The King at the Palace

Meher Baba's Movie in San Francisco, July 2-15

Moviegoers explore the "Extravaganza of Love" art exhibit between film showings.

  

INTRODUCTION

   Irwin Luck asked the projectionist to delay the last show on Thursday, July 15 for twenty minutes to make sure everyone who wanted to see the entire film was able to. In the great lobby of the Palace of Fine Arts theater, the bookwallas began to prepare for a final inventory. A volunteer swept up, the refreshment people closed shop, and a deeply enthused man led Irwin around the "Extravaganza of Love" art show, trying to make certain Irwin had high quality photos of every piece and would post them all on his web site. Pascal Kaplan and Victor Seckeler, who had assisted in the lobby throughout the 2 weeks, had finally gone into the theater to see the film.

     It was nearly over, at least the visible scaffold of this two-week run of "Meher Baba: Avatar of the Age: the Human Side of God" in this city, accompanied by major ads in the movie sections of the largest newspapers, the one-of-a-kind Baba art show, and the book table that did around $1,000 business on some days. Some 3,000 people had seen the film. Regular workers estimate that about 2/3 of these were "new" people who had either first heard of Meher Baba through the ads, or were renewing old contacts with Him, sometimes after decades.

     On the pages that follow, you will discover some of the dimensions of this many-layered event through the eyes of Irwin Luck and some of those who came daily to sell tickets and books, answer questions, and watch over the art show. Even more intriguingly, you will also see through the eyes of a few of those who entered this Divinely-imbued atmosphere not knowing what to expect and left a couple hours or so later, touched to the very Soul.

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