change the pear 🍐

change the pear vol. 6 10 Nov 2022

stanisław witkiewicz, 1894, autumn
stanisław witkiewicz, 1894, autumn

hello! i’m back. someone (elete or hayley maybe?) once said that the year doesn’t start until lunar new year has passed, so here’s the first newsletter of the real new year. happy year of the rabbit! it’s a year of escaping demons, of running fast and free, of being swift and full of tricks, of becoming ungovernable. let’s get it.

on repeat

  1. heartbreak feels so good by fall out boy. is there any better feeling than your favourite band releasing music that reminds you exactly why you love them? i listened to this song once, immediately texted alfie, “this one’s for us”, and proceeded to listen to it nonstop for the next 2 hours. we could cry a little / cry a lot / don’t stop dancing don’t dare stop / we’ll cry later or cry now—louder!!! i know pete wentz didn’t actually write these lyrics for my own personal catharsis…but it feels like he did. anyway, patrick described the upcoming fob album as “from under the cork tree part 4”, and i cannot wait to listen to it. in the same interview, he says i sit around and try and help other people tell their stories. and it’s always a joy when i get to help pete tell his. like if you cried! i have a thousand thoughts about pete and patrick and the deep understanding they’ve built through their commitment to creative collaboration over the years—but they’ve always said it better themselves than i ever could.

  2. black eye by vernon. i cannot emphasise enough how much this song is straight out of the pop punk heyday years. it’s not derivative, or inspired, or a fresh new take. it belongs right back there in the trenches of 2006.

  3. the heart is a muscle by gang of youths. i will not play this out discreetly, it is real and unashamed / i am human now and terrified, but i want it all the same.

currently watching

audrey and i finished season 2 of young royals and it was fantastic. i was on the edge of my seat the entire time! i thought the tension built up so perfectly; when wille stood up to give his speech after spending the entire episode having an extreme anxiety breakdown, i genuinely had no idea how it was going to go. and then when he went off script and said “fuck tradition, that was me having gay sex in that video! and i liked it!” i was shaking crying screaming throwing up. period!!! as totally ridiculous as the whole premise of this show is, what i love is that at its core it’s about letting yourself seize the love that is there for the taking; about being open and honest and loyal; about trying to do right by someone else. when simon said i love you to wille i felt it physically in my chest. no notes whatsoever! perfect television! season 3 can’t come soon enough!

i also started watching sherwood. sorry but it’s january and sometimes you just need a hit of copaganda! there’s something so profoundly relaxing and compelling about the beats of these bbc procedural shows. this one takes place in a nottinghamshire mining village, which was predominantly a UDM town during the strikes (aka breaking the NUM line and going back to work in the pits). although it’s set 30 years on, the town’s memory is long and the scars of that divisive time still haven’t healed. i’m intrigued, but also prepared to roll my eyes at whatever half-baked political analysis is inserted in there.

last seen

hareem and i watched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind on the weekend, which i’d never seen before. i found it very moving, but in a hopeful sort of way. made me think a lot about love and loss and change and failure and trying. how loving someone else means seeing them fully, the less-than-perfect parts, the parts that they might rather hide. and in turn, opening yourself up to being seen by them. a quote i saw floating around on the internet recently: “love is messy but growth from love is realistic and profound”. & that growth means being honest with yourself about the messy parts, the things you aren’t proud of saying or doing, the moments you wish you could take back. loving people means knowing that they have the capacity to hurt you, just as you have the capacity to hurt them. and the movie says: yes, we’re all flawed, and sometimes we hurt each other. but what if we loved each other through that? what if we stayed, what if we tried? what if we risk the heart? even if it fails, even if you make the same mistakes, even if you get hurt again. and no matter what, it’s all worth remembering.

here’s helena fitzgerald on the topic:

Here we are in the new year, and I want every lesson to be about love. Tell me a story about how the unlikely things work out; tell me about how people stay together when everyone thinks they shouldn’t. Tell me about the bad, rash decisions that last through time, that make it down the years. Tell me that there are rooms where nobody else can go, where best practices and good wisdom cannot reach. Tell me everyone was wrong about keeping your heart safe; tell me that there’s no way to do that anyway. Tell me that what is public is also private, that the known can stay unknown, that something precious can be hoarded away from the light. Tell me that the loud, show-off, screeching things can go home together in the quiet part of the night and close all the windows. Tell me I have more time left, that there is still something beautiful coming, that sometimes delusions work out, and that we can build a life on the thinnest and most selfish feeling, running blue with it down a long day, setting the end of the summer on fire. Tell me a big stupid story about love. Put love up on the projector in the town square so we can all stop our days, walking by on the way to run errands, to stand around and marvel that even now it still happens. Here in the cold at the bottom of the winter, I am looking in every stranger’s window, hoping that they’ll tell me their secrets, and hoping that the secrets are about love.

reading

i recently finished zhang yueran’s cocoon, which was the first time i’ve read a novel by a chinese writer that wasn’t genre fiction. i’m still mulling over my thoughts on it, but it made me think of a fanfiction siyang and i love which is tagged “mommy issues”, “daddy issues”, “issues”. feels appropriate for a novel about intergenerational trauma, buried secrets, loveless marriages and two deeply unhappy children who grow up in the shadow of all of this. it also prompted a conversation with hayley about the chinese fiction that gets preferentially translated into english, and what that says about the west’s voyeuristic preoccupation with certain parts of chinese history. like i said, still chewing on these things, but i’d definitely like to read more chinese novels this year. if anybody has recommendations, let me know!

miscellaneous

discussing in and out lists for 2023 with friends. elete and i both buying each other spreads as a gift. the lino print winter solstice card marisa made for me. this square from the AIDS quilt. this quote by hanif abduraqib. the triumphant energy from the crowd in this live performance of flare by LUCY. jimin and hobi and monet. delicious pasta, wine and fried bread with saskia, lydia, alex and dorothy. the hand cream hareem got me for christmas. a beautiful roasted tomato tart cooked by jun. arenike describing happy valley as being about people choosing to love each other. this quote by louise glück & accompanying art. this poem by dorianne laux. THE BEAUTIFUL BOOK EM BOUND FOR ME BY HAND!!! reading audrey’s manuscript. sitting across from claire in a pizza restaurant and feeling every muscle in my brain relax. finally getting a warm winter coat. the light on the durham cathedral walls. a calendar of children’s art. eating sushi with hareem and asa. getting cosy under a blanket in our airbnb. watching knives out with hareem. running along the old railway path in the frosty early mornings in durham and seeing the most beautiful sunrises.

thank you for reading, as always! see you soon.