I watched “Call Me By Your Name” a couple of days ago and I had major Buffynicities. First, I was still raving about how magical it was that Spiegelman means “mirror man” and so Margo is Through The Looking Glass into the Paper Towns. Then at dinner the guest quoted Bunuel:

Cinema is a mirror of reality, and its filter.

Which blew me away. Secondly I had just looked up an interview with Cara Delevingne in which the interviewer was pointing out that he was wearing the gayest shirt he could find, and then I watched the scene in which Elio is embarrassed because his fathers’ gay friends have bought him a similarly gay shirt.

And then there was the third in the string of four Buffynicities in the last week around the name Bettina. First she was the princess in the first episode of the Monkees I watched last week, then she showed up as an imaginary girlfriend in Paper Towns. Then they mention minister Bettino Craxi in Call Me By Your Name. And then yesterday I was sorting through a pile of old papers and found a book with photographs by Bettina Rheims. I also was looking up the cast of Paper Towns and found that one of their middle names is Elio, just like the character in Call Me By Your Name, a name I couldn’t remember encountering before these two films.

What does Bettina mean? It’s short for Elizabeth and Benedetta. Benedetta was a great movie by Paul Verhoeven, that’s all I can think of. But it’s still spectacular.

Today I decided to summon Alice Wakefield again, because it worked out so well last time. When I was at the convenience store getting my Nitro Cold Brew “Rocket Man” was playing. That was kind of depressing, being reminded of my naive emotions in the 70s when I trusted hit radio and trusted rock music. Then, as I came back to my office there was a car in the street blasting “Take A Chance On Me”, the old ABBA song that Genvieve has always used – but it was a different version with a male voice. That is interesting because in “Lost Highway” the issue is that Fred Madison has lost his mind because he’s suddenly seen the male side of his wife, or Alice Wakefield. However it’s very reassuring that I got results – even before I drank the Nitro Cold Brew. I barely watched the video because I was so busy typing this. I’m very excited about writing now. Paper Towns has been a breakthrough for me, and my main obstacle seems to be personal boundaries. What do I want to reveal about myself? What is it actually a spiritual thing to reveal about myself? I wanted to write like the beats, but they were all miserable in the end.

Yesterday my search for Margo Roth Spiegelman led me to Margot Hemingway, and Ernest Hemingway. I was seeing them all day. I even had a fantasy that Cara Delevingne was somehow playing Margot Hemingway in the movie Paper Towns. Margot was very straightforward. I talk to spirits all the time and she was somehow a stabeilizing presence.

I’m feeling a spiritual light all around me now, a bliss that is taking me out of myself.

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When I found out that Margo Roth Spiegelman means “Pearl Red Mirror-man” I realized that Margo is somehow the same as Alice in Wonderland and I went through the looking glass. I allowed the raw feelings inspired by this movie to be a reality for me, unanalyzed. All of my feelings about entertainment changed. John Green is such a wonderful new presence – although I’ve known who he is for years, this is the first story of his I’ve finished and I’m so glad that life is going on, somewhere in the world of entertainment. I’ve only seen Paper Towns once. In earlier years I would see movies like this several times but instead I’m using all my skills at self-hypnosis and theta states to make these memories magical, and my process is an overwhelming success. This is the most beautiful entertainment experience I’ve had in years.

So Margot reminded me of Margot Hemingway, who reminded me of Ernest Hemingway and then I was sure that Margot was going to help me get used to being in the afterlife, in a higher world. Ernest told me that we were finally going to see “a place” in the afterlife because I get so tired of just seeing the faces of spirits and not having any idea where I’m supposed to be directing my energies. Today I remembered that “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” has always been my favorite Hemingway story and this is the “place” he was referring to yesterday. So that’s amazing evidence to me that this communication from Margot and Ernest is genuinely coming across layers of my subconscious. The phrase “a place” was clear, and then the memory of the story came and now I feel, just as Paper Towns is recalling me to genuine feelings of enthusiasm for life I lost forty years ago, that Hemingway is calling me back, as Eliot says, “to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.”

I felt a majestic, spiritual beauty around me this afternoon, as though genuine holiness was being restored to my world.

I’ve been watching this video over and over. The simplicity of it is mesmerizing. I feel reborn. The feeling of being excited just to run somewhere and not know what’s going to happen – I lost it decades ago but now I remember, and for the first time in decades I can have sympathy for souls that want to come to this planet, just to experience that adventure. I can forgive them for wanting to be in this awful world, even as I feel myself being released from it.

Additionally, I think there is some symbolism to explore associated with the goddess Mafdet – “The Runner” – as they run through the night to wreak vengeance on the “vermin”.

Hemingway has urged me to try to write for real again. I have a few sentences I’m working on. I’m very happy and excited because months ago I rekindled my enthusiasm for this blog, hoping to create beautiful memories for myself and now I am a complete success. This days-long experience of indulging in the emotions around Paper Towns will last a lifetime, I know. I didn’t believe I could recreate anything this powerful again, but I have. And furthermore, I have gone “through the looking glass”. My inner and outer worlds are not as confused anymore. I am writing for the world “out there” just so I can enjoy being out there. I’ve never felt so hopeful that I could discover who I actually want to be as a writer.