A Famous Bed

The bed is now in a museum. It was in a room that people visited 40 years ago because an artist wanted to make an anti-war statement. He could not do it in New York because he was too reactionary for the Americans at the time and could not do it in Toronto, because he was suspected for carrying drugs. Today the man is still an icon and his wife still asses on the memory of what he stood for. It happened at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and some people like Tommy Schnumacher remembered the event the other day because he went down to the hotel to meet Lennon, get his autograph and take his kid to a local park.

 
Tommy and a girlfriend went to the hotel, couldn’t get to the room directly because of the security and so went to next floor and then descended by the stair well. He had a plan of meeting Lennon and bringing something for Yoko’s child. The couple opened the door but then someone from security stopped the broadcaster. Yoko then said that he was a friend which wasn’t true and so he got into the famous room.

When referring to the sleep in, people will remember that this was an anti-war statement. At that time, anti-war statement of that that sort were unheard of but that did not deter Lennon and his wife to invite reporters into their hotel suite where they were lying in bed comfortably in a symbolic gesture of peace and love. The event also inspired an animated cartoon the graphically illustrated what Lennon espoused to a young teenage reporter regarding the war that the US was involved in and how Lennon’s movement could be seen as a threat to the establishment because it was anti-war.

Today Yoko admitted that only one percent of the world is still pro-war and the larger majority wants peace as opposed to the time when her anti-war statement came out.This small amount is quickly disappearing according to her which is my mind is too idealistic. She said that we are mostly made of water and metaphorically referred to that when she referred to cleaning our souls so that we will live peacefully and have no reason to be belligerent.
 
I think there will always be war mongers and those who will generate fear in order to create a premise for the forced involvement of foreign troops abroad. I do agree  with Yoko’s line of thought though that more and more people will pressure their governments not to get involved abroad as they are: building schools is not a good enough reason for Canadians to get killed in a country where people are going to depend on our expertise indefinitely. Harper should have known that the mentality in that part of the world is very different from our own and the people will be very happy knowing that we are doing constant rebuilding because there will be constant destruction as long as we are not wanted by a growing opposition.