Thursday, April 3, 2003; Page H03

Let Paris have its Eiffel Tower. Soap Lake, Wash., is hoping for a bubbling 60-foot lava lamp.

Brent Blake, a local design consultant, was looking for a way to bring tourist dollars to sleepy Soap Lake, population 1,760. Once a bustling spa town with mineral baths, the little burg 180 miles east of Seattle is too far off the beaten path to get much traffic anymore.

Then inspiration struck: the world's largest lava lamp. It's not built yet, you understand, and Blake has no idea what such a thing would cost. But he is talking to Lava World International in Chicago, the U.S. manufacturers of the lamp, as well as chemists and engineers.

"We have to make sure we get big globs in there instead of little globs," says Blake. He is setting up a foundation to raise money for the project and cheerleading for it among Soap Lake residents. He also set up a Web site -- www.giantlavalamp.com -- and started peddling posters ($10 apiece).

The oozing glow and flow of lava lamps had a hypnotic effect on a certain element of the '60s generation. Today, 40 years after its invention by an English designer, the lamp is still a hot item among teenagers and nostalgic baby boomers. According to executives of Lava World, which holds the recipe for the lamp's bubbling goo in this country, more lava lamps were sold in the 1990s than the 1960s, '70s and '80s combined. Lavas have been spotted in Austin Powers's groovy movie apartment and in the White House set on an episode of "West Wing."

And the next time you're in Soap Lake, watch for lava lamps glowing in the windows of almost every house, motel and shop. Far out.