Time Lapse

It’s hard to catch the attention of a passer-by in San Francisco; you really have to work for it. For instance, I’ve been passing by fliers promising dolphin/human thought transference without a second glance for months. But today, an advertisement with tear-aways taped to a street light in front of Mehfil proved the tipping point. Yes, actually, I’d like one of your Time Cameras, Jejeune Institute, where do I send the money?

The picture of the device didn’t exactly instill confidence but the copy comfortingly informs us that:

The Radionic Camera developed in the 1960s by Octavio Coleman was capable of imaging the past and the future, and he published photographs demonstrating the effect. In the opinion of Coleman, “Time is a vector of the magnetic spectrum and that spectrum has a place in itself for events… There is a pre-physical world in which the camera might be expected to operate”.

While I wasn’t feeling compelled to try the number on the detached stub, a trip to the website revealed some eye-opening proof of performance.

No testimonials yet though I suppose the results speak for themselves.

As I walked along 2nd street after tearing off the chit, I suddenly began to notice that there was a flier nearly every ten feet: affixed to street posts and inside the abused metal newspaper boxes. Later, turning the corner at the Red Poppy on the way home in the Mission, there it was again, this time on a telephone pole. Paranoia set in. Just who were the Jejune Institute and why the over-anxious efforts to pry open my brain and shake up my complacent slog of a day?

IO9 was quicker to embrace Jejune’s sly humor and commitment to “Civic Mutation” and “Ontological Deconstructuralism” than I, so do yourself a favor and check out Annalee Newitz’s investigation to this quasi-cult of the fantastical, which she reveals as an elaborate campaign for what must be a thoroughly diverting example of an ARG.

Should you choose to shell out your hard-earned dollars for a Radionic of your very own and find it wanting, I imagine you might experience some difficulty as a consumer receiving satisfaction from an organization that can manipulate time and space with such facility. In such eventuality I direct your attention to Electric Work’s Viewmaster for Vladmasters, a steal at $8.50 and infused with the same spirit of do-it-yourself wonder that marks Jejeune’s “Believe It Or Not…” blanket marketing efforts.