rending end Nov. 20? It would grieve me not to take in such sights again. I had no idea that such a clear, bright image could be transposed through an outdoor environment so vividly. And now that I know such a capability does exist, I have no qualms declaring that the possibilities are indeed endless. Four six-ton projectors and a 42-story Gothic cathedral? It’s child’s play. It would be like giving a mountain of clay to Michelangelo and saying, ‘Do your thing, brother.” So once the Festival of Lights meets its dreaded terminus, why not hook up an old Super Nintendo to the projector atop the Union and play Cathedral Tetris? High scores could be rewarded in the form of Book Center Gift Certificates. Or, on Friday and Saturday nights, I propose a literal representation of classic Pitt joke-lore ‘mdash; a projected image of a single magnetic compass. This will make for some amusing exchanges: ‘Where are we?’ ‘Doesn’t matter. Drunk Compass, remember?’ ‘There it is! Onward!’ ‘Hold up … Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ ‘What the hell was in that jungle juice?’ This isn’t to say that the new projections would just be fun and games, though ‘mdash; such would be a complete and utter waste of resources, the likes of which I would not stand for. We know all too well that tuition is on the high side. Why not buy the projectors from the city and rent them out to advertisers for additional revenue? I’d gladly trade that $160 Student Activity Fee for the occasional Red Bull Cathedral of Learning, or better yet, an Edgar Snyder ‘amp; Associates Stephen Foster Memorial. And if for some unforeseeable reason advertisers decline the University’s offers, the Cathedral projectors are prime real estate for Pittsburgh’s local supervillains. Think about it. What medium trumps Cathedral projection when you’re demanding a $40 billion ransom for the release of Sidney Crosby? Whatever happens to this magnificent technology, we can be sure that its glory will live on in all of our minds forever. In these difficult times of free-falling stock markets, energy crises and Celine Dion still releasing albums, all it took was a simple 535-foot tall tapestry of light to show us, hey, it ain’t all that bad. Well, it required that and a whole lot of wattage, which reminds me: That $175 electric bill on my fridge isn’t going to pay itself. Challenge Ben to a game of non-Cathedral Tetris at bek25@pitt.edu.