Well, actually, I’ve always wanted to meet Yoko Ono, but have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it will never happen. So seeing her perform would be a nice consolation.

I have to laugh at John Lennon having great taste . . . because for the most part, particularly when it came to other people, he definitely did not! But even a broken clock’s right twice a day, and Yoko was one of those he got right.

It rocks that she made a film of people’s bottoms.

I saw her perform at a concert in a park in New York and she spent about ten minutes just doing these unaccompanied primal screams. She just howled into the microphone as hard as she could. At first the audience was stunned but then she got us joining in.

She totally rocks.

John Lennon had great taste.

The more I read about Yoko, the more I want to be her protege and learn from her awesome ways, artistically, politically, and just on a general level of coolness.

on a slightly off topic thought, the article you linked to listed her as “Mrs. Lennon”. is that accurate?

I believe that she only uses Lennon for legal purposes pertaining to the estate. It doesn’t come up often, and usually it would be a newspaper using the name Lennon rather than her lawyers; she does seem to greatly prefer Ono. Her legal name (assuming that she has not changed it since his death, and I’m pretty sure she hasn’t) is Yoko Ono Lennon — John’s legal name was John Ono Lennon (and he went through a decent amount of trouble to get it that way). But both of them seemed to always go by their birth surnames for artistic and day-to-day purposes.

What’s the deal with the hatred of Yoko – why is she blamed for the Beatles break up – the latest documentary i saw says the seeds of the break-up were there before she even came into the picture

Yeah, John would have left the Beatles anyway, and always said that Yoko just made him realize that he had a life outside of the band so that he had to guts to go through with it. George wanted to break up (and quit) first, I think a year or more before they actually did. Ringo quit briefly, too. John is always considered to be the band member who caused the split because he was the one who quit first when the breakup stuck. I don’t think that any of them but Paul was upset about the decision.

As for why Yoko is to blame? Well I could go into a whole feminist dissertation on that (and have always meant to do one, and have also always felt that there just has to be one out there already). But there was a LOT of racism surrounding media coverage of John and Yoko’s relationship — the British press was super pissed that he left his blond British wife for the outspoken Japanese artist, and some of the caricatures of her from that time are jaw-dropping. Then there’s the misogyny, because Yoko was an outspoken feminist, and because John ended up becoming a part of the avante garde artist scene rather than Yoko becoming a Beatles groupie. Also, John’s work with Yoko started to influence his Beatles work (which just so happens to be some of my favorite, even if he also produced a lot of crap in the outpouring). The other Beatles were also resentful of her being in the studio, I think because they needed something/someone to blame (something that’s always overlooked is how Linda McCartney was there a hell of a lot, too), and the popular myth seems to have somehow erased the fact that John wanted her there. I also think that no one wants to speak badly of their heroes — why blame the Beatles themselves for acting like asses towards one another (which they did) and acknowledging that the breakup of the Greatest band in history was inevitable (which it was), when there’s a perfectly good feminist Asian woman to blame?

Of course, I could just condense all of that down into one word: scapegoat.

Proponents of ID drive me nuts, and I find ID silly (who says faith and evolution are mutually exclusive?), so this bit of news is pure joy.

Thanks, Cara.

Oh, and more amusement at idiocy of the makers of the film and of those in their employ: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php
Just in case you didn’t catch that one. Pure gold.

i hope she wins and that craptastic movie shuts down.

on a slightly off topic thought, the article you linked to listed her as “Mrs. Lennon”. is that accurate? i don’t remember ever hearing her referred to as anything but “Ono”. it might be a teeny tiny point, but it was curious.