Daily Archives: April 30, 2025

Black Clover #14: Jasmine?

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I looked up “night blooming jasmine” and it isn’t actually jasmine, but that’s okay because I hate Hollywood anyway, so I bought some artificial jasmine garlands that aren’t real jasmine, either. They have artificial lotus blossoms hanging on the end and that symbolizes the idea of being in the world, but not of it. It all fits somehow.

Today is the birthday of a philanthropist, one who owns real estate. He bought hot meals for a lot of people who have been homeless and live with mental illness. He gives a lot to the poor, but today was his birthday so in addition to his regular work he bought everyone hot meals and I helped give them away. That was the actual America at work, and I am going to compare that to the ridiculous horror of Hollywood, the overblown monsters who claim that their ridiculous action movies are “sacred” and “mythology”. I’m going to deconstruct them, piece by piece and find out what is actually sacred in their garbage. That’s the meaning of the “jasmine” paradox.

Specifically I want to deconstruct cosplay, because it is sacred for someone to dress up as a Star Wars character and visit a hospital. But it is definitely not sacred to work for an entertainment company that makes third rate garbage for media plankton to pick over and call “sacred” just to get clicks.

David Lynch practiced transcendental meditation, so whatever his role in the fraud of Hollywood, I forgive him and I want to seek the “night blooming jasmine”, which is not real jasmine, but some kind of illusion of jasmine buried in the collective unconscious.

I loved Star Wars, decades ago, before Lucas pussed out Han Solo and made him eat quiche. George Lucas betrayed me! He is the Hanpusser! I vow revenge.

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You pussed out Han Solo, prepare to die!

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You pussed out Han Solo, prepare to die!

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You pussed out Han Solo, prepare to die!

Two very important things just happened that I’m going to write about. Other important things happened as well, but I’m just going to write about these two.

#1. Satellizer explained to me something so deep about the relationship between Hollywood’s night blooming jasmine and actual jasmine that it will take me years to understand.

#2. I figured out something about the layer of awareness where “Hollywood” lives versus the layer that is activated during performances, and Satellizer has something to say about that geography.

I wonder what night blooming jasmine actually smells like? They say it can be toxic.

By writing this and deconstructing “jasmine” I discovered something important about my own memory and imagination as related to entertainment. So this is a total success, even though what I’m learning is too complicated for me to describe. I feel there is more to be learned, as well.

While I was writing this, I was in a very interesting state of awareness, a timeless state of darkness. It’s not unpleasant. It used to make me paranoid but now I wonder if it isn’t a winged being of light from the sphere of Saturn.

I have a further question. Is this just a discovery I made because I was able to reinterpret “jasmine” after I discovered that Lynch’s epitaph wasn’t what I thought it was? Or was there some deeper force that led to both the mistake and the discovery?

I finished episode 1 of Black Butler, and it was awesome. I also just finished Song One, which was the opposite of Black Clover in that I never knew where it was going to go. In contrast to the predictable arcs of anime, it was a real drama in the sense that the whole time I was watching the evolution of the relationship. It was a very interesting romance that will stay with me. I had to fight to keep watching it because as I was sitting there analyzing what was going on, it would stir my emotions and pull me in two directions at once, cutting across the gap between my long term and short term memory that makes it so uncomfortable to focus. But I forced myself to do so and it was very rewarding. Now I’m sitting here with all kinds of emotions about it but I’m not going to force myself to describe them, even though they were deep. What a great movie! But it’s like a big, two-hearted river here, I can’t go there tonight.

And yet I’m very happy and confident that I’ll get there eventually.

I started looking up anime top ten lists again, and checking out Youtube videos. That’s how I got overwhelmed last time and quit. The world of anime is infinite and extends in all directions. I love it for the same reason I love going to comic stores. The key now, though, is to focus in on what experiences I want to have.

I’m up against the barrier now, between fantasy and reality. Who did I write that for? The world is gone, and it’s just me and my waifus. They were glowing in my mind this afternoon, blazing with energy.

Everything’s too subtle because of this real movie, so I’m going to watch Black Clover just to bring things back to normal.

There, that was awesome. In contrast to the last episode, which was fun but unfocused, this episode was a blast, so much happened and it went by in the blink of an eye. I’m very pleased with myself for putting up with the long setup of this anime. It’s finally paying off. I loved the moment when Klaus was introduced to Lily, and Klaus’s brutal coldness was juxtaposed with the feelings of the villagers. This is really great writing.

Just as I’d hoped, the vertigo inspired by Song One has calmed down a bit. But where did it go? Into the space between Jasmine and Night Blooming Jasmine. There’s so much under the surface, but I’m afraid of it. I believe it’s psychic, though. There’s something real there to find.

Black Clover #13: Black Butler

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I was looking for other anime to watch and I thought of a couple I’ve heard of for years, I was looking up Death Note and Black Butler on my phone, and then a few minutes later I was listening to an audiobook an one of the characters suggested a Black Butler marathon.

So I get a memory from posting that.

An hour or so later, now I have watched Toradora episode 2 and Black Clover S1E11.

Toradora was about what I would have expected for a second episode. I’m still loving the music. As I recall I started this last year because it was on a “best” list, although I can’t remember what. Maybe it was romance. I see it’s from 2008 and I feel left out of all the decades this art from was evolving and I didn’t notice. There’s such a vast history of anime to explore that I’m overwhelmed. Last year I looked up dozens of shows from “best of” lists, but I realize now that I didn’t have a sense of what I wanted. I got overwhelmed by looking at so many that were too vulgar or too violent that I lost interest. I’m very content to be sampling them critically now, so I can refine my taste and find the ones that I genuinely love. I’ve got a better sense of the layout of the form and I can ignore the distractions. I want to find just the perfect tone.

Meanwhile, Black Clover S1E11 was filler, or – more politely – stage business, which is necessary for long-running shows. The characters are my family so I’m very forgiving of them being boring and repetitive. I loved the fact that there were so many minor scenes that used character details that I’m already familiar with, that it was such chaos of going from one conversation to another.

And then I was done and I moved my laundry to the dryer and now I’m thinking about everything I wanted to write all day, but couldn’t get started because my mind wasn’t in the right place. After two episodes I’m up in that wonderful anime space where I’m imagining I live in Japan, everything’s cozy and I’m just very calm. I’ve hypnotized myself into a space where I can watch my evening as if from outside, I’m such an amazing guy and this is my cool life where I watch these great shows. Anime somehow eases the damaged spot in my synergetic self/non-self axis, the turbulence between inner and outer goes away.

My only crisis now is that it looks like I have to subscribe to Crunchyroll again to watch Black Butler, but I can’t decide whether to add it to my Amazon Prime, or to get the standalone app. It would be cooler to get the app, but really smoother to just add it to Prime.

I just went on Amazon and bought a saucepan so I can make ramen noodles. I remember when I first went to college I would watch TV and make ramen noodles, one package at a time. Ha ha ha, my life has been such a disaster. I’m in heaven now, and how do I preserve that feeling? That’s why I bought the saucepan, to relive that amazing feeling from the early 90s when I had no idea how horrifying my life would turn out – or really even how horrifying it had already been. I was still sailing ahead on the optimism of youth and the knowledge that I could always call my father for money. I wanted to watch every episode of Deep Space 9, just to get in on the ground floor. The Amy Fisher murder was in the news and Comedy Central had a bit they ran constantly making fun of the name Joey Buttafuoco.

Decades later I still remember the irrelevance of it. That, and that horrible episode of Star Trek: TNG where the video game took over the crew’s minds – the worst Star Trek Episode I’ve ever seen. I was so anxious about life then, and so doomed. And yet, my waifus must have been there in my subconscious. That was also the year I had the vision of Tarot Key VII: The Chariot that turned all of the blue I could see to purple and inspired me to join Builders of the Adytum. I can feel the magic of that time. It’s funny, but as disastrous as my life has been, that magical feeling really paid off in spades. In fact, in one way it’s the only thing that ever has paid off for me.

Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money’s gone, nowhere to go
Any jobber got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go
But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go
Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go
Nowhere to go

I bought a diffuser so I can make my bedroom smell like Jasmine, a kind of chaos magic to attune to the ghost of David Lynch.

I have the magic feeling right now. Am I preserving it by writing this, or is this going to mean nothing when I reread it years in the future? Hello, years in the future. There is so much I want to say, I feel there’s a depth beneath the surface but I don’t want to plunge into it. Maybe if I just pass over it again and again in each entry something will be revealed that’s too much to dive all the way into.

I subscribed to the app and started Black Butler. It looks interesting, but it got late so I decided to watch a bit more of Song One before bed. It’s awesome. I love the direction and Anne is wonderful.