By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret News staff writer

      Let other people grow the world's largest pumpkin or drive a lawn mower through all 50 states. Derek Dyer's bid for the Guinness Book of World Records is "world's largest disco ball." That's because Dyer likes disco balls — and because the record seems more manageable than, say, world's oldest man.
      Dyer, a 26-year-old Salt Lake artist and events organizer, hopes to unveil his creation at the city's First Night celebration on New Year's Eve 2002-03.
      And he is trying to lure the Bee Gees to sing for the occasion.
      Shiny, hypnotic and reminiscent of disco clubs of the 1970s and '80s, disco balls may seem a symbol of all that is frivolous and hyped. But in their simple, quirky glow, Dyer sees a symbol of the dynamic, romantic and magical.
      His ball will be 10 feet in diameter, which will make it 2-feet 4-inches larger than the current record holder, a disco ball at the Mayan Club in Los Angeles. The 2-feet 4-inch difference is bigger than most disco balls themselves, Dyer noted with satisfaction.
      First, though, he has to build it.
      Dyer has amassed 32 foam blocks — about $2,000 worth — and glued them together into eight 5-foot cubes. Now he's cutting the edges off the cubes to form a rounded shape. Next he will cover the ball with sheets of 1/8-inch mirror, scored into 3-inch squares. Inside the eight cubes will be a steel core, and on top of the whole glittery sphere will be a motor that will rotate the ball at varying speeds.
      Dyer said his disco ball will eventually weigh 300 to 400 pounds, which means that when it's used at concerts, a crane will have to lift it into place.
      His big plan — after the hoped-for First Night/Bee Gees debut — is to have the disco ball tour with U2, and then find a permanent home at a nightclub. He's hoping the nightclub will want to buy the disco ball and then he'll donate a portion of the proceeds to a charity that promotes diversity.
      Diversity is the disco ball's theme, and in fact Dyer sometimes refers to it as the "diversity ball."
      "We all reflect each other," he explains about the ball's metaphor. "The person I am talking to today is in a way a reflection of all the people I've ever talked to." A lot of the world's problems, he said, are "a result of people not appreciating each other's differences."
      "I come up with several big ideas every day," Dyer said. "I drive my girlfriend crazy."
      What kind of ideas? "I want to . . . oh boy . . . eventually I want to own and maintain a big castle that houses an artists' community." In the past he has been the brains behind such shows as Cataclysmic, an art show devoted to cats.
      Currently, Dyer is a graphic designer and the owner of a gallery at 850 S. Main. This is where he is building the disco ball, on view through the gallery's window.
      Bob Farrington, executive director of the Downtown Alliance, which sponsors First Night, confirms that it is interested in the ball and the event. "We're always game for big ideas and something different," he says, "as long as it fits in with the arts celebration and is participatory. As long as it's about having fun with art."
      If the Bee Gees show up, that's even better.