KimCrawley.com- Bright Ideas: pop culture

   If John Lennon were still alive, he would be turning 70 tomorrow (October 9th). As John is one of the greatest icons in the history of popular music, there has been a lot of media coverage about that, and some people will be celebrating his birthday tomorrow.

  EMI has released some new recordings, taking advantage of the event.

  Yoko Ono has organized an Imagine Peace Tower event in Iceland, tomorrow, which can be watched live via imaginepeacetower.com, starting at 1pm EST. People may tweet messages for peace by sending them to IPTower. See twitter.com/IPTower and twitter.com/YokoOno.

In New York City, a documentary will be shown in Central Park at 7pm.

In Liverpool, Julian Lennon and John's first wife Cynthia will be presenting a monument in John's honour.

Finally, there will be a celebration in Hollywood at John Lennon's star on the Walk of Fame.

See http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/music/2010/10/08/15631851.html

It's obvious that John Lennon was a man who touched millions of hearts. These celebrations, nearly thirty years after he was murdered, are a testament to the impact he had on the world.

I'm in a good position to provide an objective view on John Lennon, because I'm not a Beatles fanatic, but I have an appreciation for John's music with and without the Beatles and his impact on popular culture.

So my view isn't:

John Lennon was godly, perfect, and could do no wrong.
That horrid witch Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles! or
Crazy hippies like John Lennon have corrupted society!

In my opinion, gathered from being an obsessive student of pop music, and having read lots of well researched books on the Beatles, John, and Yoko Ono, is that John Lennon was a tremendously talented artist and musician, but he was far from perfect as a human being, because we're all imperfect and we always will be.

I've extensively dated a couple of musicians in the past. (I don't think either knows about the other.) The later one, especially, has a few personality traits in common with John Lennon.

A lot (maybe not all, but most) of male musicians are great people to have and friends or 'friends with benefits'. But male musicians, more so than the general population, find it difficult to live in monogamy. Some of them THINK they can, but they can't.

And that holds true a lot of the time, with or without fame and fortune.

There's a lot of documentation of how John treated his first wife, Cynthia, and his first son, Julian, quite badly. He got married and had a kid when he wasn't emotionally ready.

Just before Lennon's murder in December 1980, Julian had reconciled with his father. So, I think John realized some of the mistakes he made in his life, and it was a shame that his life was cut short.

At this point, I don't think there's much animosity between Cynthia and Yoko, and it certainly seems that Julian and Sean (John's son with Yoko) are on good terms. Half-siblinghood is tough! I should know...

I'm really inspired by how Yoko has taken her position as an opportunity to promote world peace. We follow each other on Twitter, and I think it's great how she constantly puts an effort to reach out to the public- on the Internet and through her music and art installations.

She certainly doesn't HAVE to do any of that. I think Yoko has a good heart.

Her life wasn't as easy as you may think, for someone who was born in wealth. World War II was especially devastating to her and her family. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Ono

When those experiences are kept in mind, it becomes obvious why Yoko works so hard to promote peace.

And it really annoys me when people STILL blame her for breaking up the Beatles.

If John hadn't met Yoko, he would've been bringing ANOTHER woman into the recording studio for the last Beatles recordings. And SHE would've been a scapegoat.

At that point in John's life, he cared about sex, romance, and his own creativity a lot more than he cared about the Beatles. "I don't believe in the Beatles."

With or without Yoko, the Beatles would have broken up around 1970, anyway. With their tremendous success, making money was no longer a motive and they felt they had nothing left to prove- as a group.

They couldn't keep recording together. They felt stifled. John, Paul, Ringo and George all launched post-Beatles musical careers. They all wanted to demonstrate to the world that they could make good music without the other Beatles.

Yoko-hating Beatles fans should keep this in mind- because of her share of the Beatles intellectual property and licensing rights, her decisions could make or break merchandising deals, recordings or movies. For all of Yoko's wealth, I think making money stopped being a motive for her quite a while ago. Yes, there are fat cat CEOs who feel like they have to keep on making more and more money no matter what, but I think Yoko has a very different mindset. She certainly lives quite modestly for a billionaire.

All of the Beatles licensed recordings and merchandise that have come out after John's death (including the Rock Band: Beatles video game) got Yoko's approval because she believes John's creativity and legacy should be shared with the world.

I'll be Twittering my message of peace for the Imagine Peace Tower tomorrow. I hope you'll be doing the same.

kimcrawley.com

twitter.com/kim_crawley

Here is my handy guide to the Fall 2010 anime season, for all you otaku out there. There isn't much for me to contribute to what's already out there, so I have a few handy resources all listed in one post. You can find out what you want to watch, then go ahead and watch it, all from here.

Series I'll be trying:

Panty and Stocking with Garter Belt: Because it sounds so absurd. I like stuff like Excel Saga, Paniponi Dash and UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie, so bizarre, grotesque humour is right up my alley. Anyone who watches this show will either love it or hate it.

The Hidamari Sketch specials, because I love SHAFT.

Hetalia Axis Powers fourth season: Because if you understand that Hetalia doesn't give accurate history lessons, and you can laugh at national stereotypes, you'll like this season as much as the ones before. This is a DO NOT MISS for me.

My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute: Based on a light novel that explores otaku culture. 'Nuff said.

So, what should you watch?

Check out Anime News Network's preview guide for reviews.
Simplicity blog has some good reviews.
T.H.A.T. Anime Blog's got a great preview, too.

An excellent visual guide is provided by chartfag.wordpress.com.

Now, are you ready to watch?

Do the anime community a favour, and make sure that if there are any series you want to watch that have been licensed by Crunchyroll, that you watch them there.

List of series licensed by Crunchyroll as of this writing (you can click on each show name to watch each series):

For other titles, you can check out which fansub group is handling which series, and find out when new episodes will be airing in Japan on the Fansub Wiki.

FTP and HTTP episode downloads are available from downloadanime.org.

  Animesenshi.com is an excellent torrenting resource, download torrents directly from here.

  And last, but not least, Veoh is much better than Youtube for streaming anime, because more fansubs get uploaded to Veoh, and Veoh doesn't take them down quickly like Youtube does.

  What do you think of this season? Leave me a comment...

kimcrawley.com

http://www.twitter.com/kim_crawley

KimCrawley.com- Bright Ideas

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Monday, November 29, 2010

R.I.P. Leslie Nielsen

Friday, October 8, 2010

Remembering John Lennon: An Objective View

Monday, October 4, 2010

A handy guide to the Fall 2010 anime season...