change the pear vol. 12 21 Apr 2023

hello. long time no see. to be honest, i have been (and am) very depressed. for a while that manifested as being too overwhelmed and stressed to have coherent thoughts on anything. and then a switch flipped and suddenly my head was entirely devoid of any thoughts whatsoever, which was overwhelming in a different way. i’ve been taking life at a slower pace these days, and slowly thoughts are coming back. i wanted to share some of them here.

on repeat

recently yoongi of BTS announced his upcoming solo album. as the release date approaches, he’s been talking about the things that motivated him to write music in the past (anger, confrontation) and how that’s changed now, saying that he’s become mellow. this is why i fear, despite yoongi’s undeniable talent, that i will not enjoy this solo album. no disrespect to yoongi, nor to anyone else who has found peace and contentment and uses those emotions for creative inspiration—also thinking here about rina sawayama’s latest album, which is all about how she’s been to therapy and is healing her inner child. unfortunately, my inner child is bad vibes and unpleasant to be around, so i can’t get involved with all that. i am interested only in people who are sick in the head mining their pain and misery to write songs for listeners who are also sick in the head (me).

seriously, though, music is the one creative art where i need people to be therapising themselves through the process of creating, not coming to creation in a new, happy, post-therapy state. i don’t feel the same way about art, or novels, or tv, or movies. but there’s something about the lyrical release that a song gives you that, for me, needs to be about tapping into those emotions you might be ashamed of, or wish you never felt, or don’t understand. it allows for a safe kind of vulnerability. being seen to feel deranges you, says anne carson. but if i raise my voice to join to yours in the song, i am protected by the knowledge that someone else has felt it too. the songs i keep coming back to are those that don’t hide those feelings, don’t paper them over with platitudes. it’s a hand outstretched in the darkness. one that reaches into the gaping maw at the heart of you, pulls out everything you think is wrong about yourself, and sets it loose. music offers that kind of catharsis like nothing else.

needless to say, the soundtrack of my last month has been the newest fall out boy album. i have so much more to say about this album and rest assured, i’ll be sharing those thoughts at some point, but for now let me leave you with my favourite deranged feeling tracks: so much (for) stardust. i used to be a real go-getter / i used to think it’d all get better. the kintsugi kid (ten years). i know i’m not your intended dose / we’re going low low low. fake out. we did it for futures that never came / and for pasts we’re never gonna change / buried alive inside my dreams but it was all a fake-out / and i don’t care, i just gotta figure out a window to break out.

i’ve also been listening to maggie rogers’ latest album, which i shamefully let fly over my head when it was released in july, possibly because i wasn’t in my feelings enough then. but i spent an entire car journey listening to it on repeat and it has rewired my brain. horses? she went off with that one. i see horses running wild and i wish i could feel like that for just a minute? girl, same. the bit in the middle where she just starts full-on wailing_?_ girl…SAME. honey also has its foot on my neck: i started out trying to do what’s right / but i lost it all in the middle of the night. woof.

side-note: since i wrote the above, yoongi’s music video trailer dropped, wherein he is seen beating someone to a pulp. there’s hope after all!

reading

i have been unable to read anything new for the last month, instead turning to some of my favourite books to soothe my depressed brain. here’s what’s been comforting me lately:

the earthsea cycle by ursula k. le guin. (re)reading these four stories is like drinking fresh water from a stream or finding a rock that fits perfectly in the palm of your hand. they are so profound but in the plainest, most simple way. everything feels right and true and real. you get the sense that things are happening as they must. that there is purpose to the world, and living in it. there is work to be done and people who are willing do it. it isn’t easy: light and darkness come together. people make mistakes. evil is done and harm happens, purposefully or not. but there will always be light. hurts can be healed. the tombs can be escaped. friends will go with you to the farthest shore, and you will come back again.

i found rereading tehanu particularly moving this time, being as it is a story about hurt and healing, and losing your purpose in the world, and finding your way back to being. here’s a quote from it:

Arha was taught that to be powerful she must sacrifice. Sacrifice herself and others. A bargain: give, and so get. And I cannot say that that’s untrue. But my soul can’t live in that narrow place—this for that, tooth for tooth, death for life…. There is a freedom beyond that. Beyond payment, retribution, redemption—beyond all the bargains and the balances, there is freedom.

the lord of the rings by j. r. r. tolkien_._ i watched the return of the king a couple of weeks ago, which cleaved me clean in two as always, and then i was like, i MUST reread lotr right NOW. i found it wildly emotional. éowyn’s defiance, faramir’s grace, gandalf’s trust. the loyalty and devotion of the hobbits. i can’t carry it for you, but i can carry you. the fact that the defeat of sauron will mean the loss of grace and beauty and splendour on middle earth—and yet it must be done. i love that the world is worth saving even though it is in decline. i love that there is always a star in the sky, that they cannot conquer forever. i love the pity and honour and faith and fidelity that abounds. and, i love, of course, frodo’s journey and his final stand, there at the end of all things. he carried too much, he went beyond the limits of his endurance. the burden he was put under was impossible. and yet nobody else could have done it, and so he had to do it. and he is a hero. and most importantly, he was never alone. this story will forever be a core part of my being and so, so important to me.

watership down by richard adams. truly one of my favourite books of all time. it’s the banding together of an unlikely group of characters to go on a journey of epic proportions! the courage! the spirit! the refusal to give up! being swift and full of tricks! fighting for freedom! the way they each find their own strength of character and come to rely on each other! defying all odds to find a place to call home!

our mutual friend by charles dickens. my toxic trait is that i think dickens slaps and nobody can convince me otherwise. this is my favourite of his books, and it remains a delightful soap opera romp of a story, packed with wry observations, memorable characters and moments that are simply screamingly funny. yes, it can be frustrating sometimes that dickens got paid by the word but 1) my boy has to eat and 2) it allows him to fully commit to the bit. more seriously, i find the way he writes about victorian london and the extreme poverty and deprivation people were living in very moving. he has deep empathy for their struggles and fiercely condemns the state institutions that profited from the exploitation of both the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat. that’s what i really love about dickens: he understands the ridiculousness of this life, but also treats it with the gravity it deserves.

less by andrew sean greer. this is simply a lovely book. it’s funny and ridiculous and has such a big heart that it’s impossible not to be moved by it. it says, yes, you might be deep in your flop era. yes, you might be suffering humiliation after mishap after disaster. and yet life can still surprise you. happiness is not bullshit. and the love is always there.

last seen

recently i finished my school president, a thai high school BL show (yes, another one). initially i wasn’t sold on it. the plot of the first episode is chaotic to say the least. gun, a senior, is finally head of music club. immediately he comes up against disaster: the school principal hates music club for some reason! but the only person with the power to actually cancel the club is… the school president. so gun runs to be school president, losing to our other protagonist: quiet stern boy tinn, who happens to be the principal’s son and seems to share her dislike of music club. at this point i’m going, “OK i see how it is, we’ve engineered a random enemies-to-lovers plotline out of nowhere, YAWN”. however, episode 2 turns this dynamic completely on its head by revealing that tinn has actually had a bonkers insane crush on gun for YEARS and the only reason he’s run for school president is to push gun’s band to get better by being a villain that motivates them to win competitions, practise hard, etc. he’s crazy and i love it!!! much like another favourite show of mine, the untamed, it asks the question: what if our quiet icy boy is actually tapped? what if the real reason he’s so harsh on our bubbly enthusiastic boy is because he’s clinically obsessed with him? this is much-needed representation for delusional girls everywhere. and the reason i love tinn is because he follows through on his delusions! he actualises them through sheer will-power—and a LOT of support from his long-suffering, also gay as hell best friend, tiw. (side-note: all of tiw’s scenes and particularly his flirty subplot with por, the pianist of the band, are incredible. no notes. 10000/10.)

anyway, as the show progresses tinn quickly loses his ability to be a baddie, because he’s actually just a sweet boy who wants to be gun’s wife sooooo badly. literally all he wants is to support gun, love him, motivate him to reach his dreams, and take care of him. gay people make me sick for real!!! and ofc gun soon starts opening up to tinn, and relying on him, and one thing leads to another…

my favourite essay on any piece of media ever is erica cantoni’s short piece on friday night lights. in it, she says:

There are a handful of shows I ask everyone I talk to about television if they have seen: The Wire, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights. But when I ask them if they’ve watched and loved Friday Night Lights, what I mean is are you my kind of person? Are you all heart? Are you bothered by this 21st-century lack of earnestness, our abundance of irony? Do you wonder how we forgive and coach ourselves to do better? How we can strive again for valor and loyalty and daring and redemption? I fear we are defaulting to needless negativity as some kind of social currency. But Friday Night Lights is the most earnest show I’ve ever watched.

that’s how i felt watching my school president. this show is all heart. all about portraying a steady, warm first love where two people try so hard to do right by each other. to take care of each other, to be there. they are teens figuring things out, so of course there are conflicts and miscommunications and aches, but these are always resolved within the arc of an episode. i would say that the show does veer a little too far into sentimentality (particularly the prom episode) but hey. i forgive it for that. sometimes we could all do with a bit of excess sentimentality.

miscellaneous

doing the guardian quick crossword every day. sarah coming home to sit on the sofa with me for hours on end. claire gifting me a book of tove jansson’s letters. jun knitting me socks and baking me cookies and watching her first ever anime episode with me. arenike coming to my door with fermented grape juice and spicy dumplings. watching the dungeons and dragons movie with siyang. a long walk in epping forest with surina. the lino-cut print card claire made me to celebrate 3 years (!) of our email correspondence. sarah rewatching the entirety of yuri on ice with me and not complaining when i refused to let us skip the intro song once. talking on the phone with elete and being surprised when 2 and a half hours passed like nothing. a letter from marisa. ateez san and seonghwa doing the rover challenge with exo kai. sarah holding me while nct dream sang sorry heart; screaming to hello future together. nct dojaejung’s perfume performance video. being brought daffodils. watching star trek with alfie. deep fried aubergine. kimchi fried rice. wood ear mushrooms. visiting the big chinese food store in tottenham. this louise glück poem. this jane huffman poem. this laura villareal poem. this umang kalra poem. a small boy at the local library being so excited to get books out. this comic. this advice from a purple cow. the return of queer east film festival. the triumph of the beacons of gondor being lit: seeing a call for help portrayed as a powerful and magnificent thing. the infinite grace and patience of my friends, given to me over and over again. people turning up, over and over again. being held while i cried, over and over again.

finally, this quote from hanif abdurraqib’s essay on fall out boy:

An acknowledgement of that which we all spend a lifetime searching for: the permission to come home again, after forgetting that there are still people who will show up to love you, no matter how long you’ve been away. No matter how obsessed you’ve been with your own vanishing, there will always be someone who still wants you whole.

thank you for still being here with me. see you soon, i hope. take care of yourselves and each other.