Yoko Ono Lecture
This lecture was composed of 6 parts named the Real Yoko Ono. I was very intrigued by that as I had heard her name again and even saw her piece where she let people cut her clothes off. I thought what a strange person but then again I did what everyone did which is judge without knowing. I found this lecture contextual to Azazel as this collection wants to intrigue people but then make them question, motivate and relate just as I believe some of Yoko Ono's work.
The lecture began by her son saying how frustrated he was growing up due to the wrong misconceptions and hate people had towards his mother. People saw her as being a dark and angry persona and having a destructive force in the Beatles life and in his sons father life, John Lennon. If she was a blonde woman people would not hate her as much as stated by her son. I believe he said that just because Yoko Ono had opinions and a personality and liked to express it with art which was strange for women at the time and that is why people were like that towards her, due to jealousy and not being able to be her or in her shoes. But would they really after they knew her whole story? As a person she was way out there, she was famous and lived a different lifestyle from the rest according to her daughter. She was one of the most controversial women in the 20th century. Due to John Lennon loving her, people treated her with hate, again in my opinion jealousy. She is known as the woman who broke up the Beatles which in opinion and others was and is untrue. Her life was turbulent before meeting John Lennon as well. She was a provocative artist and had 2 broken marriages and had a daughter which later disappeared. She is the best known Japanese woman but her real self has always been a mystery. Yoko was always hidden and even more when with Lennon.
She was a performance artist which liked to shock. In the early 60s she invited the audience to come up on stage and cut her clothes off which made people rattled and was a big thing for people to cut off her clothes and she was astonishing, brave, bold and cutting edge. She said that if the audience does not leave when she said cut my clothes then she did not do it right as she wanted to get to people and make them feel and many have them hidden and get angry at her for making them feel like that. She felt like a fish out of the water and that the fish was on the cutting board jumping trying to breathe and she is saying please kill me right away instead of seeing me suffer. This is the image she felt she had of herself when she upset everyone. She felt a nuchal sense of unease since her childhood. She was born in 1933 and grew up in a Tokyo family with great wealth and power. Her parents had married due to being in love which was unusual for the time.
Her father was a concert pianist and became an international banker. The family shuttled between Japan and the United States and this became a way of life for her. She was older than her brother and sister and played alone growing up and her mother had little time for her due to being a glamorous socialite hence was neglected and alone. Yoko felt that her mom was a very busy individual, young and would want to please her mother and then a kind woman which her father approved as he thought women had to be intelligent. As a child she jumped around meaning tap dancing and she thought she was happy but was always afraid of the dark and of the night coming as she had many nightmares. During the war years the family was in Japan and then moved to the United States and she did not feel at home there either as she was always very quiet, retiring, wistful, wispy, on the edge and floating by. She always felt left out in the United States and Japan as people felt that she was different from them. Everyone knew her for writing Haiku on trees. In the mid 50s she dropped out of her smart American college and moved to Manhattan and she found a way to express herself. She thought of herself as an artist and called her work happenings or pieces. Men were always chasing her and she was very funny. In 1957 she married Toshi Ichiyanagi and was a Japanese composer and went back to Tokyo with him where her work was treated with disdain which she found hard as she was doing well. Being a woman Japanese artist was tough and she could not fit in or be herself and at 29 she felt lonely and depressed and tried to commit suicide. This lead to her being put in a psychiatric hospital and felt that no one was listening to her and then Tony Cox began visiting her and he was an American artist that admired her paintings in New York and was looking for her. She was seduced and left the hospital with him and then was pregnant with Tony and married him and in 1963 she gave birth to her daughter Kyoko. Tony incorporated himself from her ideas and performances and in my opinion even "stole" from her in a way and held her down as instead of allowing her to grow as an individual and as an artist he wanted to steal the spotlight and make a name from himself using her. Their relationship was volatile and within a year broke down but with their return to New York they were better as he became her promoter and in 1966 Yoko received an invitation to go to London and at the beginning was reluctant to go but decided to give it a shot as I believe she felt at ease and at home in New York as everyone knew and admired her. She ended up loving London and stayed and ended up making a name for herself by for example wrapping up the Lions in Trafalgar Square. She was the power and always knew what she wanted. In November of 1966 she staged an exhibition of her work and the Beatles hung there and John Lennon dropped by and she felt intrigued by him and his actions. When they first met she was frozen and felt indignant as he showed admiration and realism towards her art and she felt as if she did not want to know about him. He visited her even if he was still married to Cynthia and the two grew very close and became un-separable and the Beatles fans did not like it nor the Beatles later on. In 1968 she left her husband and daughter to live with John Lennon. In my opinion she abandoned her child by putting her work first which is not necessarily bad as she wanted to do something with her life but it is quite ironic as this is what her mother did in a way by being a glamorous socialite hence implemented the pain and abandonment she felt as a child onto her daughter. Yoko was 35 and Lennon was 27 years old and he was very shy and she felt that they were two of a kind. She had an unhappy life and with him she felt one with herself. She encouraged him to experiment with avantgarde art and publicly declared his love for Ono in his piece called 365 which was his first work. His obsession with her upset the Beatles in the studio and there were tensions in the band due to her suggesting some music ideas and this frustrated and made the band feel intimidated that she broke the magic and intimacy of the group. There was madness in the group because of her and people began hating her even more and became angry with her whilst it was Johns fault for wanting her everywhere and never left her side and hers for agreeing. She did not know how people saw and felt about the Beatles when she first began dating John and what would mean for them to get together. People never saw her side that maybe Lennon "broke" her home as she "broke" his. They married in the Spring of 1969 and wanted to promote peace and love and showcased their bed in Yoko's style. In 1970 the band broke up and the couple withdrew from the world and only saw each other. Their relationship was getting too intense and both were drug users sometimes and lived in their own bubble. Ono was independent and did not like the idea of being married except if she was the one in charge but ended up not wanting any of it as it was grading. Her daughter felt dragged with the Lennon's due to publicity as she could not handle it. In 1971 her daughter was taken into hiding with her father but Yoko managed to track her down in Majorca and wanted to get her daughter back and even went to the extents of trying to kidnap her and she screamed.
The child chose Tony as she felt neglected and Ono did not see her daughter for 25 years but kept looking for her as she cared and loved her. She even tried spiritual ways to tack her down and the occult became a part of her life for 10 years which made people more suspicious of her. Most were fascinated and mystified by her due to her mystical knowledge. In late 1971 they moved to New York and this hurt her career as people made fun of her work and their relationship was under pressure and even the FBI was looking for ways to deport the Lennons. John cheated on Yoko in front of her and at that moment she felt frozen and stuck again and people were telling her that they loved John as if she was not his wife and as if they knew or felt in my opinion that they knew him or loved him more than her and could offer more. She felt depressed by John cheating on her but stayed waiting for him in the other room to finish and felt sad but stayed quiet and calm which is not a normal reaction most people would have. In August 1973 their relationship came to a crisis point and decided to test their love by am extraordinary method by asking May Pang to date him in order to see if they both loved each other or if they were together due to being the norm. May and John flew to LA where they had an affair and would talk with Yoko for months even if they were not together and John wanted to go back home to her but she was not ready. She felt alone and shacked but would not call John as she was unsure of his love still. She felt that they had to be together because they loved and respect each other as she wanted someone to be crazy in love with her and she felt unrealistic, in my opinion almost like a hopeless romantic. She traveled to Japan after a year for a solo tour. She wanted him back because she realised that she really loved him and his weaknesses along with loneliness.
She felt that they understood each other and were together again and felt happy even if she was unsure. When Yoko was 42 she was pregnant with John and her experiment had worked. When she gave birth Lennon looked after the baby whilst she found her other passion which was the booming Lennon Empire. When her son was 4 years old, the couple began writing music together and double fantasy put them back to stage and felt that they were doing things right at last but felt exposed and afraid of John being kidnapped which made her scared. After a recording session John was shot and killed with 5 shots at close range and Yoko was there and saw everything. In the hospital the doctor told her to announce her husbands death but she wanted to wait and felt that by announcing it, it was the truth and the man she loved actually died and she wanted him around for a bit longer hence she was in denial and did not realise that he was gone just yet. She told the world and a day after to their son. She told the nanny to call him in the room where she had a newspaper and was sitting on the bed and told her son that her father had died and her son told her that she is still beautiful and can get someone else in which she replied okay and felt relieved. Her son later went in his room and cried and she was told by others as he did not want his mother to see him cry. In my opinion her son wanted to stand up and hold her up in his eyes and show his father that he can take care of his mom but when alone he expressed himself just like his mom. He was extremely brave and his actions were admirable. After his death Yoko rarely spoke, hardly ate, was unconsolable, was in her darkest time and felt why am I alive and he is dead even if I was there as well. She felt in deep water and wanted to breathe. Her son felt closer with her after and felt introduced to her and grew very close. Yoko rebuilt her life with Sam, an antique dealer and are still together and felt as if she would start a new life. Her life was still hard and people were still hostile and suspicious of her and scared but she felt sorry for them. Lennons' family critisised her handling of Johns legacy and felt that she was insecure. She said that she hopes that his brother becomes a happy person and that he expresses his pain in the way of hating and blaming her. In 1993 her daughter contacted her as she would get married and wanted to let Yoko know that she was alive and well. Yoko felt that her daughter was intelligent and sensitive and get along as friends. She returned to her art as her creativity is the number one thing in her life and is creative but is not happy as she does not laugh as often and loud and has less things to look forward to.
She continues to do things to keep her occupied but she actually does them in oder to stay connected to John to avoid loneliness and letting him go as he was the only one she ever loved. She never healed and many magical things happened in her life both positive and negative but still people want to deny it. In my opinion after learning so many things about her and having become so invested and interested in her life I believe she is an admirable person as she has been through so much but did not lose herself and did not let others opinions about her or her actions affect her. Her withdrawal from many things and her reaction is normal as, as a child I believe she never really felt love or comfort from her family hence did not know how to express herself hence that is why people found her weird. I believe her art has a story to tell and has different meanings that the average person would not bother to look at initially. She is really an admirable persona as even after her loves death she stood back up even stronger and I believe John never left her side spiritually. Being gone so much, people are pathetic for hating and they are jealous of her success, purity and honesty.
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