change the pear vol. 4 13 Oct 2022

hello, welcome to volume 4! we’re well into october which means i’m entering peak derangement season. buckle up!!

on repeat

1. jopping by superm. for non-kpop fans, let me briefly give you some context: imagine you take 7 of the most talented boys from a collection of different boybands to create a supergroup. then you make them sing a song where the lyrics go “when we jumping and it’s popping, we jopping”. yes, it is total nonsense. it’s a completely ludicrous song. and yet (stay with me here) it’s also a masterpiece, purely because these boys are giving it everything. they are performing their hearts out. they are singing DOWN. they are spitting straight facts. idk, there’s something weirdly comforting about watching people flawlessly execute an incredibly stupid concept. maybe i’m extremely psychologically unwell but also maybe it’s the best song of all time?

2. returner by gang of youths. the lyrics of this song make me feel like the physical embodiment of the kermit the frog being set on fire meme. please don’t ask me to elaborate.

currently watching

i continue to be obsessed with the adventures of Tony Soprano and his gaggle of Italian Americans. i finished season 1 with my dad (who has obviously seen the entire show) and am now well into season 2. recently watched an episode where they go to italy and paulie has his Diaspora Kid moment (literally, he meets this woman and is like wow….my grandfather was born in the same town as you… i yelled. we’ve all been there paulie!!) i think i said this last time but i find the rhythm of this show so soothing. it’s been a while since i watched something so episodic, where every episode has a resolution or a conclusion of some kind. is this just the TV i’ve personally been watching lately or has TV overall changed to this pattern of having long, drawn out arcs and no real distinction between episodes? anyway the writing of this show is so good, so tight and impactful but not in your face about it, and the acting is even better. absolutely loved the plotline in season one involving tony’s mother and uncle jun, culminating in this bonkers scene where [spoilers] tony finds out from the FBI that his mother was plotting to kill him and his therapist is like i told you you had mommy issues. SCREAMING. livia soprano you will not see heaven!!!

last seen

elete and i finally finished watching succession season 3! yes, we’re about a year late but both of us are loyal bitches and when we promised to watch the rest of the season together we stuck to it. actually, now i think about it, succession is a recent show that is quite episodic. particularly this season, where it felt like SO MUCH happened in each episode. when we were watching the finale i suddenly remembered the season 2 finale and how excited i was for kendall, only to watch him completely crash and burn this season. his arc really is tragic in the classic sense (sorry!!! it’s true!!!) like you know he’s doomed and of course there would be no out for him, and yet you’re hoping for it anyway. and it’s that hope that really guts you. that final episode, where he’s sat on the floor completely breaking down……whew!!! jeremy strong you delivered king!!! i have to say i wasn’t expecting the siblings to make a united stand, but i loved it. of course, at the end of it all, it’s kendall sat in the dust and the only people around him are shiv and roman. of course. how could it be any other way?

i also watched turning red with sarah on the weekend. so many people have told me: you, SPECIFICALLY, need to watch this film, which meant i knew it had to be about hyperfixation, and it was! it so perfectly captures what it’s like to be intensely obsessed with a boyband. the girls who get it? they truly, truly get it. the amount of times one of the characters would say something unhinged and deranged about their boys and i would just quietly go, “me”. yes, this movie is about and for 13 year olds!!! but some of us are still in the trenches fighting for our lives!!! i felt like the storyline involving the main character meilin and her mother was a bit too simplistic and easily wrapped up for my tastes but i guess it is ultimately for adolescent/teen girls who probably don’t need to be told “sometimes it just is what it is and what it is can often be intensely and deeply complicated with no real resolution”.  anyway !

reading

i just started a new novel by a young author about being a queer young millennial attempting to live and love. honestly, i don’t know why i haven’t learned my lesson with these books yet. i keep picking them up in the hopes that this book will finally be the one to move me, make me think about the meaning of relation, make me love the characters, even though i know i’m going to end up disappointed and pissed off. and once again, i am disappointed and pissed off! why are all these books that purport to be about “flawed people learning to love each other” actually about people who are incredibly cruel to each other and who are totally uninvested in trying to be a good or kind person?

i’m sick of reading about people who i would hate in real life. like, i’m only 50 pages into this book and the main character has already been fatphobic multiple times, anti-black towards a woman who was interested in her romantically, said that butch lesbians are “as bad as any men”, and also transphobic. ??? why am i reading this??? it feels like the author has decided that the only way for a person to be flawed is for them to actively hold and espouse terrible political opinions, which is an idea i rebel against wholly and fully. to be flawed, to fuck up, to fail is so human. but it doesn’t have to equal holding structurally harmful views. not to be on my fanfiction agenda at all times but i could open up archiveofourown dot org and find over one hundred stories that are about people who mess up, hurt each other & miscommunicate and yet who aren’t total arseholes and, importantly, are treated with care by the narrative. by which i mean they are given the opportunity to grow, change and learn from their mistakes. they are flawed, yes, but they are also written as people who are trying to be good, trying to do better by the people they love.

another example of this is sorrow and bliss by meg mason, a truly incredible novel about how to live and love, to forgive and be forgiven. it’s not overly sentimental, not cloying or twee: real hurt is done by people to each other, and they have to search for how to move forwards. more than any other novel i’ve read, it shows how it takes work to be in relation to one other. it feels real, unlike any of these other millennial novels about flawed people and difficult friendships. when reading these books i’m continually told that people understand one another, that they love and care about their friends despite being horrible to each another,  and sorry but i simply don’t believe it! i want to read books with a heart, with characters that fuck up and fail but who care about the people and the world around them, who change and are changed by each other. is that too much to ask for? i don’t think so.

in a total 180 from that book, i am also reading john reed’s ten days that shook the world, an incredible history of the october revolution. specifically, it’s a meticulous account of the events just preceding and following the seizure of state power by the bolsheviks. i think what this close focus accomplishes is a real emphasis on how chaotic and tumultuous those days were and how difficult it was for them to maintain control of the revolution. at the time, nobody thought the bolsheviks would last longer than 3 days in power, and reading this book you can see why: the forces stacked against them were so powerful. only with rigorous discipline and the might and dedication of the industrial proletariat could they fight back against the almost-instantaneous counter-revolution, make an alliance with the peasantry, navigate through the strikes of every government ministry and consolidate power. it really brings home what an achievement the revolution was—not only the victory in the class struggle but everything that came afterwards. it’s honestly mind-blowing when you think about it. as everyone reading this will know, i think lenin was that bitch but please allow me to reiterate: he really was that bitch!!!

miscellaneous

seeing deer up close on a perfect sunny autumn walk in richmond park. dumplings with chilli oil. sitting by the beach in southend with siyang for hours before recording the latest episode of our deranged podcast (stay tuned!) this poem by marie howe. this seamus heaney quote. thinking things might be rough but at least i’m not 15 again. going climbing with alfie. trying and mostly failing to explain general relativity three drinks in at the pub. hareem sleeping over at my house for the very first time in our six year long friendship (and proceeding to expose my childhood art to the world). this incredibly fruity picture of ATEEZ. eating lentil stew in claire’s beautiful brockley house. wooyoung calling out plagiarism (and he’s so correct for doing so). listening to elete’s voice notes. chilli garlic sauce. vine leaves turning bright red. mist on the marshes in the mornings.

thank you for reading! see you next time.