change the pear vol. 28 23 Jan 2025

hello! it’s time to close out the year of the dragon and enter the year of the snake, a year of outgrowing your past self, of discarding what doesn’t feel right, of wisdom and transformation and renewal. let’s go for it.

on repeat

we’re in a take that renaissance period. if anyone has any questions, please direct them to alfie who has been trapped in the, as they put it, gary-robbie(-mark, occasionally) psychological torture vortex for decades and has an extensive primer and playlist, which means i am now in possession of knowledge that harms and upsets me. did you guys know that shine was actually about robbie williams, written by mark owen? now you do. you… you’re such a big star to me…. you’re all that matters to me… okay. OKAY??? in fact many of the songs mark has written (solo and for take that) are about a mysterious someone who he adores and idolises and misses. much to think about.

mark had his heart broken when robbie left take that (source: gary barlow) and recent investigation of the archives has uncovered several quotes from both of them which have been very damaging to my psyche, including mark saying that having robbie beside him makes him feel complete and that “rob still… has always been in take that”, and robbie saying that “when i think about mark i cry”. pain misery suffering etc. robbie brought mark on stage in 2003 to sing back for good, which is a very crazy song to choose to perform with your former bandmate while he snuggles into your side adoringly. in MY opinion!!! no more fighting……and forever we will be…… so complete in our love…… anyway thank god there is a happy ending to all this torment. we’ve all seen the take that reunion on x factor, i’m sure, but in case you’ve forgotten: here it is. (hana [through tears]: that was real…. that was REAL. iman: nothing can ever replicate the intensity of that night of their reunion btw. mark and robbie……)

mark and robbie indeed. gary barlow and robbie williams are a whole other story, from initial antipathy/personality clash as teenagers to full-blown hatred throughout their twenties to a music video where they take their shirts off while gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes and prepare to jump off a cliff together. nothing has ever gagged me as severely as seeing this music video for the first time btw. i could not believe my eyes.

being serious, i think the robbie/gary relationship is actually very moving and poignant. to be thrust into fame, particularly of the boyband variety, at such a young age is bound to wreak absolute havoc not only on you, but on your relationships as well. the thing about boybands is that their success is often made by these deep, profound connections between their members. and the other thing is that they’re just as often broken by the ruptures of said connections. they provide both the ingredients for these relationships and also for their destruction, because while your closeness with the other members is encouraged and facilitated both by the fans and the management and the desperate need for connection and closeness with the only other people who understand your specific situation, the pressure cooker environment you’re in will inevitably deepen and intensify any existing cracks. robbie’s departure from the band was something he blamed gary for, and he exercised his hurt in very public displays of cruelty towards gary (and the band in general), refusing to rejoin the band when they reunited in 2005. but eventually reconciliation did happen, robbie recorded a whole new album with take that and they performed their iconic song the flood live on x factor in 2010. what a time to be alive.

robbie has spoken very candidly on many occasions about his mental health and struggles with addiction. i was particularly moved by this letter he recently wrote to their old manager; his honesty in reflecting on how being part of take that hastened those struggles and was a very difficult and horrible time for him at a very young age—but also he doesn’t hide behind being unwell, or young, as an excuse for his treatment of gary and the hurt that he’s inflicted. i think it’s remarkable to come to such self-awareness about your mistakes, to have humility enough to embark on a bridge-building process with the person and people you’ve mistreated, and also an understanding that forgiveness does not totally remove the pain.

also (last thing i promise) whatever else we may feel about gary barlow, i have to hand it to him: he can write a song. in the twist of separation, you excelled at being free? sir?

currently watching

the traitors. obviously it’s the traitors. i’m typing this ahead of episode 10, so who knows what is in store during the final 3 episodes, but i am PRAYING for minah to somehow come out on top. she can’t be that taken in by charlotte, right? the welsh accent isn’t really doing the trick of making charlotte seem trustworthy. right???

i love this show. i love how stupid the british public are, i love when random beef starts for no reason, i love when people get bitchy and self-righteous, and i love when the entire round table turns on someone because they say one thing that is immediately deemed one hundred percent traitor behaviour. i said to hana and matthew that i really would love to see a traitors series full of the It’s A Game type (dan, alexander, etc) to see how these pure strategists try to outmanoeuvre each other. obviously this would run alongside another series with people who start beefing 20-year-old boys for saying they’re in a clique and people who get pissed off because they get out of a rowing boat of their own accord and nobody else does.

my worst enemy of this season is obviously joe, who is a clown and a fool and pissing me off every time he opens his stupid mouth to ask people why they didn’t vote for him to get a shield because he’s clearly the most trustworthy person, or to be rude to someone for no reason whatsoever (because they’re a doctor? because they were tired after doing all the work in the challenge that you were too weak to do?) or to say it’s absolutely definitively someone only to be proved absolutely wrong five seconds later. I HATE HIM!!! my other worst enemies were livi and every single person who started saying “but why am i still here?” um… maybe because the traitors can only kill one person each night and they’re being strategic! for god’s sake! i think you people are thinking about yourselves way too much or whatever jemima kirke said!

edit after episode 10 to add: the euphoria of finally booting joe off absolutely dampened by minah’s exit. feel like pure shit just want her back

reading

i had a whole tirade ready for launch in this substack about a certain fantasy series i’ve been reading lately, when shireen informed me that most people’s deep love for the books probably stems from reading it when they were adolescents. at which point i had to take a step back and say, am i really going to go on a rant about a book which is, technically, for children? while it is my belief that the best and most worthwhile children’s literature should hold up to adult scrutiny, when i lent ames my copy of princess academy (a teen favourite that i still have deep affection for now) and they were like, “miriam… it’s not good”, i knew they were probably right but it was still hard to hold space for. and so, out of respect, i am going to choose the path of peace. but if you’re interested, the tirade does exist and i am willing to share it.

otherwise, it’s been a pretty good month for books! i can’t pick one in particular to talk about, so i’ll do summaries of everything i’ve read so far in january:

• blood sweat glitter by iona datt sharma. short and sweet! the enemies-to-lovers romance wasn’t developed super well, but i really enjoyed the depiction of trying to find purpose and community in london in your mid-to-late twenties. haha lol !

• trash by sylvia aguilar-zéleny. loved this short novella, centred around the municipal garbage dump in ciudad juárez, mexico. incredible voice in this one and the characters were so vividly depicted. i wish it had been longer!

• solar storms by linda hogan. i had never heard of linda hogan before reading about her on kat’s list of 2024 book reviews, but i am so glad i found this book. i wrote a longer review for my bookstagram, which i will be posting once the book (from the us, via claire in london) arrives with me in february, so look out for that! i’m not sure i’ll read a more evocative book this year. so deeply felt and full of grace. read if you like louise erdrich, lakes, forgiveness, quiet places and the complexities of organising.

• big swiss by jen beagin. hysterically funny. the first book in a long time to make me actually laugh out loud. the emotional core didn’t hit as hard as i think the author perhaps intended it to, because i was essentially reading it as a satire of how tapped americans in upstate new york can be. the therapy sessions the main character is transcribing, by a bookie therapist who has taken Om as his name, truly had me howling. read if you liked all fours by miranda july but wished that everyone in the book was just that little bit extra batshit insane.

• years and years by hwang jungeun. love love loved this book. really thoughtful depiction of the lives of three korean women (one mother, two daughters). unexpectedly moving and has a quiet fierceness to it. really great example of how to write political fiction, by simply depicting characters whose lives are politicised; politics is happening to them, not around them.

• madonna in a fur coat by sabahattin ali. that’s the last time i take a book rec from twitter. i was moved by parts of this short novel but essentially it is 1920s turkish john green.

• fight night by miriam toews. amusing and poignant family saga, but i was left wondering about the 9-year-old narrator, swiv, and her wellbeing. she is dealing with a lot of family trauma and has far too much responsibility on her shoulders for her years, and i didn’t feel like the narrative really dealt with it properly.

• vanity fair by william makepeace thackeray. i love you becky sharp… read if you like dickens but you wish he was less sentimental and more focused on cracking the whip of satire at regency society.

miscellaneous

my grandma greeting us with “where’s my lovely hana?” the sound of the trees in the wind in kalamunda. big tapestries at the cultural centre. a sunset walk with hana down whistlepipe gully. the kookaburras laughing. hana dancing with lucia. making a big fish with erin on christmas day. my grandma’s delight at a big photography book from the outer hebrides. enzo holding the lead in his mouth when we walked him. walking over the craggy limestone of the henderson cliffs and seeing a white-bellied sea eagle. birdwatching with matthew and romesh. grilled squid and a scallop on the side. listening to angels five times in a row in the car. spotting an eastern blue tongue lizard on my way home. watching canberra united WIN!! hanging out with sophie, cathy, ash and morgan. elete selecting new photos for a photo frame she got me. the matching necklaces that rachel made for us. buying shorts from the boys’ section. wandering around the botanic gardens with bee (sunshine personified!!) and talking for hours. bright bougainvillea against deep blue skies. this compilation of excerpts. this poem by wisława szymborska. calls with friends, which always, but especially so these days, feel like lifelines.

take care of yourselves out there. see you soon.