yoko ono

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Yoko Ono Project

The first week of July, 2015 …

Yoko Ono wins the Observer Lifetime Achievement Ethical Award.

“‘Art to me is a way of showing people how you can think,’ Ono says. ‘Some people think of art as like beautiful wallpaper that you can sell, but I have always thought that it is to do with activism.’

Ono believes that activism can – and should – take many forms, and her range of causes is similarly broad: world peace, of course, but also the environment (in 2012 she embarked on a high-profile anti-fracking crusade), gun control and social issues, including feminism and same-sex marriage. She donated money after the Japanese tsunami, inaugurated the Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts in 2009 and was designated the first global autism ambassador in 2010. ‘To be an artist you need courage, and most people don’t think that,’ she says.”

Rumours circulate that Yoko Ono was a secret plot by the Rolling Stones to destroy the Beatles. Yoko declares she loves Paul and Ringo like they were brothers.

The Wish Tree

“Make a wish

Write it down on a piece of paper

Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree

Ask your friends to do the same

Keep wishing

Until the branches are covered with wishes.”

The first tree was installed in the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, five years ago this month. Wishes have been contributed from all over the world. More Wish Trees have been installed in London, St. Louis, Washington, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Japan, Venice, and Dublin. Why not put one in your back yard? Or let planting a tree be your wish.

Yoko Ono sponsors Chess for girls in New York City schools.

One Woman Show: 1960-1971

17 May – 7 Sept 2015

“The Museum of Modern Art presents its first official exhibition dedicated exclusively to the work of Yoko Ono, bringing together approximately 125 of her early objects, works on paper, installations, performances, audio recordings and films, alongside rarely seen archival materials.

The Museum of Modern Art​

11 West 53 Street

New York, NY 10019”

“Draw a line with yourself. Go on drawing until you disappear.”

Music — Don’t Stop Me by Yoko Ono

“At my age I should be in a certain way. Please don’t stop me being the way I am. I don’t want to be old and sick like many others of my age. Please don’t create another old person.

So even when I am rocking on the stage, they are totally hard on me. They demand the musical standard of a classic musician and attack me for the rhythm or some notes which are not precisely in tune. I am not concerned with what my voice is doing. If I was, what you experience would not be. My voice will be dead, once I am concerned about it, in the way you are asking me to. Go to a classical concert, if you want to hear a ‘trained’ voice. What I escaped from when I was very, very young. I created my own niche. If I tried to present you classic music it won’t be what I created. You don’t get that way, with Iggy for instance, a grand rocker, who is creating his own brand of Rock, just as I am.

Let me be free. Let me be me! Don’t make me old, with your thinking and words about how I should be. You don’t have to come to my shows. I am giving tremendous energy with my voice, because that is me. Get my energy or shut up."

Popular Reaction - Yoko Ono’s name is synonymous with “the figure of the evil female interloper to the mainstream”.

“Send a fog to your friend”

Yoko Ono is 82 years old.

An activist for peace and human rights since the early 1960s.

Born on February 18, 1933, in Tokyo, to a life of privilege, her father’s family a long line of samurai warrior-scholars. Enrolled in Gakushuin, one of Japan’s most exclusive schools in 1937. Lived through the great fire-bombing of Tokyo in 1945. Forced with her family to beg for food while pulling their belongings in a wheelbarrow. Re-enrolled in Gakushuin when it reopened in 1946. Classmate of Prince Akihito, the future emperor of Japan. Graduated in 1951 and was accepted into the philosophy program of Gakushuin University as the first woman to enter the department. Left the school after two semesters.

According to Wiki.

Married Anthony Cox, an American jazz musician, film producer, and art promoter, who was instrumental in securing her release from a Japanese mental institution in the early 60s. She gave birth to their daughter Kyoko Chan Cox in 1963. The marriage ended in divorce in 1969. Cox disappeared in 1971 with 8 year old Kyoko, in the middle of a custody battle. He raised Kyoko under the name Ruth Holman in an organization known as the Church of the Living Word. Yoko Ono and John Lennon searched for Kyoko for years. Yoko Ono did not see Kyoko again until 1998.

“Keep laughing a week.”

Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Liverpool University

Honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Bard College

Skowhegan Medal for work in assorted media

Awarded the fifth MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts from the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles

Lifetime achievement award from the Japan Society of New York

Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale

2012 Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Austria's highest award for applied contemporary art

“Everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.” — John Lennon

yoko ono yoko ono think twice

i wish for

justice for the outsider

or at least a fair shake

ignore us if you don’t like us

don’t give in

to the urge to condemn

acknowledge our voice

cracked crazy and screaming

maybe wonder why

*****

Photography by Renee Beaubien, at Beyond the Prism

on Flickr, at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128997372@N08/

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Judgement! On Monday, July 20th. Leaving three Contestants only to go into Friday, July 24th’s The Electric Detective Chapter Sixteen. After which, there’s only two … Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Trapped in the Barometer’s Rising brothel, who will remain intact to slide directly into The Electric Detective Chapter 17 — the grand finale!

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

Episode Fourteen: Miller-Ish — Tempering the Cauldron

Episode Fifteen: Stevenson-Ish — Dr. Coffin’s Kindly Concoction

Episode Sixteen: Shelley-Ish — Prometheus, the Hard Way

All with illustrations by the author. All the drawings except Billy Garlock’s have been used once — and we’re saving Billy for the final Instalment. Thus, a short review of the remaining Contestants is in order.

After this week, only 2 Instalments to go!