Image: The Heading new
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another
television set, then there'd be peace."
John Lennon
Image: John Lennon.
John Lennon's struggle for Peace and social justice inspired millions.
He spoke of the Power of thought...
and of how we can all act upon the world to change it.
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ALL profits go to help The Rhondda.
“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.
I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends
and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.
That's what's insane about it.”
John Lennon
I Met A Man Called Lennon, written by "Poet" and Effran Kaye;
arrangement and musical instruments by Effran Kaye.
Image: Dove of Peace
Image: Lennon and Yoko
PEACE AND HARMONY
A huge new statue commemorating John's love of
Peace, to be erected in Liverpool, is the second
in a series of monuments commissioned by the
Global Peace Initiative.
Their aim is to place a peace monument in each
of the world’s seven continents and spread
artistic symbols of peace across the globe.
The first monument was presented to the President
of Singapore on behalf of the people of Asia in 2005.
Liverpool, is chosen as the European location for
this second monument, dedicated to the spirit of
one of the city’s most famous sons & will act as
a place of pilgrimage for people to honour John.
Lauren’s monument, entitled ‘Peace & Harmony’,
is being unveiled in Liverpool during the city’s
John Lennon Tribute Season which takes place
from 9th October – 9th December 2010.
The season of cultural events will celebrate
what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday
and marks the 30th anniversary of his death.
Artist Lauren Voiers: “I’m excited to have been
asked to create a Global Peace Initiative monument
dedicated to John Lennon. Much of my artwork
is greatly influenced by the ideals of peace
and harmony among all people of the world
and I believe music is the soul of peace.
It’s truly an honour to spread a message of peace
across Europe through my sculpture. The fact it
will be located in Liverpool, the home town of
such a music legend, is a great thrill for me.”
The monument contains a white feather, as John
told his son Julian, that if he died early,
he would try to reach Julian by making a feather
appear for him, to tell him all was well.
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A LIGHT FOR PEACE
Yoko Ono has unveiled a lighthouse in Iceland
in honor of John and hopes it will
serve as an important beacon.
The Peace Tower, 25-metres high, is on Videy island,
off the north coast of Reykjavik.
It's dedicated to peace and carries the words
in 24 languages of John's song "Imagine."
The waterside building is lit on John's birthday, (Oct. 9th)
and the anniversary of his death, (Dec. 8th).
The tower will also be lit on New Year's Eve,
for one week in Spring and on special occasions
agreed between the city and Yoko.
Yoko, now 73, hopes the tower will one day
permanently light up the Icelandic sky.
"This is an answered prayer because my first time
in John's house he talked about building a lighthouse.
I never knew how to conceptualize that.
I never believed this could be reality.
Someday this tower will be lit 365 days for 24 hours,
but for now I'm not pushing it.
Forever is a long time.
"I realized that, with contrasting the two symbolic dates,
it gives an understanding of the shortness of life,
and eternity of the spirit.
It reminds one how brief life can be
and is significant even for those
not into John Lennon's life."
Image: across the universe
Nasa broadcast the song, Across the Universe,
through its deep space communications network on
the 40th anniversary of its recording
at London's Abbey Road studios.
Converted into digital data, the music is now
on a 431 light year-journey towards Polaris, the North Star.
It commemorates the space agency's 50th anniversary.
Nasa encrypted the song and beamed it into space
from its Madrid transmitter at the start of
a 2.5 quadrillion-mile trip to Polaris,
where it will finally arrive in the year 2439.
The day it is sent - February 4th - has also
been declared "Across the Universe Day"
by Beatles fans across the world,
who play their own recordings of the song
at the same time as Nasa begins its own broadcast;
midnight in the UK,
7pm in the US,
and 1am Tuesday in Spain.
"I see that this is the beginning of the new age
in which we will communicate with billions of
planets across the universe," says Yoko Ono.
Here's a really sweet article about
JOHN's "LOST WEEKEND"...
TO ACCESS IT, PRESS THE LINK BELOW !
Image: lennon in cuba
CUBA HONOURS LENNON
IMMORTALIZED in bronze, seated on a bench in
the capital park on 17th and 6th Streets, in the
Vedado district, we can bump into John Lennon,
the famous popular music composer and leader of the Beatles.
The life-sized sculpture by Cuban José Villa Soberón
pays tribute to the most controversial of the
members of the most famous musical group in their era.
"My idea was to pay tribute to an anti-establishment figure,
full of his own demons and dreams," he affirmed.
Lennon comes across as relaxed and with a
meditative look that suggests an enigma. The
space beside him on the bench seems to invite
passersby to stop and talk for a while so as to
transform his internal monologue into a conversation.
His placing here, in the open air and in the
garden’s generally peaceful environment, seems
to respond to one of his strongest statements:
"Above us only sky…"
The tranquil neighborhood, perfectly coherent
with the silence of the former Beatle, is in
contrast with the enterprising personality and
vital energy of the famous Liverpool singer-
songwriter, and that antithesis is acquired by
the force of the suggestion that reaches us via
Imagine, the composition that, on account of its
essence, has become the veritable pacifist anthem:
"Imagine… there’s nothing to kill or die for…
Imagine all the people living life in peace…
Imagine no possessions…"
However, that place in which he exists does not
exclude him from company. He is hardly ever
uninterrupted in his meditations; teenagers,
older people, youth walking by… All of them
notice the inescapable presence of the artist.
Whether the spectators are Cubans or foreigners,
he has a way of making an impact on them all and
of convincing more than a few – as the plaque
with its own calligraphy has perpetuated – that,
while many say that he is "a dreamer," he is
"not the only one."
Image: Lennon in Cuba too an all
Singer-songwriter David Llewllyn,
of Welsh birth and Nashville,
Tennessee residence, is the
grand prize winner of the John Lennon
Songwriting Contest's Folk category
for his coal miner's lament
on the sacrifice of his child to
the life of the mine, "Take Us Down."
Hear the song ( and a few others )
complete lyrics and exclusive
interview here:-
http://americymru.ning.com/Wpage/page/
show?id=2111712%3APage%3A21496
Image: Pearly Gates
A new exhibition opens in the New York
annexe of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The display, created by Yoko Ono, includes
the bag in which New York's Roosevelt hospital
returned Lennon's bloodstained clothes to her
after he had been shot on the 8th December 1980.
"John came back to me in a brown paper bag.
I want the world to know that."
She says John would want the world to know
that, since his death, the number of people
killed by guns in America, is 16 times more
than the number of US soldiers killed in Vietnam.
"It's like living in a war zone," she says.
The exhibition includes the original letter,
signed by John & Yoko on April Fool's Day 1973,
declaring the establishment of Nutopia, in which
there is "no land, no boundaries, no passports,
only people".
The Steinway piano on which he composed
Double Fantasy is there, as is the steel
Resonator guitar he played at a freedom rally
in Michigan in 1971 in support of John Sinclair,
falsely imprisoned as a member of the activist
White Panther party.
A section of the exhibition is dedicated to John's
6-year battle with the justice department, which
- at Richard Nixon's instigation - tried to evict
him from the country, to stop him inspiring the
people of the US. Letters of support from the
singer Joan Baez and the then mayor of New York,
John Lindsay, are also there, as is the green
card he eventually was grudgingly given in 1976.
Before he arrived in New York, in 1970, he drew
a sketch of the Statue of Liberty, also on display
- where he replaces Liberty's face with his own
and replaces the "flame" with the clenched fist
of the genuinely liberating Black Power salute.
His handwritten lyrics to Grow Old With Me,
his last recording, are shown in a glass cabinet.
Phil Ochs: “It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles.
The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win.
Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world,
you must make that attempt. That's morality. That's religion.
That's art. That's life.”
"THE OPPOSITE OF WAR IS NOT PEACE - IT'S CREATION."
~Jonathan Larson
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Today marks the 29th anniversary of John's murder,
so we thought you might enjoy reading:
Beatlemania - The Politics of John Lennon
By Greg Maughan
http://www.socialistalternative.org/
news/article20.php?id=1217
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