Yoko Ono Speaks

She exuded pure star presence.

I admit to not expecting it. And, to never having seen anything like it before.

I mean, I once saw Molly Ringwald promoting milk at a press event at The Four Seasons. And, I met a desperate housewife at a different press event spreading awareness about migraines.

But, this was star power of a different magnitude. Alluring. Compelling. Gripping.

From behind the curtain emerged this sprightly woman, dressed in black, waving to the crowd, smiling. Her hat, wrapped with a thick, black satin tie, tilted severely across her forehead. Sunglasses -- trimmed with diamond studs -- hung on the tip of her nose for the entirety of her talk.

All eyes were glued to her. She just had this presence.

Everything I knew about Yoko Ono before was from TV. I had seen one or another late-night VH1 documentary chronicling the Beatles (who hadn't?) where she'd inevitably turn up. I recall the black-and-white video footage of her and John camping out on a mattress, making a political statement about peace, or free love, or nudity ... or something. I remembered that they both had long, and thick, thick hair. And, they were not ashamed of nudity but rather made it into something childlike and innocent. They just were so completely in and of their 60s generation.

There was always so much to know about John, and so little about Yoko. The real Yoko. She was somewhat mysterious. An artist. Always there, but what did she say?

I understood a bit more having seen her up there on the stage tonight. She was captivating just sitting there. And, the way she talked was somewhat whimsical, at times breathless.

She mentioned her childhood spent at an impasse between two worlds, the West where kids would throw rocks at her, and Japan where boys would taunt her on the way to school and where she "fell in love with the sky" that looked so beautiful.

My roots, said Yoko, are definitely in Asia. Though she knew the vernacular of New York City's Avant Garde, said Ono, she was always firm in laying claim to her Japanese roots and their influence on her art.

Of she and her husband John Lennon, "we were both rebels" she said, describing their meeting as "magical."

And before the skeptics (I admit it, myself included) could cast this off as dramatic, DeCurtis was off reminding you that to this day she has remained in the same apartment building where Lennon was shot, The Dakota.

Why?, he asked her, because "that is where John and I created a home for our son, Sean," she said.

When actions speak, you listen. She never remarried. She never moved from their home. If not magic, then what?

Anthony DeCurits, after praising Yoko's new album "Yes, I'm a Witch", got into what he called a few of the "misconceptions" about Yoko.

He asked how she felt about people out there who still resent her for their belief that she broke up the Beatles? Well, it's unfortunate for them if they still feel that way, said Yoko.

Would she ever write an auto-biography? It would be very hard to write certain things, she said, fearing most not hurting the people themselves she would have to write about ... but their children.

What was John like?

There was a feminine side to him, she said, a sensitive side. She went on to describe a day she returned home to find him weeping after reading a book about feminism.

She described having first met Lennon when he visited a preview of an exhibition of hers at the
London-based Indica Gallery in 1966.

John would eventually leave his first wife Cynthia for Yoko Ono a few years later.

I was awestruck, not even as much by seeing Yoko Ono speak, and the subdued electricity she gave off, but by being sent by pure insatiable intrigue back to read more about those times in which she and Lennon thrived.

Check out more about Yoko Ono's life here. She was actually married twice before settling down with John. And, it was reported in Wikipedia that she and once-husband Tony Cox, a jazz musician and film producer, would threaten each other with kitchen knives.

It's hard to imagine the seemingly docile, somewhat coy woman sitting on stage tonight as even arguing with a husband, let alone where a sharp object was involved.

And, yet, this gets at the very mystique of her persona. She gives off a layered, analytical vibe. And you get the feeling that she is every bit a complex artist who continues to lead a fascinating life.

Her accomplishment?

That she is 70, and she has survived, said Ono. (Others would surely cite a litany of achievements that goes far beyond).

At hearing this, the crowd looked almost shamed, seeming to know exactly what she meant.

Intriguing stuff, history played out before your very eyes. Oh, that 92nd St. Y. Talk about a cultural icon. How ever would we amuse ourselves in the here-and-now without it?


YGAT