John Lennon, Narrator of Possibilities

Tomorrow is the 27th anniversary of John Lennon's untimely death. He once wrote:

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind."

He wrote that he didn't want to die at 40 -- that is when his life was ended and his legacy begun. Before social media there was social involvement. With Lennon that was closely intertwined with the dream of possibility -- he broadened the public discourse for artists. His life as a work of art was infused by generosity and inclusiveness. He wanted the world to be a beautiful place for all of us: imagine...

... Imagine your possibilities. You can link directly to YouTube.

Comments

[Geoff Livingston]

I remember exactly when he got shot. At the time my dad was managing editor of the Philadelphia Daily News. We got the call at 1 a.m. They stopped the presses, and he had to go in and rewrite the headline story.

Both my Mom and my Dad were just torn up, crying and weeping. Lennon was the soul of their generation, much like Bono has become the soul of Gen X. They lost their hero.

[Valeria Maltoni]

I was in Italy. I remember the conversations we had with mom and her peers. It was another generation, but I felt like it had implications for me -- great ones at that. I grew up listening to The Beatles and when they split up, I followed all of their separate careers -- especially John's and Paul's. It was difficult to process why that had happened.

[Carolyn Ann]

I've always been a little ambivalent about John Lennon; he was a genius, but I don't agree with everything he said.

I can recall when he was shot, but it wasn't that significant to me, to be honest. I was a seriously into nihilistic thought, and punk, and it was all simply what went on in the world. (Little did I know the Dadaists had preceded "us" by a few generations!) Before anyone descends like a ton of bricks: I'm being honest, and if you don't like what I say... Well, I still couldn't give two hoots. (I say that because there's always someone who lands on me like a ton of bricks. Sometimes literally!)

Icons are so nebulous, don't you think? For me it was Robert Tressel, Quentin Crisp, the beat poets and others like Andy Warhol, Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, Lou Reed and Eddie Cochrane. Generational icons are different to personal ones, though.

The world lost someone special special when John Lennon was shot; there's no doubt about that. But we should always remember that they were people, before they were icons. The loss wasn't only to the world, it was to his family first.

Carolyn Ann

[Valeria Maltoni]

To me, it's always about the way someone or something makes you feel that stays with you. In some cases, as in Lennon's, it's also about an experience shared among people of a generation.

Yoko Ono published an open letter to her late husband today. You may find it here http://tiny.cc/GBsxB. A loss is very private, even when it is of a public figure.

[Tim Jackson]

I can remember the news going around my school and seeing so many of the teachers looking very sad. It was much different than when Elvis died- even in the southern Alabama town I grew up in. Maybe everybody expected Elvis to die, but not John. I don't know.

It was really only years later that I truly developed an appreciated for John Lennon. I too, grew up on the Beatles, but they were always this abstract thing. Lennon, for me, was less abstract somehow- his art as a writer just made more of an impact on me.

Years go, I made my first trip to New York and stayed in this tiny little funky hotel that was down the street from Central Park- and across the corner from the Dakota where John and Yoko lived and where he was shot. I'll never forget the feeling that reality caused.

[Valeria Maltoni]

It's interesting that NYC (Manhattan mostly) has that evocative power. A long time ago I read a book titled "Time and Again" about time travel by illustrator Si Morley from the twentieth-century to January 1882. Jack Finney, the author, did an amazing job of portraying the past in the narration, illustrations and photography. The city was as fascinating then as it is today. The Dakota was part of the story.