“[Imagine] laid his soul bare in a much more accessible fashion, was a hit around the world and continues to be very popular.”--caption from an exhibit at the John Lennon Museum.
On How To Make One’s Soul Accessible And Popular
So today I finally went to the John Lennon Museum.
And let me just begin by saying that the John Lennon Museum is just Japan at its finest in so many ways:
Housed in a giant combination shopping mall and sports arena? Check. Buy your admission ticket on the second floor? Check. Exhibits start on the fourth floor? Check. Can we make this any more confusing? Probably. How about making it so that once you leave a floor you have to call it done, you can't go back to a floor you've left? Okay. Sounds good to me. How about adding a squad of museum docents dressed like conservative flight attendants in dark blue uniforms and sensible shoes? Okay. How about putting the place in Saitama? You bet. Wait--where?
Saitama.
Saitama is about thirty minutes from Tokyo's Ueno Station on the Utsonomiya Line. Saitama is a prefecture, but it's also a city. The city of Saiitama is famous for...is famous for...famous for...maybe oranges? No, wait--tea. No, that's not it.
Anyway, the John Lennon Museum is in Saitama, at the Saitama Super Arena, an enormous complex the kind of which the Japanese adore. The Saitama Super Arena is a huge structure, several stories tall, that is continuous with the Saitama Shintoshin Station. The Saitama Super Arena encompasses a sports stadium, a mall complete with a floor of restaurants and coffee shops, at least one gym (Gold’s), and the museum. Why Yoko Ono picked Saitama Super Arena for the site of the museum for her late husband is beyond me, because as far as I know, she and John never set foot in Saitama. (Of course, I write that, then I’ll later find out that I am completely ignorant of the fact that she was born there or something, right?)
But what about the museum itself?
Well, here’s something:
John Lennon was a bit of a cynic. And Japan is one of the least cynical places I have ever been. I mean, even Tokyo, big and alienating as it can be, lacks an overlying sense of cynicism. (Londoners, for example, lay it on with trowels. And New Yorkers? Fuggedaboudit. But Tokyo? Not so much.) And compared to Tokyo, Saitama is a country town full of yokels. So a cynic like Lennon in the hands of the Japanese? Is not a pretty thing. In fact, it’s pretty uncomfortable if you ask me. Japan is a very earnest place and the Japanese are a earnest people. And there’s nothing wrong with that unless you charge the earnest people with the task of interpreting and exhibiting the life of a cynic. Because when earnest people attempt to understand cynicism? Well, let’s just say that if the battlefront between cynicism and earnestness were the John Lennon Museum exhibits? Well, the score would be far from love all, I’m afraid.
One exhibit very confidently assures the visitor that, though it is often written that Lennon had a difficult childhood, in fact, it was “quite normal.” Quite. Normal. It’s not important that Lennon had a normal childhood. In fact, it’s important that Lennon had an abnormal childhood. It’s important, however, to the Japanese that Lennon’s childhood be interpretable as normal. Quite. Normal.
I’m sorry, but guys who have normal childhoods don’t grow up to be rock stars. That could just be my inherent prejudice against normal childhoods, but I’m guessing a kid whose father abandoned him and whose mother was killed in a car accident, a kid who began his own rock group at the age of fifteen, a rock group that (arguably) became the most famous rock group of all time, well, that’s not a kid who had a normal childhood. And so what?
And here’s something else: The Japanese are incredibly detail oriented. And that is as understated as I can make that statement. Detail oriented is a polite word for what the Japanese are. Normally, this is a good thing. The streets are ridiculously clean, the subways and trains systems incredibly efficient. This, I like. However, when you put the life of a world famous rock musician into the hands of an incredibly detail-oriented people, well... This led to some very strange exhibits.
Take the exhibit of Lennon’s last passport, for example. John Lennon’s passport is on display and each stamp is explained in minute detail. He was in this country on this day and this is the signature of the official who approved his arrival. He left this place after x number of days and traveled to this place. Note that on this page the stamps are put in horizontally, not vertically. Note that passports used to require the color of one’s eyes and hair but no longer did by the time this passport was issued, so this information is absent. (Huh?) Here is a chart of the movements of Lennon from this time period to this time period. Here is where he requested an extra thirty days in Japan. Here is the signature of the official who granted this request. Here is the...next page of his passport.
However, this sense of detail did interest me in one of the last exhibits, a small case that contained some of John’s personal effects from the Dakota. There was a cigarette lighter and case with six Gitane cigarettes in it. There were seven or eight credit cards and a Mickey Mouse watch, three ties (one, a garish black and yellow striped tie, was knitted by Yoko herself), a glass box with a handful of American money, a few bills mixed with small, loose change and about twenty plastic, tortoise shell-hued Fender guitar picks, a rhinestone pin that spelled out Elvis in script, a set of dogtags with John’s name on them, a cheap-looking gold pinkie ring with a dull brownish-green oval stone. The objects were strange and strangely unmoving, but they did remind me of this kind of everyday existence aspect of Lennon’s life that we--I--kind of forget that he must have had. I mean, looking at what was probably the contents of his top dresser drawer was like looking at the top of my own kotatsu, cluttered as it is with makeup, pens, tape, facial tissue...this is the detritus of an everyday existence that we--I--forget even world-famous musicians have. I appreciated that reminder.
Okay, so, yes, I’m having my bit of fun, it’s true. But I’m sure that the museum cost a pretty penny (or some hefty yen) and for the kind of okane that went into it--and given the kind of life John and Yoko had--and the incredible interest that still exists in their lives and music--it was..
Honto, I don’t want to say it, but I’m going to say it:
It was a bit dull.
In fact, if I were being completely honest, I'd say that it was more than a bit dull. It was dull. I'm sorry, but it was.
In fact, I have no trouble comparing it to the UFO Museum in New Mexico. The UFO Museum--in Roswell, New Mexico, in case you don't know--is kitchy bit of an Americana-type roadside museum that a half-step above the disheartening and disquieting roadside petting zoo and far, far below the roadside stands on the Indian reservations in the Southwest that sell fry bread and Indian tacos and...and I must be hungry because I was telling you about the UFO Museum is that is not so much a museum as it is a really earnest display of middle school science fair projects. I mean, as an example, just like at the Roswell UFO Museum, at the John Lennon Museum there is a heavy dependency on glorified color photocopies. And I’m not saying that they aren’t damned good photocopies, because as far as color photocopies go, well, these are some superb specimens. But let’s face it, they’re exhibits in a multimillion yen museum and they’re color photocopies of things like John’s legal documents.
Yawn.
I did find one room particularly interesting. Of course, to an American who’s loved Lennon since childhood, the most interesting room was--wait for it--the room that displayed Yoko’s art. And this is where things take a nasty turn, right? I mean, this is the museum that tries to make John Lennon’s life look normal and Yoko look like the avant garde artist of the century. Ouch.
Still, I actually liked a lot of Yoko’s stuff. There was, for example, a chess set called Play It By Trust in which the board and all the pieces were the same color. That’s pretty damned clever if you ask me. That’s a pretty damned clever statement.
Another piece, a photograph of a piece from her book Grapefruit, is called Water Piece, 1962. The photograph is of a rock. Next to the rock is a glass vial filled with water and an eyedropper. The directions read: “Water everyday.” As a statement about the utility of perseverance, I don’t know if you can beat this one.
I mean, it’s clever stuff, but it’s remained clever--some of it anyway. And that’s more than most of the avant garde artists working at the time can claim.
I needed to walk away with something for the not inconsiderable price of admission, and I chose to walk away with some respect for Yoko. Honto, she should’ve spent the yen on the Yoko Ono Museum, because someone else could’ve done John better.
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