At St. Petersburg’s ‘Multiverseland,’ searching for meaning

In the backyard of a North Kenwood corner lot, amid the pastel bungalows, an extraterrestrial explosion hides under a canopy of trees.

Here, behind a fence with a “No Trespassing” notice, string lights flash to organ music, inflatable orbs hang from branches, E.T. plays a tambourine.

“Recent advances in quantum physics indicate the existence of ‘parallel universes,’” a placard proclaims. “Are there other versions of you?”

Welcome to Multiverseland.

In an alternate universe, the theory goes, maybe I’m an accountant. I work an office job. I’m quick to finish my taxes. I go home to an elderly foster dog called Steve.

In this universe, I am a journalist. It’s 92 degrees. I’m standing in the Florida humidity talking to a man in an alien suit.

Dr. GoodVibes

He goes by Dr. GoodVibes.

Multiverseland is his brainchild, an “intergalactic mini theme park” devoted to the exploration of alternate universes. The architect has faced stark choices in his own life. This is his ode to possibilities. It’s a science lesson and spiritual awakening dressed like a county fair on LSD.

Physicists and philosophers have been exploring theories of the multiverse for decades. They posit the idea of other universes, with endless versions of you and me.

Though physical evidence of a multiverse has yet to be discovered, cosmologists say the concept hangs on probability. The chance of our own human existence is so slim, some say, that our universe must be one of infinite permutations. Some, inevitably, contain beings whose lives nearly mirror our own.

Dr. GoodVibes became interested in the multiverse in the 1970s after he picked up a philosophy textbook at a Santa Barbara, California, bookstore.

In recent years, movies like “Doctor Strange” and the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once” have dazzled audiences with tales of universe-hopping crusaders. But the multiverse isn’t a matter of pitting good vs. evil, says Dr. GoodVibes.

“Then what is it about?” I ask, gesturing to the sea of neon props. “What is this about?”

“Well …” he says, adjusting his antennas. “You’re not the only you.”

In the beginning

We met for the first time six days prior, when Dr. GoodVibes was wearing a T-shirt and flip-flops and introduced himself as Brian LoVerde. He’s kind-eyed and mild-mannered, in his 80s, though he looks younger.

He ushered me into the yard alongside his partner in Multiverse affairs, a petite woman who goes by “Dean Smiley” and really does smile a lot.

It took a couple of thousand dollars and three years to build Multiverseland, LoVerde told me.

He and Dean Smiley, a Navy veteran turned performer whose actual name is Wallis Southworth, used to have a traveling science show. They’d tour fairs, little theaters and planetariums, singing songs LoVerde wrote — a sort of Schoolhouse Rock of alternate realities.

When COVID killed the tour and LoVerde was marooned in his St. Petersburg home, he decided to create an attraction that, when the pandemic was over, would bring the audience to him.

He scoured the Internet for celestial regalia, ornaments and inflatable spaceships. Friends expanded his collection, bringing chairs and tables found on the curb. Neighbors didn’t seem to notice the exotic gaggle growing next door. By summer, they were hosting open houses.

The efforts culminated in a 10-station guided tour, like a route through a museum if the museum was reminiscent of a laser tag arena housed on some guy’s lawn. At each station, a song by LoVerde and Southworth introduces visitors to a message about the multiverse.

There’s a hall of mirrors. A cosmic disco with a checkered dance floor. A firepit to “burn bad vibes.”

There are aliens and spaceships and suns and moons and a random stuffed pug the size of a toddler.

There’s inspirational signage: “Life is Beautiful” and “Be Gentle, Be Loving, Be Kind” — but also, “Everything You See is a Symbol” and “You are an Actor in a Play.”

The decor, LoVerde said, is mostly for fun, to help people into a metaphysical state of mind. But it’s also representative of the ways he thinks about the multiverse, a flexible blend of deep science and spirituality.

As I followed LoVerde, I thought of a David Bowie lyric: “hazy cosmic jive.”

Multiverseland builds to one overarching message: for every big decision you’ve made, every crossroad you’ve faced, another version of you, in another universe, has taken the opposite path.

“You are more than the choices you’ve made in this life,” LoVerde said. “Maybe, when you were younger, you dreamed of becoming an artist, but you went to business school instead. Well, in a different life, you became an artist.”

He thinks about alternate selves as feeding into one higher self. Something like a soul.

“That alternate self is still a part of you,” LoVerde said. “So maybe now, in this life, you pick up a paint brush again.”

In an alternate universe

In an alternate universe, I visited Multiverseland with the masses.

At an open house, I interviewed children smeared with face paint as they twisted and popped to the music of the GoodVibes Boogie Band.

I talked to hippies and scientists and wanderers. People who buy into the theory and those who came to contest it. I watched folks who drifted in by accident or curiosity, each finding their own meaning in the mix.

But that was in a universe far, far away.

In this one, the open house was canceled for rain.

A quiet life

The following week, Dr. GoodVibes invited me back. This time he welcomed me inside.

His home had a cabinlike feel, with a piano by the door and no overhead lighting. These were the bones of a quiet life, in contrast to the kitschy park growing outside. Here, Dr. GoodVibes shed all persona.

“Is Multiverseland about a message,” I asked him, “or is this a performance after all?”

Sure, he’s an entertainer, Dr. GoodVibes said. But the performance is not the point. Beneath the zany surface, he’s trying to say something real.

In an alternate universe, perhaps, I am an Olympic swimmer.

Dr. GoodVibes is a renowned composer.

Maybe Dean Smiley is the dean of an Ivy League school.

But if you can’t contact these other versions of yourself, I wondered aloud, why would their existence matter?

I asked: “Does it bring you comfort to think about your other lives?”

Roads not taken

Brian LoVerde was born during World War II to a middle-class family in north Chicago.

His father played the accordion, and when LoVerde turned 5, he picked it up, too. At 12, he added the piano.

As an undergraduate in the 1960s, he studied music performance. He thought he might be a band director or a concert musician, but he pursued a graduate degree in theater at Boston University instead.

On the East Coast, he apprenticed with a well-known theater critic, and New York’s nearness made it possible to run in circles with up-and-coming Broadway composers of the likes of Stephen Sondheim.

This, he felt, was where he belonged.

But the backdrop of this era was war.

The draft had begun, and the choice was stark: be sent to the front lines of Vietnam or stay in school. LoVerde returned to the Midwest for a fellowship and felt that dream life disappear.

In the 1970s, he was lost — 30 and drifting. His high school sweetheart left him for another man. After the divorce, depression crept in. He spent days working in the sheet music department of a local shop, nights as the music director for a dinner theater. Though he longed to write scores and scripts, he lacked inspiration, something he cared enough about to pick up a pen.

Then LoVerde walked into that bookstore and found the multiverse.

He began composing songs and charting a show, a practice that lifted some of the weight of being human.

“I wanted to pass that on to other people,” he said.

LoVerde built his life as a traveling entertainer. He and his cast spent decades on the road — weeks in Kentucky, months performing in Florida. They took trips to Arizona and California and Michigan, with writers documenting their wanderings in columns about the eclectic frontman with ambitious dreams. In 1984, they performed at the New Orleans World Fair.

Dean Smiley joined him in the 1990s. She was a St. Petersburg native with a sociology degree and a sweet voice who hadn’t found a job that stuck. The multiverse message resonated with her, too.

“We want to help people see that they’re not limited,” she said.

In a divided nation, Dr. GoodVibes hopes Multiverseland offers a way to shed some of that collective sadness, the apathy that keeps people frozen.

“What you do in this life matters,” he said. “It’s important to try.”

So Dr. GoodVibes inflates a three-eyed alien. He writes another song for the GoodVibes Boogie Band. He hangs a sign that reads, “Never Give Up” on paper shaped like a star.

How to visit

To learn more and plan a free visit, check out multiverseland.space.

Dr. GoodVibes and Dean Smiley said they hope to hold more open houses and open Multiverseland to the public this fall.