Approximately Infinite Universe
My daughter and I have been talking about how numbers go on forever, and how the universe is both neverending sprawl, and also consistently contracting. This paradox stretches and finds its way into all things, every single facet of every life shining on the earth. We can never actually touch one another because there will always be a layer of molecules between each hand, pushing back and giving the illusion of touch, much in the same way that our vision is made up of single images that our brain weaves together into a constantly moving picture; those home movies then dumped into the swirling miasma of our memories, some things getting buried deep and others bobbing up in varying intervals, while choice elements stay on the surface like a thick sheen of oil. What I’m saying is that maybe it can be hard to trust all of the things that inform all of the decisions we make and tenets we cling to, and while that may be absolutely terrifying as applied to our lives, I want to use that uncertainty to talk about Yoko Ono.
It would be rare to find another example of a person being so collectively, and incorrectly, vilified. From our hindsight perspective, it seems ridiculous to think that she was regarded as anything else apart from the long list of superlatives that we ascribe to her now: peace warrior, innovative avant gardist, fearless musician, strong kind heart. She took the weight of a world of pre-internet trolls, all trying to rend her limb from limb with baseless accusations and insecurities. Meanwhile, John Lennon is telling Playboy magazine that he hits women, and essentially becomes a giant drunken baby when he is having a hard time dealing with something. I really love John, but it’s pretty ugly to see the racism, misogyny, and xenophobia that informed any read on Yoko, when she was doing truly important and exciting work.
Have you been in love lately
If you have / hold it in your heart
You never know / it may be the last
This is how she responded to the ugliness of the world, and I want to take a minute to just take that in and consider our world today, where those who would presume to lead us are guilty of promoting villainous rot, and perpetuating lies and distortions to their own crooked ends. Can this kind of purity, and yes maybe naivete, defeat the tidal wave of hate and violence that we wake up to every morning? It might not win the gunfight in the moment, but I think it will prove to be the armor that will protect our hearts, and give us the strength to rebuild when the monsters’ schemes have wilted and they melt and burst beneath a true sunrise, just around the corner, like overconfident vampires taking one more drink.
A lot of folks have likely not gone on a Yoko Ono tear; her music can be a bit of an aural assault. Having just watched the John Lennon American Masters on PBS, this particular era struck me; Yoko had gotten sick of John being around her constantly, and with the endless critical thrumming that they were getting in response to their heartfelt attempts to engage America in anti-war activism and weirdo art music. She sent John west, where his “lost weekend” slugged on with Harry Nilsson, a mountain of cocaine, and a seemingly endless stream of soggy wastoid weeks in the studio. With space from John, Yoko did some recording, right in the face of those who treated her like she had slit the throats of each Beatle, and conflated her with the Viet-Cong, making for a truly hateable combination for the confused, unthinking masses, missing the innocence and ignorance of years gone by. What kind of strength she must possess to constantly process these attacks in the press, and directly to her person; luckily she also had the ability to skewer those who sought to silence and ridicule her:
You know half the world is occupied by you pigs
I can always get another / pig like you
She fully occupies this album, as a strong woman with infinite dimensions; obviously the mainstream of 1973 were not prepared for this kind of unabashed, clear read of civilization:
And all of us live under the mercy of male society
Thinking that their want is our need
Immediately after that line, there is a playful and hopeful song that begins, “waiting for the sunrise…” Yoko Ono did not break up the Beatles, and while this album is a departure from the more out there experiments in sound that she, with and without John, managed to bring forth on this unforgiving world, it is still strange and beautiful. She is backed by a truly sick band, lending a solidness and backbone for her to both drape her delicate latticework musings onto, as well as to smash against like a boxing bag securely fastened to a beam. No matter what she does, the band is not going to give way, and she swings and swings, landing each and every punch.
Yoko Ono - Approximately Infinite Universe
Saturday October 17th 2020, 7pm
Just put it on at your house using a stereo or the internet or whatever you want.