Some combination of Fighting the Rooster (about Hollywood) and Miss Atomic Bomb which I listened to Saturday Night (probably I first heard about it from JM) provided the chromosones for the dream I had.

Somewhere in Hollywood in an empty lot the trucks pulled up and the setup began.  At night, you could see the result.  A towering cathedral church made out of canvas and wire and stage smoke and spotlights.  The effect was impressive, though perhaps more prop than reality.

Along the soaring white front of the tent cathedral, a rectangle of light was projected with a message inside, then shut off.  Then a smaller message elswhere on the canvas front.  Then another message elsewhere.  Then another smaller message.  Then the first message again.

Repentance

 This means you.

Forgiveness.

This means you.

There weren’t exactly huge lines of people crowding in but there were people who came by ones and twos and in little knots, from all walks of life, mostly telling themselves it was from curiosity but mostly really in hope for the messages.  The entrants included a few actors and actress types who had achieved some celebrity.

Inside, more stage smoke and spotlights, but also fleeting holograms of worshippers projected into the smoke.  You filed down the row between the pews to a smaller chapel where, one by one, with no one else to see, already combatting the taste for publicity for those who had it, a priest/minister figure received the entrants.  He identified their need for repentance and forgiveness, explained what it was and why, and baptized the number who accepted his offer.  The number was high.

To the actors and actresses, he explained that continuing their resolution of repentance would be difficult unless they were willing to make a radical changes to their work and sociality.  Whether it was drugs, fornication, broken marriages, or not being true in their acting (not necessarily acting in lousy films, no one can control the quality of the work they are asked to do, but pretending that lousy stuff was good until they came to believe it themselves).  They would have to make a break.

It had been prophesied, he told them, that of all their kind who came through the door, only one would stick.  And yet, for that one, the whole spectacle had come into being.