#yokoono

#johnlennon #yokoono @seanonolennon

How marvelous is she?

For one thing she's inspiring me to keep a joke book for an imaginary stand-up routine that I may or may not ever do. I've never performed stand-up in my life, so that's something.

The show takes place primarily in the late 1950's and early 1960's..... which makes for several interesting Beatles connexions....

For instance, there are two Yoko references in the show—

[NB: I don't care what you think about Yoko Ono.]

The first allusion to Yoko is in S02E07 "Look, She Made A Hat", as title character Miriam “Midge” Maisel (played by Rachel Brosnahan) departs the scene of a New York art gallery. The camera locks and slow-zooms onto a young Asian woman (played by I don't yet know who) dressed modestly but stylishly in plain colours and intently observing a guy climbing up a ladder to adjust a painting. Gently she mutters, "Nice ladder," then takes a hard bite of a Granny Smith apple. This art gallery sequence is set sometime in 1959, when Yoko would have been about 27 years old and living in New York for several years by then. The whole ladder and apple imagery, of course, refers to two of the art pieces on display when John went to see Yoko's exhibition at the Indica Gallery in November 1966. (The apple is not to The Beatles’ company Apple Corps., as some mistakenly believe, but rather the other way around.)

The second reference to Yoko is a passing gag during the series finale. An older Midge Maisel holds a business meeting in the Dakota building, and instructs her assistant on dealing with a noisy neighbor: “Tell them Yoko complained. That'll scare 'em.” The Dakota is, of course, John and Yoko's residence where he was shot in 1980, and where Yoko continued to live up until Covid.

Another connexion is the character of Lenny Bruce (played by Luke Kirby), who features prominently as a recurring character that frequently interacts with Midge. Heaps of Lenny's comedy bits are faithfully reproduced throughout the series, from the Steve Allen appearance to of one of his rambling San Francisco performances shortly before his death in 1965. Two years after real-life Lenny's death, his face was raised among the “audience” of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band — top row, fourth from the left — alongside fellow legends Bob Dylan and Marlon Brando and Mae West and Lewis Carroll and Sonny Liston and Lawrence of Arabia and Tony Curtis and several dozen other stars.

(Speaking of stars, Mrs. Maisel also drops a passing reference to James Earl Jones into season 5, I forget which episode, but it tickled my Star Wars fancy enough to mention.)

Clever all, yes. But the real magic — for me anyway — is that the series paints the world of New York as it was before The Beatles arrived, and the world of entertainment in particular. (Late 50's/early 60's New York is part of the same American landscape as George Lucas’s archetypal California town in American Graffiti. This is pre-Beatles America.)

Furthermore, the five-season progression of Mrs. Maisel follows a similar arc as the Savage Young Beatles story: a unique artist who's “out of the norm” and yet defiantly struggles to “make it”. (Which is essentially the same hero story narrative as Luke Skywalker's journey in the first Star Wars film.)

Yoko: A Biography by David Sheff

Pub date - 3/25/25

Yoko Ono has been survived more than many people could fathom living through.

During my reading of this, I learned more about her than I had previously known, though it seemed like there was much missing and some details brushed aside.

Reading this gave me the ick after learning that the author became a family friend, and then fell out of touch Yoko and Sean. It felt a little too “allow me now to profit off my experience first as an interviewer, and than as a friend”. It’s the “friend” part that soured me on this.

I understand that not everyone will feel similarly, so I do recommend this as a closer (if biased) look at a fascinating woman, who deserved so much more respect than she received.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the DRC