10:02 PM 6/7/2017
Going from minor to major Buffynicities,
Buffynicity #1, a line of Dawn’s
DAWN: (smiling) Right. Assume would make you an ass out of me. Heh, um, or, uh, something.
I was thinking of this joke yesterday or the day before.
Buffynicity #2, (from the script)
Willow starts at something she feels, unseen by us.
WILLOW
It’s… hot.
AMY
Come on.
With that, Amy STEPS THROUGH AN INVISIBLE PORTAL and disappears. Scared and excited, Willow takes a deep breath and follows suit.
Right before the episode I was visualizing a scene just like this from my “Black Magician Manhunter” script, with the angel in that story disappearing by just such a mysterious effect – although she didn’t walk through a portal, she just willed it. However I was imagining in detail just exactly that mysterious gradual fading without sound that was depicted in the show.
These two Buffynicities are minor and I was thinking “Oh, well, possibly I shouldn’t even bother to record them." I was getting a little ho-hum about it, still ambiguous from the letdown after that huge peak during the week after Buffy’s mother died in season 5. But then I had one that I feel compelled to report.
Buffynicity #3: (from the script)
INT. DEALER’S PLACE – INNER ROOM – NIGHT
It’s later. Music is playing. Willow is nowhere in sight. Wasted on magic, Amy dances in the center of the room. Rack is watching, occasionally moving a hand – doing subtle spells… Amy spins to the music, faster and faster – until she is just a whirling BLUR.
We PAN UP and find WILLOW ON THE CEILING. She’s wasted, lolling there, pinned to it, then moving, crawling across it…
CLOSE ON WILLOW’S EYES
WHAT SHE SEES
The room beneath her becomes organic. Rack and Amy are not in sight as chairs and tables grow into trees – very "WhereThe Wild Things Are.” It’s stunning.
The Buffynicity here is that the music is “Black Cat Bone” by Laika and this afternoon was the first time I had ever listened to that song all the way through. Although I’ve been listening to the Buffy soundtracks for a few weeks, I’ve mostly been focusing on a handful of songs, “Pain”, “Ballad for Dead Friends”, and a couple of others, only gradually expanding my listening. “Bohemian Like You” was another early one, but only recently have I been listening closely to the others . Another one I listened to all the way through today for the first time was “Pavlov’s Bell”. But although I’d sampled “Black Cat Bone” once or possibly twices since I got the disc, playing the first few seconds because the title seemed interesting, I have never listened to it until this afternoon. I was rocking out to it. And then it wound up being in the episode.
Even though I can’t prove this happened, it was a definite sign for me that I have to drop my insecurities about what people will believe about these things. I knew the instant it happened that “they” were telling me that this is all real in one way or another, and that I have to completely own up to these Buffynicities I’m recording. It won’t be apparent to observers, but this moment represented a shift in my understanding of these signs. This is my guides telling me that they have shown me enough, that I have to accept that part of the development of this is to get used to making claims for my experience that others will call outlandish. There’s no point in second guessing myself anymore. I can’t hold myself at arms length, I just have to state it as my reality and not wonder what others are going to think.
Fucking hell, I looked at that song on my playlist for weeks and never got around to listening to it. See, there are so many “girly” songs on the soundtrack that I have to emotionally shift gears to get into them. I went first for the hardest sounding ones and stuck with them for a while. Over time I am acclimating to the others, but it’s been slow going. I always thought the title, “Black Cat Bone” sounded right for me but I never got around to listening to this song until today and then there it is in the episode I’m watching tonight. It’s not utterly spectacular but it drives home the point.
Which is important because “Tara” is still rocking my world, calling into question everything I believe about reality. She’s got more palpable presence than any spirit I’ve dealt with. Even my angels don’t reach directly into my mind and fuck with my head the way Tara does. She is the one who is pushing me right over the edge. I can’t wait to solve the mystery of who she really is. She’s so real that I was having a bit of a backlash against all this, but the “Black Cat Bone” Buffynicity has made the reality of all of it utterly clear.
12:09 AM 6/8/2017 I’ll record aspects tomorrow. I got too into some other things tonight and now I’m going to bed.