Lennon museum opens near Tokyo

[Tim]

Yesterday,the John Lennon Museum opened in Yono,15 miles north of Tokyo.
(from Yahoo! news):
Ono Opens Lennon Museum in Japan
Yoko Ono, widow of the late John Lennon, celebrated the rock legend's life at the opening of a new Japanese museum honoring his legacy today in Yono, Japan, 15 miles north of Tokyo. Visitors will be able to view some 130 of Lennon's personal artifacts — including family photos, his first guitar, handwritten song lyrics, and the former Beatle's trademark wire-rimmed spectacles — when the museum opens to the public on Oct. 9, which would have been his 60th birthday.

"John was a multifaceted person, and I wanted to show this by showing the things he lived with and used," Ono told a news conference. "As I walked through the museum, I thought it was very expressive."

Ono admitted that she was initially nervous about the museum's location, far from Lennon's native England, and the city he later called home, New York. "I worried that if it was in Japan, people would just say, 'There goes Yoko Ono, doing bad things again.'"

Yet Japan was dear to her husband, she noted: "John had so much love for this country. His son Sean is half-Japanese and we somehow felt we were bridging the gap between East and West."

The museum features a store peddling Beatles memorabilia. But Ono, who sued a Japanese subway company in July for using Lennon's likeness on a fare card without her approval, said she didn't object to the museum cashing in on his name.

"I think The Beatles were the most commercialized band in history, and I don't think John would deny that," admitted the artist. "But that wasn't bad — it allowed him to send his message to the world."

Reuters contributed to this report.




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Tim
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The Church Beatle will now pass among you,and no foreign coins please.

[This message has been edited by Tim (edited October 10, 2000 at 08:58 AM).]

[beatlemethisbeatlemethat]

Ono forthcoming on life with Lennon


I was afraid that, because it is in Japan, people would just say, 'Oh, there goes Yoko Ono doing things again," John Lennon's widow said last week to a crowd of reporters at Saitama Super Arena. She was speaking at the press tour of the new John Lennon Museum, the first dedicated to the former Beatle's life, that opened Monday, on what would have been Lennon's 60th birthday. Of course, with her husband having affected so many people on such a deep, emotional level, things were bound to be said, no matter where Ono decided to build.

She was involved in every step of the museum's creation and provided most of the 130-odd items on display. But she still admitted to being deeply moved when she saw a display of clothes she and Lennon had worn on one of their many trips to the resort town of Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture.

"Japan was a special place for John, because his son is half Japanese," she explained. "But also because we saw ourselves as bridging the gap between East and West, and peace starts with no borders...

"We were from East and West, but we fell very deeply in love, and love is a very important part of what can bring us into the global village. John loves Japan, and we thought this would be a good place."

It was a bit unnerving hearing Ono speak about Lennon in the present tense--and in Japanese--but by the time she held her conference, the press had already experienced the entire exhibition, and the emotions were welling up.

Maintaining a journalistic objectiveness was next to impossible. Rare is the person who has not experienced something of Lennon's work on an extremely personal level, and to go through this museum in any other way would be to miss the point entirely. The gift shop coffee mugs emblazoned with Lennon's iconic self portrait might put most fans on the defensive, especially in light of those unfortunate canned coffee ads on television, but the exhibition itself starts tugging at the heart strings from the word go.

Divided into nine "zones," the museum opens with a section dedicated to Lennon's early childhood--his shuttling between different caregivers and early glimpses of his artistic talents. The second section includes his first guitar, the one he was playing when he met a 15-year-old Paul McCartney, and several photos of the pompadoured lads feeling their way through rock's early days. But as the displays move chronologically through the Beatles' rise to fame, they begin to focus more and more on Lennon's growing sense of isolation. Each display is accompanied by a detailed explanation--in both Japanese and English--of what Lennon was going through both personally and professionally. But with such a meticulous cataloging of his life, it seems more than a little odd that there is absolutely no mention of his first marriage or his first son.

However, Lennon and Ono's initial encounter--at an exhibition of her art in London--and Lennon's first impressions of the young avant-garde artist, are described in great detail. Here, the display reads, Lennon had finally found a kindred spirit, "a new point of departure."

And what of Ono's first impression?

"I always just thought they (the Beatles) wore funny clothes--acting like they were drunk or something," she recalled. "But when I met him, I was surprised; I thought he was a very intelligent, elegant man."

The exhibits trace the highs and lows of their life together and give some surprising insights into how those events manifested in Lennon's work. Among the displays in this section is perhaps the museum's most profoundly moving item, a small piece of stationery from the New York Hilton hotel. On it are written the lines that would become "Imagine," the song, the word and the message most closely associated with Lennon in his post-Beatles career.

As Lennon emerges from a five-year recording hiatus, during which time he dedicated himself to raising his young son Sean, the exhibits build in energy and optimism, peaking with the 1980 release of "Double Fantasy," Lennon's "comeback" album.

Of course, as visitors work their way through this section, the building sense of renewal is tempered with an inevitable feeling of dread at what happened next. But as his life ended so abruptly, so does the exhibition. Visitors turn a corner and are suddenly confronted with a monolithic white wall, blank but for a few white numbers: 1980.12.8--the date of Lennon's murder.

Ironically, the grand opening came less than a week after a New York parole board denied release to Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, citing the premeditated viciousness of his attack and his continued desire for notoriety. Ono had openly campaigned to have his parole bid denied, writing to the board that neither she nor Lennon's two sons would ever feel safe if Chapman were released.

Facing a roomful of reporters just days after enduring what must have been an emotionally difficult wait, Ono expressed her desire not to discuss Chapman. But when pressed by a British news outlet for a reaction to the decision, she paused for a moment and said: "I respect the parole board's decision, and that is all I can say."

Comfortable discussing the many facets of Lennon's life, Ono, along with his fans, is still struggling with his death.




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Peace, Love, and Beatles,
Stefanie

Beatle Me This, Beatle Me That (http://beatlemethisbeatlemethat.virtualave.net/)

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"After all is said and done, you can't go pleasing everyone, so screw it"
--John Lennon