Bob Dylan’s handwritten letter of support for John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their travails with the U.S. Immigration Dept.
JUSTICE for John & Yoko!
John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to this country’s so called ART INSTITUTION / They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only can help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this mild dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass-media. Hurray for John & Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!
If Lennon hadn’t chosen music as his profession, he could have had a career as a comic actor. Here he is being a brilliant wiseass on Ready, Steady, Go.
This morning, on Yoko Ono’s Twitter feed, I learned of this very cool art project she did in memory of John Lennon in Iceland in 2007. I’m surprised this one slipped past me before, because, admittedly, I am a Yoko freak. I own some of her art (including a “Box of Smile” from 1971), and I’ve… just always loved her and admired what she has stood for in her life and in her various artforms (and I am not alone here among the Dangerous Minds crew, either. Mr. Laner feels pretty strongly about Yoko, too). Take a look at this for a moment—it’s really spectacular—and consider sending your own prayers and wishes into the universe this coming Friday—which is the day John Lennon was born, 70 years ago—when the project “lights up” again this weekend.
Send your wish to the Tower by email: wish@IMAGINEPEACE.com or by Twitter: @IPTower
IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is an outdoor work of art conceived by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon. It is situated on Viðey Island in Reykjavík, Iceland. The artwork was dedicated to John by Yoko at its unveiling on October 9th 2007, John Lennons 67th birthday.
IMAGINE PEACE TOWER symbolizes Lennons and Onos continuing campaign for world peace - which began in the sixties, was sealed by their marriage in 1969 and will continue forever.
The words IMAGINE PEACE are inscribed on the Well in 24 different languages.
IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is composed of a tall shimmering tower of light that will appear every year and be visible from October 9th (Johns birthday) until December 8th (the anniversary of his passing).
In addition, the Tower will illuminate from Winter Solstice (December 21st 28th), on New Years Eve (December 31st) and the first week of spring (March 21st -28th). It is lit from 2 hours after sunset until midnight, and until dawn on New Years Day.
On 9th October, John Lennons birthday, Yoko Ono asks the people of Iceland to join her and many others across the rest of the world in praying for peace and stability.
At 8pm, as IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is illuminated on the island of Viðey, in Reykjavik, Iceland, she asks everyone to join together and let the power of light and prayer become a collective expression of the desire for peace and harmony on our planet.
Dear Friends,
Please join me not only in remembering John on October 9th but also in spreading the message of peace. This is something that was so important to John - the fact that we could all work together for the positive good of our planet. He would have loved how we are all mobilizing ourselves in thought and in action.
18 x 24″ Screen Print. Signed and Numbered Edition of 450. $70. Limit one per person/household. A portion of the proceeds go to the Spirit Foundations, Inc.
“We are not going to strike. We are not even having a sit-in strike. Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission. And there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism, there will be no bevvying because the world is watching us, and it is our responsibility to conduct ourselves with responsibility, and with dignity, and with maturity.”
Reid’s principled leadership was essential in gaining the support of the majority of Glasgow’s residents. A demonstration in support of the union saw 80,000 people march through the city. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were amongst those who donated to the cause of the workers, giving £5,000, which was a substantial amount of money at the time. Reid and the shipbuilders won, and the Edward Heath government backed off on cutting the shipyard’s subsidies.
Another speech, one Reid made to students as rector of Glasgow University on “rejecting the rat race,” is a legendary piece of rabble-raising oratory. The New York Times printed the speech in full and declared it to be on par with the Gettysburg Address. It’s been republished lately in several British papers (here from The Independent) on the occasion of Reid’s death on August 10th and the memorial service held for him today. I highly recommend reading it. It’s surely as relevant today as it was when he first spoke these words. Fans of great writing and speechification, take note, you’ve not heard these thoughts expressed in quite this same way ever before and these words will move you and stay with you for a long time. Seriously, considering the shape the economies of the West are in and what this shitstorm has meant for the common and uncommon man alike, I think this should be considered MANDATORY READING right about now.
I can vividly recall listening to a BBC radio broadcast in 1983, during the apocalyptic miner’s strike going in Britain at the time. I was sitting in the sunny backyard garden of a squat where I lived in the Brixton area of south London. Jimmy Reid was the main guest. It was thrilling for me, as an American, to hear someone say such… Communistic things on the radio. One of the other people who lived there, a Scot himself, made a big deal of it and bought some beers and rolled some joints, insisting that I listen with him in quiet contemplation of what the heroic Jimmy Reid had to say. I was glad I listened and you’ll be glad, too, if you click here and read the entirety of Reid’s “rat race” speech yourself.
Here is an excerpt from Jimmy Reid’s famous speech. It’s a pity it’s not on YouTube, but there is a clip of a young Reid in his fiesty prime embedded below.
To the students [of Glasgow University] I address this appeal. Reject these attitudes. Reject the values and false morality that underlie these attitudes. A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts, and before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, “What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?”
Still irresistible, a working-class hero’s finest speech (The Independent)
Final farewell for Glasgow shipyard leader Jimmy Reid (includes video of comedian Billy Connolly’s eulogy and additional links to more reporting on Reid’s life) (BBC News)
A voyeuristic and mesmerizing tribute to key Fluxus player and muse to Nam June Paik and Joseph Beuys, the experimental cellist Charlotte Moorman. Listen to personal phone messages to Moorman from the likes of John and Yoko, John Cage, Paik and others and drink in that good old-timey analog tape phone machine atmosphere.
Beastie Boy Adam Yauch is rallying the masses, and Yoko Ono, to help in his fight against cancer by engaging in a twice-daily meditation session. From the letter sent out to the Beastie Boys mailing list:
hello,
wanted to send this out to you guys in case you were into it, or wanted to give it to anyone who you think might be.
a few friends and i are meditating at the same time twice a day. 9:30am and 6:30pm eastern standard time, for about an hour and half.
we are picturing smashing apart all of the cancer cells in the world.
we are visualizing taking the energy away from the cancer, and then sending it back at the cancer as lightening bolts that will break apart the DNA and RNA of the cells. if you have the time, please join us in whipping up this lightening storm. mind over matter…...
if you prefer to sit then sit, but if you are not used to meditating, or sitting quietly doesn’t sound like fun, put on some music and dance while you do the visualization, and if you want to do it at some other time, or picture curing some other illness that’s fine too. yoko will be joining the meditation by visualizing all of us dancing with joy to celebrate the world without cancer. all variations are welcome. this is really just being done with a wish for all beings to be cured of all illnesses and to find true lasting happiness.
i’ll also be saying prayers for the earthquake victims in tibet, so join in on that if you can too.
please feel free to pass this onto anyone who you think may find it interesting.
with all my love,
adam yauch
I’m running out of time here on the West Coast for that first round of meditation, but I’ll be there for the second. Beyond meditating for Yauch and the victims of the Tibetan earthquake, I do plan on taking it a bit further.
If the world is to be truly washed clean of “all illness,” can we not please link minds and find a way to cure it of this, and this, and oh, yes, this?! “Radio Beastie” follows below:
While my video game muscles have long since atrophied (I was always more a pinball man), and I reach for my Revolver only rarely these days, I read every word of the NYT’s While My Guitar Gently Beeps, which describes the enormous effort that went into pulling off The Beatles: Rock Band. Beyond its account, though, of welcome, surviving Beatles-Yoko Ono-Giles Martin d?ɬ
NASA started to beam the song towards the North Star, 431 light years from Earth at midnight GMT on Monday, drawing congratulations from former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, who mused that it marked “the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets across the universe.”
But today’s New Scientist asks whether such signals could expose us to the risk of attack from mean spirited aliens.
