Boomerjinks
Well-Known Member
http://www.examiner.com/x-23103-Den...10m1d2-2010-Monolith-appears-on-New-Years-EveJessica d'Arbonne said:
In January of 2001 I was sitting in my AP lit class when my teacher asked me to come up to his desk. He knew that I was a huge science fiction nerd and wanted to tell me that a Monolith had appeared in a Seattle park on New Years, and then disappeared a few days later, the result of pranksters/artists. I thought it was really cool, and it wasn't until years later that I remembered the event and looked it up online. Sure enough, there were pictures of a large unpainted steel square sitting on a green hilltop. I'd often thought I wish I could have done something similar, and with the passing of Arthur C. Clarke in spring of 2008, I promised myself to recreate the stunt for New Years of 2010.
So after the Halloween season had passed, I started thinking about how to build the damn thing. Of course it would have to be solid black. Of course it would have to be sized to a 1:4:9 ratio. Of course it had to stand on it's own. Of course it had to be imposing. Originally I had wanted to make it out of ABS plastic, like the roof rack box for the Ecto.
This would have been wildly expensive, but it would have been lightweight and would be, at least visually, perfect. Unfortunately, the company that fabricated the box only works with pieces of plastic up to 7 feet long, which meant that the ideal 9' (or wonderful, screen-accurate 11') Monolith would not be possible. After that, my second choice was steel. Unfortunately, weather and holiday finances prevented such an endeavor. After my roadtrip to Hollywood and all of the Christmas overtime I had to work, I found myself with two days from New Years without even the materials to start.
So we trucked over to Home Depot and found the largest piece of fiberboard they had. It happened to be only 8 feet long, so we did some quick calculations and found the measurements for width and length according to the 1:4:9 ratio. We then headed home, built a skeleton, skinned it, and painted it.
It was a bit rough around the edges but for $50 and less than 5 hours of work, I was very pleased.
After a rather fun and exciting New Years Eve party with the girlfriend, I changed out of my monkey suit, rallied the roommates and loaded the Monolith onto a car around 2AM.
Originally we had planned to leave it in Civic Center Park, in front of the state capitol. But seeing as it was NYE and cops were afoot, let alone the potential for CCTV complications of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force-kind, we opted for a wide open field behind the Museum of Nature and Science, overlooking a lake and the skyline of Denver. We placed it in the snow, covered the feet and made it look like it was a little more "planted".
Then we left a note, hopefully to help anyone who saw it understand it, possibly avoiding a bomb squad scenario.
The location proved to be rather iconic. There it would be less likely to be disturbed by vandals or drunks, and would probably be first seen by joggers or families visiting the zoo or museum. Plus, you know... science museum. :science:
We left the park quickly and quietly, just barely missing a patrol of several cop cars. I had anticipated that getting it into place would be way harder. We arrived home around 4am and promptly passed the **** out.
The next afternoon we visited the museum and, to my surprise, found the Monolith to still be standing.
Obligatory sun-over-the-edge picture.
And here are some REALLY big images of it we took that night.
You could actually see it quite clearly on the News4 webcam, at least in the daylight. It also appeared on News4 whenever they brought up weather for the Denver area. There would be a shot of downtown, with the temperatures superimposed, and a little Monolith down near the bottom! It stayed in front of the museum for 4 days, then the cops came and took it away.
So yeah, it wasn't 9 or 11 feet tall, but it was still very imposing. And the edges weren't as precise as I'd like but, oh well. One day when I have a great big back (or front) yard, I'll build a full-scale version and just keep it there. My only real regret was not taking those glow-in-the-dark star stickers and putting them all over the inside of the skin...
