{"id":28887,"date":"2013-02-16T12:52:18","date_gmt":"2013-02-16T16:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=28887"},"modified":"2013-04-19T20:57:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-20T00:57:28","slug":"jq-magazine-book-review-yoko-ono-collector-of-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/16\/jq-magazine-book-review-yoko-ono-collector-of-skies\/","title":{"rendered":"JQ Magazine: Book Review \u2013 \u2018Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\""The<\/a>

“The book\u2019s release is timed to coincide with Ono\u2019s 80th birthday on February 18, and provides readers snippets of info on some tumultuous periods during her lifetime.” (Amulet Books)<\/p><\/div>\n

By\u00a0<\/i><\/strong>Rashaad Jorden<\/i><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(<\/i><\/strong>Yamagata-ken<\/i><\/strong><\/a>, 2008-2010) for\u00a0<\/i><\/strong>JQ\u00a0<\/strong>magazine<\/b><\/em><\/a>. Rashaad worked at four elementary schools and three junior high schools on JET, and taught a weekly conversion class in Haguro (his village) to adults. He completed the Tokyo Marathon in 2010, and was also a member of a taiko group in Haguro.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.\u201d<\/p>\n

That line\u2014uttered by the most famous of her three husbands\u2014could accurately sum up Yoko Ono for a long time. But that shouldn\u2019t be the case. Fortunately, thanks to a new book co-written by Nell Beram and Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky, readers have insight into this remarkable woman\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies<\/i><\/a>\u2014so titled because Ono has always looked to the sky for inspiration\u2014delves into the life of the famous avant-garde artist and musician, from her childhood in Japan and the U.S. to her chart-topping success in her seventies. The book\u2019s release is timed to coincide with Ono\u2019s 80th birthday on February 18, and provides readers snippets of info on some tumultuous periods during her lifetime.<\/p>\n

Ono\u2019s journey is presented in an easy-to-read format geared toward young adults. Unlike many other biographies, where all the photographs tend to be lumped together in a couple of sections, the photos in Collector of Skies<\/i> are spread throughout the book, and they range from one in which Ono is wearing a kimono at the age of two to another taken at the inaugural lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower<\/a> in Reykjavik in 2007. The authors also use quotes from Ono to expound upon certain periods and moments of her life.<\/p>\n

Of course, any story about Yoko Ono has to make heavy mention of her relationship with John Lennon, and the middle of the book is largely devoted to her life with the former Beatle. While Collector of Skies<\/i> might not reveal anything earth shattering for hardcore Lennon and Beatles fans, younger readers (or those unfamiliar with the Beatles) will learn not just the real story of the group\u2019s breakup, but more importantly, the duo\u2019s activism.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Although the book may be seemingly dominated by her relationship with Lennon, Beram and Boriss-Krimsky devote plenty of time to Ono\u2019s accomplishments in music and art (detailed by a timeline in the appendix) and events that have outlined her individualist streak\u2014such as when, as a toddler, she belted out Japanese children\u2019s songs, behavior that horrified her affluent mother as she viewed those songs as those of commoners.<\/p>\n

However, a couple of things are missing from the book\u2014mainly, mentions of how Japan has influenced her work. As Ono seems very westernized (having lived most of her life in the United States), there is really just one mention of Japanese influence on her work: her 1996 work Wish Tree<\/a><\/i>, in which viewers could write their wishes on cards similar to the Japanese customs at temples. A teacher once described Ono as someone who would be \u201ca bridge between the United States and Europe,\u201d so it would have been interesting to learn about other Japanese influences in her work. In addition, Collector of Skies<\/i> would have been enhanced by a few more quotes from others about her work. There are some, such one from art critic Arthur C. Danto, who described Ono as \u201cone of the most original artists of the last half-century,\u201d but it would have been great to read about how others have viewed her work.<\/p>\n

Overall, Collector of Skies<\/i> does an outstanding job of bringing to life the story of an amazingly talented artist; one who certainly doesn\u2019t seem to be slowing down.<\/p>\n

For more\u00a0<\/b><\/em>JQ<\/strong>\u00a0magazine book reviews,\u00a0<\/b><\/em>click here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Rashaad Jorden\u00a0(Yamagata-ken, 2008-2010) for\u00a0JQ\u00a0magazine. Rashaad worked at four elementary schools and three junior high schools on JET, and taught a weekly conversion class in Haguro (his village) to adults. He completed the Tokyo Marathon in 2010, and was also a member of a taiko group in Haguro. \u201cEverybody knows her name, but nobody knows what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,40,291,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-books","category-jq-magazine","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-7vV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28887"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28952,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28887\/revisions\/28952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}