While a teaching artist at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, I was struck by Isaiah Zagar’s description of his work as providing us “a sense of heaven and hell.” I began to refine my dreamy lamp, born from explosive extraction and combustion for the purposes of soothing and guiding us. Three pairs of lamps performed theater on Astro-turf, playing lovers, fighters, and traitors. On each stage, wires dominated, suggesting limbs, linework, and even the reins of Plato’s chariot. Thus, one object becomes a profound expression of the boundaries between the personal and the political, between the real and the imagined, and between estrangement and reunion.