Tag: John Lennon

Acrostic Poems Never Die: Shakira Revives the Elementary School-Favored Poetry Method on “Acróstico,” Takes a Risk on the “Song For My Children” Genre

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For those who thought Shakira was all embitterment and revenge with her song subjects of late (hear: “Te Felicito” and “Shakira: BZRP Music Sessions #53”), Gerard Piqué isn’t the only topic occupying her mind (therefore, songwriting tendencies) lately. With “Acróstico,” the newest single that will likely appear on her twelfth album, Shakira focuses her mind instead on maternal sentiment—which was just in time for Mother’s Day weekend, as the song was released on May 11th. Accordingly, Shakira has no shame in getting Oedipal (just as John Lennon didn’t have any), talking about a mother’s transcendent, inimitable love for her children; in this case, two sons named Sasha and Milan (yes, they sound as though they were plucked right out of a season of RuPaul’s Drag Race).

It is these two names that are spelled out via the first letters of the verses in the song (though Shakira cheats more than a little bit by not having them spelled in a direct row—perhaps proving that acrostic poems are not exactly “elementary school child’s play”). A slow piano ballad, the beat drops around the one-minute, twenty-second mark as Shakira sings, “Se nos rompió solo un plato no toda la vajilla/Y aunque no sé poner la otra mejilla/Aprender a perdonar es de sabios/Que solo te salga amor de esos labios.” This meaning, “We only broke one plate, not all the dishes/And although I don’t know how to turn the other cheek/Learning to forgive is wise/May only love come out of those lips” (instead of the bullshit that came out of Piqué’s). As usual, everything sounds better and more poetic in Spanish than it does in English. But these are hardly the most standout or “maternal” expressions conveyed in the song. Elsewhere, Shakira gets even mushier with lines like, “The only thing I want is your happiness and to be with you/A smile from you is my weakness/Loving you serves as an anesthesia for pain/It makes me feel better/For whatever you need, I am here/You came to complete what I am.” How Jerry Maguire.

Of course, with Shakira’s sons only being ten and eight, it’s easy to feel such warm fuzziness toward them. But hopefully, they never take the route of Britney Spears’ spawns and veer more toward the path of Pamela Anderson’s. Depending on Piqué’s (and Clara Chía’s…if she lasts) influence, that feeling could change as they grow older (plus, if we’re drawing a comparative line, Piqué is technically Shakira’s K-Fed). Indeed, Britney is no stranger to the “write a song for my sons” genre only to have it backfire, having released both “Someday (I Will Understand)” and “My Baby” in years before the sting of Jayden and Sean’s betrayal. Years when they weren’t sentient enough to backstab (hence, lyrics such as, “Tiny hands/Yes, that’s you/And all you show/It’s simply true/I smell your breath/It makes me cry”—that last sentiment sounding more like an insult than a compliment).

But, for now, and despite Britney as a cautionary tale about writing songs for your sons, Shakira is hedging all her emotional bets on them by claiming ownership (almost as though marking her territory more strongly than Piqué can because he ain’t a singer). So it is that she declares, “You taught me that love is not a scam and that when it’s real it doesn’t end.” No pressure or anything for these sons to be her love “catch-all,” even as they grow up and inevitably try to distance themselves from their madre. Or worse, if they decide not to…meaning whoever they end up with will be marrying Shakira as much as her sons (though that might be motivation enough for some people).

This is when it becomes worth noting that “Acróstico” is just as overbearing as it is “sweet.” And while there have been plenty of other pop stars who have used their children as lyrical inspiration (e.g., David Bowie’s “Kooks,” John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy,” Lauryn Hill’s “To Zion” and Madonna’s “Little Star”), this particular slow jam feels more like additional leverage against Piqué somehow. Forgive the jadedness, but it’s hard not to picture Shakira diabolically laying down this track as further proof of her beneficent superiority over her shady, two-timing ex.

The album artwork, fittingly enough, features a teddy bear popping out of an unpacked box…seeing as how Shakira has relocated from Barcelona to Miami with Sasha and Milan after the fallout with their father. The box above it also has a sticker stamped on with a broken heart icon and the words, “Fragile Handle With Care.” Shakira believes her sons will do just that, the antidote to every other ill and heartbreak that might come along. Seemingly not realizing that a mother’s son can be just as much of a bane as a boon to her emotional well-being. Perhaps fellow celebrity mom Madonna put it best when she wrote in part of her own Mother’s Day message, “I have experienced my highest highs and my lowest lows as a Mother. No one could have prepared me.” Maybe Shakira herself has yet to be prepared for the potential disappointment that can come with putting so much weight on a child’s love if it isn’t reciprocated in the “right” way somewhere down the line. To add to the “aggressive, sticky maternal love!” (as Marcello in La Dolce Vita would say) vibe, Shakira also offers an accompanying lyric video featuring animated scenes of a mama bird protecting and tending to her nest of two eggs. Heavy-handed, to be sure. But not as much as when she defends her nest through a violent storm before the eggs hatch.

Upon “safely” bringing her two babies into the world (as though anyone is ever safe once they’re here), she proceeds to “activate” as a mother by foraging for food to bring back to them—the maternal instinct innate (or so the video would like to suggest). Jumping up and down in excitement as she watches them learn to fly, the trio soon soars off together into the sunset. And, in an alternate universe, one could even imagine a Spanish version of Princess Diana having her time with William and Harry soundtracked to this. However, for those who are maudlin-averse or perhaps have a more Mommie Dearest experience with their own mother, this song—brief though it may be—might not be easy to stomach.

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Genna Rivieccio

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May 15, 2023
John Lennon’s “Mother”: A Song “About 99% of the Parents”

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Despite “Mother” being one of John Lennon’s most deeply personal songs, there was a point when he told a concert audience in 1972, “A lot of people thought [‘Mother’] was just about my parents, but it was about 99% of the parents, alive or half-dead.” That “half-dead” jibe referring to the kind of parents Lennon had, who were never quite fully there—mostly because of their own emotional stuntedness that wouldn’t allow them to be. Although “Mother,” from the 1970 album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, explored the shortcomings of both of Lennon’s progenitors, Alfred a.k.a. “Freddie” and Julia, it was his matriarch who served as the primary focus for the rage-sadness that punctuated lyrics like, “Mother, you had me/But I never had you.”

That the song commences with a bevy of elegiac carillons additionally speaks to Lennon “laying to rest” his proverbial “Mommy issues.” Not least of which included his Oedipal admission of wanting to touch his mother in ways inappropriate for a son. Recalling how his hand grazed her tit one afternoon as they were napping, John would later muse, “I was wondering if I should do anything else… I always think I should have done it. Presumably she would have allowed it.” What with Julia’s reputation for being so “bohemian.”

Oedipal inclinations aside, from the get-go of “Mother,” Lennon gut-punches his listeners by holding up his abandonment like an open wound he’s begging someone—anyone—to heal. As if, by showing it, maybe somebody can mend the damage. But, by that point, it was far too deep-seated to ever be repaired. Although the lyrics are sparse and often repetitive, the rich tapestry of Lennon’s varying vocal intonations is what makes the visceral song so arresting. This being in addition to the fact that so many can relate to the sentiments and themes presented. Both of which cut to the core of the type of abandonment that seemed so much more normalized when baby boomers were growing up (ergo the classic trope about Dad going out to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returning).

Not to say, of course, that parents don’t still abandon their children (in more abstract ways now) every day, but it’s certainly less “tolerated.” And the only thing people hate more than having to be responsible is being made to feel guilty or shamed about, that’s right, not being responsible. “Back then,” as the phrase goes, it appeared so much more “accepted” to abandon children. After all, there were numerous cataclysmic factors that allowed one a “get out of jail [because, yeah, parenting is a prison] free” card. World War II, the Great Depression, a lack of surveillance technology in the form of smartphones—just to name a few of those “extenuating circumstances.”

To enhance the notion that to be a baby boomer child (and particularly a male one) was to run a higher risk of emotional damage incurred from one’s parents, Phil Spector co-produced the song. And he, too, got something of what can be called a “raw deal” in his upbringing. For his father, Benjamin, offered perhaps the worst kind of abandonment: committing suicide. Spurred by his increasing debt in 1949, Benjamin chose carbon monoxide poisoning as the most effective out. At the time, Spector was ten years old. Lennon would be far younger when he dealt with his own sting of abandonment, as his father was constantly absent due to his job as a sea merchant. But “at least” when he was doing that, he could send the checks home to help Julia support their son. Those checks mysteriously ceased circa 1944 (in the months when John would have been three) after Freddie went AWOL. A desertion that would soon extend to his nuclear family.

Six months after his disappearance, perhaps something like a guilty conscience struck as Freddie decided to return and try to get Julia to take him back. But she had already “canoodled” with a Welsh soldier, and ended up pregnant with his child (her family implored her to put up that baby for adoption, which she did—as even she couldn’t seem to talk herself into the idea that she was a “fit mother”). After that, she got together with John “Bobby” Dykins and had two children with him, although she never officially divorced from Freddie.

Though Julia eventually “got it together” for her second family, her “care” of John proved worrisome to her older sister, Mimi, who reported her to social services and gained custody of Julia’s firstborn that way. Regardless, Julia remained in daily contact with John and, in 1946, followed her son and Freddie to Blackpool where the latter was intending to run away to New Zealand with John. Forced into one of the most uncomfortable positions any child can be, John was asked to choose between his parents as they proceeded to get in an argument about custody. Stating that he chose his father, John then ran after an affronted Julia. But he was damned by whatever decision he made, for neither parent was equipped to raise him. Just as so many parents aren’t, yet still decide to go ahead and spawn anyway.

Later, in a 1980 interview, John would come to understand of his mother, “[She] just couldn’t deal with life. She was the youngest and she had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn’t cope with me, and I ended up living with her elder sister. Now those women were fantastic… And that was my first feminist education… I would infiltrate the other boys’ minds. I could say, ‘Parents are not gods because I don’t live with mine and, therefore, I know.’” This revelation—the one that children aren’t supposed to find out about until much later—came to John earlier than it should have. Ironically, while parents are supposed to be seen as some kind of all-knowing, all-powerful gods by their children, they themselves often know so little. It was no wonder David Bowie therefore clapped back in 1972’s “Changes,” “And these children that you spit on/As they try to change their worlds/Are immune to your consultations/They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.”

John certainly was. And it was something he could never not be aware of—no matter how many drugs or how many women (or men) he turned to as a means to numb that awareness. That’s why he was still writing about the parental slight in 1970, at the age of thirty. Perhaps finally having the clarity that’s so often associated with “age” and being able to look back on things with a greater sense of perspective and wisdom. In the end, for his own self-preservation, he has to admit to both parents in “Mother,” “I, I wanted you/You didn’t want me/So, I/I just got to tell you/Goodbye.” Unfortunately, his wisdom arrived after he had already made the same mistake of rushing into having a family of his own too early—as though to “generate” the one he never had. Thus, in “Mother” he also sings, “Children, don’t do what I have done/I couldn’t walk and I tried to run.” In effect, John urges childless people not to hurry into having kids just because they want to fill some void left by their parents’ method of “raising.”

Shouting, “Mama don’t go! Daddy come home!” as the song draws to a close, the residual pain left by his parents is forever immortalized. And for so many children (no matter what age) who listen to it, that pain is all too resonant.

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Genna Rivieccio

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May 14, 2023
What are the 500 best albums? Rolling Stone has an answer

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NEW YORK — Is Fleetwood Mac’s landmark album “Rumours” better than “To Pimp a Butterfly” by Kendrick Lamar? Should “Tapestry” by Carole King be ranked higher or lower than “Thriller” by Michael Jackson?

Rolling Stone magazine has some answers in a new book that’s sure to spark conversations — “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” It’s where you’ll find that Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” fittingly sits just ahead of “Ready to Die” by The Notorious B.I.G., at No. 21 and No. 22, respectively.

“Every record on here is in some ways on for different reasons,” said Jon Dolan, the reviews editor at Rolling Stone who helped create the book. “We are really happy, to be honest, about the whole list.”

But if you disagree with the rankings, don’t blame the folks at Rolling Stone. Blame Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Iggy Pop. Nile Rodgers, Questlove, Billie Eilish, Herbie Hancock, Saweetie, Carly Rae Jepsen, Lin-Manuel Miranda and members of Metallica and U2, among dozens of other artists. They were among the judges.

The book’s editors reached out to about 500 voters from the world of music — artists, journalists, record label figures and Rolling Stone staffers — and asked for their top 50 albums (Stevie Nicks kindly offered 80). They got some 4,000 albums and created a spreadsheet with weighed points.

On every page, the artists make a fascinating musical tapestry. Take a section in the lower Top 100 — at No. 86 is The Doors’ self-titled debut, followed by “Bitches Brew” by Miles Davis, “Hunky Dory” by David Bowie and, at No. 89, is “Baduizm” by Erykah Badu, connecting gems of classic rock, jazz, prog-rock and R&B.

“Is there a person who loves all those things equally? Probably not. But we hope there’s people who could definitely want to try them all out and see what they think,” Dolan said. “That’s the goal: making connections and being introduced to new things.”

Dolan was impressed by some established artists embracing modern music, like John Cale of the Velvet Underground championing FKA Twigs and Nicks ranking Harry Styles’ “Fine Line” quite high.

“It’s sweet when these people who have been around are not just pooh-poohing the younger generation,” he said. “It’s neat when people are voting for things outside of their genre and what you’d expect.”

The book’s origins started in 2003 when the magazine published its first 500 list, putting The Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” at No. 1. It was a pretty Beatles-heavy list, with three more Fab Four albums making the top 10.

“It had kind of the perspective of a 45-year-old male rock fan who was open minded, who liked rap a little bit, but kind of patting it on the head, and liked R&B, but was kind of dismissive of the more recent stuff,” he said.

“We really wanted to break away from that perspective and think the list could actually have many perspectives converging.”

Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” shot up on the new list, going from No. 30 in 2003 to the top 10 now, and Prince and the Revolution’s “Purple Rain” went from No. 76 to No. 8. Another big gainer was Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” which zoomed up from the 300s in 2003 to Top 10 now.

“Certain albums become kind of new classics,” said Dolan. “It is something that’s kind of evolving and up for grabs. And we wanted to kind of at least imply that in doing this one.”

The new list is more inclusive of genres other than rock and so pushed some iconic albums down, like AC/DC’s “Back in Black” which went from No. 77 to No. 84, now nestled between “Dusty in Memphis” by Dusty Springfield and John Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band.” (“I’m pretty sure they would accept that company,” Dolan said.)

Some artists’ catalogues have also shifted. Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” leapfrogged his “Blonde on Blonde” and “Highway 61 Revisited” this time, and the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” became their top album in the book, over “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver.”

“The warmth and the beauty and the sweetness of ‘Abbey Road’ maybe in a way wins out over this sort of landmark sonic inventiveness of ‘Revolver’ because people love to listen to it.”

There’s been some online griping about the list, like that only “The Stranger” from Billy Joel made the list and no entries from non-Western artists, Fans of U2 might be mad that “The Joshua Tree” dropped out of the Top 100 and fans of electronic music might bemoan that there are only eight electronic albums.

But Rolling Stone says the list is a snapshot as music marches onward. While the albums were being tabulated this time, Taylor Swift’s “folklore” and Bob Dylan’s “Rough and Rowdy Ways” came out, and Dolan suspects both might have made the book if they’d only come out earlier.

“Because the list is so stylistically diverse and open-ended, I think we’re kind of implying that it’s always a work in progress,” he said. “In 20 years, Rolling Stone, whatever entity it is, will do this again at some point.”

———

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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November 2, 2022
Two Years Later, Cyberpunk 2077 Fans Are Still Trying To Solve The Game’s Biggest Mystery
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Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

Given that Cyberpunk 2077 came out nearly two years ago, you might think there’s little left to discover and document ahead of the game’s first and only planned DLC, Phantom Liberty. But right in the heart of Night City lies the beginning of a riddle that has left fans scrambling to unravel the mystery since the hunt began in 2020. It all starts with a single statue and a six-digit alphanumeric sequence: FF:06:B5.

Cyberpunk 2077 players caught on to the FF:06:B5 mystery early on in the game’s life, but the answer has remained frustratingly out of reach despite many elaborate theories. The mysterious six-character sequence is found on a statue where monks can often be seen praying or meditating. The search has involved rigorous number-crunching based on the initial hint, maps that chart the location of repeat instances of the same statue, and deep dives into spiritual concepts and real world history, among other attempts to find the solution. Following the trail is dizzying to say the least. But every step of it is intriguing, even if you’re not sure you’re on a trail to begin with.

Few concrete, undeniable facts and trails have surfaced outside of initial observations, a good chunk of which are documented on r/FF06B5, a subreddit dedicated to cracking the titular mystery (as well as other secrets found in Cyberpunk 2077). Theories and speculation go over the deep end real fast with this mystery, so if you find yourself struggling to keep your head on straight, you’re not alone. As is said in the “Newcomer Sticky” of FF:06:B5’s subreddit, “Without concrete proof that one [theory] is more viable than another, it’s difficult to give this community and newcomers a direction to look.”

No one is certain what the solution is, or if any of the proposed theories and documentation are even on the right track. If you want to get a look at the origin of the mystery for yourself, you can find the first and only truly confirmed “hint” right in Corpo Plaza. Located northwest of the massive roundabout and near the Corpo Plaza apartment, is a statue known to FF:06:B5 mystery hunters as FF:06:B5 Prime “D3.” A multi-armed statue holding a giant sword with two hands, and a sphere in one of its left hands, it has the six-character sequence in bold across the front. It also has a strange forking symbol that many suspect either relates to V’s lifepaths, the branching nature of the game’s story, or even ancient numbering systems. This statue can be found in multiple locations in the city, though not all have the alphanumerical sequence. Miniature versions of the statue, complete with the sequence, also appear in the game’s recently-added apartments that are up for sale.

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

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Despite the mystery, a few reliable observations and likely starting points have been established by the community:
1. FF:06:B5, when used as an HTML hex color code, translates to “shocking pink,” or as the community refers to it (and often the mystery itself) “magenta.”
2. The sequence looks like a portion of a MAC address and/or matches other kinds of code sequences found elsewhere in the game.
3. Multiple statues identical and similar in shape appear throughout the game. Some even do weird things, like emit sparks when shot, or simply hold orbs that are suspiciously colored pink.
4. NPC monks gather in front of the D3 “Prime” statue. They can be heard chanting as well as repeating one particularly intriguing line of dialog: “My apprentice! Your throat chakra is blocked! Activate the meridians on the roof of your mouth.”
5. Paweł Sasko, Cyberpunk’s lead quest designer, confirmed that this isn’t a case of smoke where there’s no fire. He acknowledges that it is indeed a mystery worth looking into, likely with a specific meaning and solution—and one he has turned down every opportunity to shed light on, even when asked directly.
There’s also somewhat of a sixth fact to consider: After update 1.5, the text on D3 “Prime” changed from red to yellow. What that could possibly mean is anyone’s guess.

All theories more or less sprout from these confirmable observations. What follows depends which avenue you choose to pursue and how lost in the weeds you’re willing to get. You can check out some of the connected threads in the community’s mind map, which traces not only connections within the game but also connections to works of pop culture and spiritual concepts that exist outside of the game. Anything that can have a number, color, or thematic concept attached to it seems to be up for exploration. Trips through Reddit threads and Discord conversations point to any number of possibilities. Everything from complex readings into spiritually to matching the code to Windings fonts, of all things.

One example of the rabbit hole that can ensue from following a potential lead includes attempting to connect the mysterious “Zen Master” side jobs to FF:06:B5. Given the presence of monks at the D3 prime statue, the monk’s meditation quests seem like a natural place to look. These side jobs involve meeting a lone monk who takes you through a meditative brain dance. When pulled apart for clues, things get a little interesting.

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

As charted out in the mind map, players have figured out that the amount you can choose to donate to the monk after each meditation session increases in order of the Fibonnaci sequence starting at the 12th position. Not only that, but each quest is named after specific works of art such as John Lennon’s song “Imagine,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” Rūmī’s “Poem of the Atoms,” and “Meetings Along the Edge,” the title of a piece that appears on the collaborative recording project between composers Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar. These have their own numbers to contribute with release dates, song length, and more. Trailing sets of numbers and thematic relationships seem to be a common end result of many theories and the game is more than happy to provide such speculative fodder.

Occurrences like the Zen Master and the weird math hidden in the details have become the meat and potatoes of intense speculation that blends number crunching with concepts of spirituality with the game’s own lore and references to pop culture. It’s hard to keep track of it all. Does it directly relate to the main FF:06:B5 mystery? Another mystery altogether? Or none at all? While some trains of thought seem more convincing than others, the game is filled with dozens of opportunities to trace lines where there might not have been any in the first place. Yet, it always seems like certain clues are too hard to ignore. Why does one striking in-game ad in particular seem to not sell a specific product (or contain other versions of it as all other ads do, confirmed via datamining)? I found myself wondering why said ad seems to bear some resemblance to the mysterious symbol on the D3 Prime statue and on the jewelry worn by the monks who meet in front of D3 at the same time of day, every day. Am I seeing things or am I on to something?

The scope of the city, the frequent themes of identity and reality woven throughout the game, it all creates a spiral of possible solutions to a weird statute that has been resistant to the most audacious efforts to crack it.

Given the clear esoteric nature of the mystery, others have turned to investigating Misty, her shop, the game’s tarot cards, and all other appearances of religious and spiritual concepts and iconography. The glyph found in Misty’s shop contains strings of numbers and letters that can be connected to form a larger sequence, broken up into pairs similar to FF:06:B5. It also bears resemblance to graffiti found near the final Zen Master quest.

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red / Kotaku

The NPC monk line concerning the “throat chakra” seems to also be somewhat promising, as some speculate that the answer to the mystery lies in following the request to “activate the meridians on the roof of your mouth.” A couple of recent posts to the mystery’s subreddit are following patterns of blue, based on the traditional color of the throat chakra and how that matches the giant blue circular glass “roof” that covers a portion of the road in Corpo Plaza.

Despite the impressiveness of the documentation that’s been gathered in pursuit of this mystery, it’s hard not to get discouraged by how many lead to dead ends. And when every little thing in the game can seemingly be related by some extension, it’s easy to start getting paranoid.

Every time I felt like I was ready to give up on one of the possible theories or speculations, there’d be a small connection I’d struggle to dismiss, or documentation of alleged clues that drew lines to other oddities in the game, such as the constant repetition of the “no future” graffiti. But after sifting through so many long strings of speculation and theory, it’s hard not to deny the fun in finding something tucked away in Cyberpunk 2077 that no one’s pieced together yet.

Hopefully it’ll be a satisfying reveal when someone does figure it out, because speculating over why an NPC might be tapping a bar table a certain number of times is enough to drive one into cyber psychosis.
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Claire Jackson

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November 2, 2022
Report: Salman Rushdie lives, but loses use of eye and hand

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NEW YORK — Salman Rushdie’s agent says the author has lost sight in one eye and the use of a hand as he recovers from an attack from a man who rushed the stage at an August literary event in western New York, according to a published report.

Literary agent Andrew Wylie told the Spanish language newspaper El Pais in an article published Saturday that Rushdie suffered three serious wounds to his neck and 15 more wounds to his chest and torso in the attack that took away sight in an eye and left a hand incapacitated.

Rushdie, 75, spent years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 edict, a fatwa, calling for his death after publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. Over the past two decades, Rushdie has traveled freely.

Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, has been incarcerated after pleading not guilty to attempted murder and assault in the Aug. 12 attack on Rushdie as he was being introduced at the Chautauqua Institution, a rurally located center 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Buffalo that is known for its summertime lecture series.

After the attack, Rushdie was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital, where he was briefly put on a ventilator to recover from what Wylie told El Pais was a “brutal attack” that cut nerves to one arm.

Wylie told the newspaper he could not say whether Rushdie remained in a hospital or discuss his whereabouts.

“He’s going to live … That’s the important thing,” Wylie said.

The attack was along the lines of what Rushie and his agent have thought was the “principal danger … a random person coming out of nowhere and attacking,” Wylie told El Pais.

“So you can’t protect against it because it’s totally unexpected and illogical,” he said.

Wylie told the newspaper it was like Beatles member John Lennon’s murder. Lennon was shot to death by Mark David Chapman outside his Manhattan apartment building Dec. 8, 1980, hours after the singer had signed an autograph for Chapman.

In a jailhouse interview with The New York Post, Matar said he disliked Rushdie and praised Khomeini. Iran has denied involvement in the attack.

———

An earlier version of this report had an incorrect spelling of Salman Rushdie’s first name.

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October 23, 2022
Japanese avant-garde pioneer composer Ichiyanagi dies at 89

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TOKYO — Avant-garde pianist and composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, who studied with John Cage and went on to lead Japan’s advances in experimental modern music, has died. He was 89.

Ichiyanagi, who was married to Yoko Ono before she married John Lennon, died Friday, according to the Kanagawa Arts Foundation, where Ichiyanagi had served as general artistic director. The cause of death was not given.

“We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to all those who loved him during his lifetime,” the foundation’s chairman, Kazumi Tamamura, said in a statement Saturday.

Ichiyanagi studied at The Juilliard School in New York and emerged a pioneer, using free-spirited compositional techniques that left much to chance, incorporating not only traditional Japanese elements and instruments but also electronic music.

He was known for collaborations that defied the boundaries of genres, working with Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham, as well as innovative Japanese artists like architect Kisho Kurokawa and poet-playwright Shuji Terayama, as well as with Ono, with whom he was married for several years starting in the mid-1950s.

“In my creation, I have been trying to let various elements, which have often been considered separately as contrast and opposite in music, coexist and penetrate each other,” Ichiyanagi once said in an artist statement.

Japanese traditional music inspired and emboldened him, he said, because it was not preoccupied with the usual definitions of music as “temporal art,” or what he called “divisions,” such as relative and absolute, or new and old.

Modern music was more about “substantial space, in order to restore the spiritual richness that music provides,” he said.

Among his well-known works for orchestra is his turbulently provocative “Berlin Renshi.” Renshi is a kind of Japanese collaborative poetry that is more open-ended free verse than older forms like “renku.”

In 1989, Ichiyanagi formed the Tokyo International Music Ensemble — The New Tradition (TIME), an orchestral group focused on traditional instruments and “shomyo,” a style of Buddhist chanting.

His music traveled freely across influences and cultures, transitioning seamlessly from minimalist avant-garde to Western opera.

Ichiyanagi toured around the world, premiering his compositions at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris. The National Theater of Japan also commissioned him for several works.

He remained prolific over the years, producing Concerto for marimba and orchestra in 2013, and Piano Concerto No. 6 in 2016, which Ichiyanagi performed solo at a Tokyo festival.

Ichiyanagi received numerous awards, including the Alexander Gretchaninov Prize from Juilliard, L’ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette and the Medal of Purple Ribbon from the Japanese government.

Born in Kobe to a musical family, Ichiyanagi showed promise as a composer at a young age. He won a major competition in Japan before moving to the U.S. as a teen, when such moves were still relatively rare in postwar Japan.

A private funeral is being held with family. A public ceremony in his honor is in the works, being arranged by his son, Japanese media reports said.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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October 8, 2022