Wishing Lamp

Orinda, CA, 2017

My friend David is the smartest person I know. He’s an artist, an inventor, an engineer, a jeweler, a filmmaker, and a student of history with almost total recall. He’s even been on Jeopardy!—though he lost when he forgot to phrase his answer as a question. Heartbreaking!

We met in Santa Barbara in 1980, part of a thriving local art scene. The action centered around a few fearless galleries and the newly minted Summer Solstice Celebration. We were full of creative energy, big ideas, long-term ambitions, visions of immortality. David was already on his way to fame; he’d painted a mural at UC Santa Barbara, a visual journey through Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Visitors could listen to the music and follow its movement in the painting. Cerebral, perhaps, but beautiful.

In 1989, David invented the world’s first omnidirectional video camera: a soccer ball-sized marvel able to film in all directions at once. He used it to shoot the first fully immersive color movie, set at a staged basketball game. David now holds some 50 patents, most recently for a hand-powered water purification system.

We were close for many years, and communicated daily. But after David and his wife moved to Oregon, and I to Oakland, we fell out of touch. After a long hiatus, I learned that he’d had a showdown with thyroid cancer. He beat it, thank God.

David’s only sibling, an older brother who lived in the Bay Area, died in 2017. When David came down to clear out his brother’s home, we had a brief reunion. I stood around uselessly, watching him sort through books, antiques, photographs, knick-knacks. When he unearthed this wishing lamp charm, he gave it to me as a gift.

I asked him for his three wishes first. “I’d beg for the U.S. not to get into a war,” he said. “Next, that we will be wise enough to know how to deal with the things that threaten us—whether AI, revivified fossil diseases, or climate change. Wish number three: that what I’ve contributed to the world, through my patents and art, will be appreciated.”

I appreciate you David, even though I’m giving this lamp away. One of my three wishes? That you get a second chance on Jeopardy!.