I chanced upon this interesting article from the online TIME which gathered the top 10 Nude Magazine Covers of all time. Well, “nude” and “interesting” are usually interchangeable these days, but what particularly piqued my interest is that of John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono on the cover of a 1980 issue of the Rolling Stone magazine. To be honest, it was not a pretty picture — Yoko Ono looked too masculine and her outfit was not flattering at all; and John Lennon, THE John Lennon, was in an ugly, fetal position exposing his wrinkled white skin and thin fragile frame. It was all too strange to see, particularly for someone recognized for brilliant, decade century-defining music and strawberry fields-sized ego.

And then the write up shed some light:
“On Dec. 8, 1980, noted lenswoman Annie Leibovitz photographed former Beatles singer John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono at the couple’s New York City apartment for Rolling Stone. Leibovitz had initially wanted to shoot Lennon alone, but he insisted they both be in the photograph. After she asked Lennon to remove his clothes and curl up next to Ono, Leibovitz said Ono offered to remove her top, but the photographer told her to keep her clothes on. The resulting photo of a nude Lennon curled around his wife “captured our relationship exactly,” Lennon allegedly said after seeing a Polaroid. Five hours later, he was shot outside of the Dakota Building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The photograph was the cover ofRolling Stone‘s tribute to Lennon, and in 2005 it was chosen by the American Society of Magazine Editors as the top cover of the previous 40 years.”
(I think there should be a pause here somewhere to allow this to sink in.)
Although it is tragic that John Lennon died 5 hours after this photo was taken, I can’t help but think how beautiful it is — how his life ended with such vulnerability, how, in his last few hours, John Lennon was exposed to the world — and most importantly, to Yoko Ono — as how he really is: weak, naked, human. How — stripped of all his records and his larger-than-life name — his can’t-live-without remains to be Yoko Ono who, more effectively so in the photo above, visually radiates as Lennon’s pillar of strength.
It is the kind of image that is so painfully beautiful, it causes an almost tangible pain in the chest. I’ve always thought that art should never be restricted to museums — they should be more available to people, and what better way to do it than to be in the cover of a Rolling Stone magazine.
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In the past, I have had episodes of uncertainty & confusion about my personal equity (forgive the corporate term). Fundamentally, I am an alpha female — that girl who loves to compete in a man’s world & beat them at it, who can’t understand why guys have to carry girls’ purses, etc, etc. And although this did me a lot of good in cutting balls in the business world, the same strategy has equal and opposite effect in the dating world — and this, ladies and gentlemen, was the seed of my aforementioned uncertainty/confusion.
In an attempt to tone it down and be the darling of the dating world as well — or maybe it’s part of my being a go-getter? — I went through the dreaded Taylor Swift phase. I dated a lot, tried my hand at being a damsel in distress, and wore so much florals that my closet began to look like a garden. Thankfully, the phase was short-lived; I felt that my core character was disintegrating and I was losing so much of myself already. If that was the cost of dating, it’s very expensive and I decided to ditch the effort altogether and get back to my old albeit less adorable self.
Admittedly, it is the sweet & charming girls who are always ahead of the game. They are just so likable, and they feed men’s hunger for other people’s dependence on them with so much generosity that I can never afford. But the photo above is a testimony that there is a niche for us Yoko Onos. The Taylor Swifts of the world will date more Prince Charmings than us, yes, but there will come a time when our John Lennons will come looking for us. There is as much room for damsels in distress as there is for alpha females in this world, so I hope people will stop telling me that I should act more of the other type in order to be more “date-able” because, by God, I can never resort to sweet talking even at gunpoint.
Why am I writing about this? I honestly don’t know. Maybe because it is disappointing to note that there are less and less of them John Lennons nowadays. People want things easy, but that’s not the way to earn a Yoko Ono. Because Yoko Onos will stick with you through the hardest times in your life (as they are smart enough to know that there are no perfect happily-ever-afters outside of storybooks), so you gotta do better than that. And I’m not talking about material things — it usually goes by the simple acknowledgment of the strength of the girl and not minding who wears the pants; by stripping yourself of insecurities and putting a stop to childish who’s-better-at-what.
Alas. Easier said than done.
But in the end, even if it means less Prince Charmings and fairytale endings, I am, by DNA, a Yoko Ono. I won’t have it any other way (although I proved that I can rock a lot of florals). Storybook covers are always so colorful — some with glitters, even — but John & Yoko’s cover on the Rolling Stone, awkward and unpleasant as it may look, is the real deal and will always be the symbol of what a true love story means to me.
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With M&M’s in hand, I walked the stretch called Liberdade, a sore thumb of Asian heads in an otherwise inconspicuous street in Brazil.
Liberdade(Japanese:リベルダーデ) (Portuguese pronunciation: [libeɾˈdadʒi], Portuguese for “Liberty”, “Freedom”) is the name of a district in the subprefecture ofSé, inSão Paulo,Brazil. It is home to the largestJapanesecommunity outside of Japan in the world and has been growing since the 1950s.
(says Wikipedia.)
The street smelled of merchandise stocks, a staple to every Chinatown or Little Tokyo that exists in other countries. Within a few steps I was merged into the crowd, people addressing me in either Japanese or Portuguese, not sensing that I am a stranger. I kept my mouth shut except for a couple of “how much?” and “no, no”. I liked the disguise.
I look around to marvel at how strange this community is. Like mushrooms, the locals could not tell how these Japanese communities came about in Brazil. Nobody could pinpoint when the influx of Japanese happened or why, and suddenly there they are, selling their sushis and yakisobas to Latinos. But the subculture thrived with so much color and energy that the Paulistas simply had to learn chopsticks.
Maybe change – however different, unconventional, or completely what-the-hell – is good.
Soon I dropped my M&M’s for one of them prawns-on-a-stick and another variant of street food I don’t even have a name for. Feelings of foreboding (or fear of failure, if I must be honest about it) sneak in between bites, and I try to cover them up by gasping in some air. This may be my last shot at this kind of life – somehow, it suddenly felt so important to memorize how the feeling of security smells like.
Because I am giving up my M&M’s. Yessir, I am going to take that jump. I am giving up the precise taste of candy-covered chocolate, the promise of calculated sweetness, the sure quality of a stamped goodie. I am making the unpopular choice of biting into the unknown. Street food may be out-of-this-world delicious, or it may give you a tummy ache. Or maybe both, you never know. But if sushi managed to survive in Brazil, then the world seems to have a big appetite for new things.
I hope I have the stomach for it too.
That’s something that people don’t tell you about freedom. Nobody could really tell, for sure, if it’s a good feeling. It’s a classic depends-on-your-perspective kind of thing. If I am currently chasing freedom, then why am I feeling this apprehension, this fear? And when I finally get what I want, will I eventually want freedom from it too?
Again, you never know.
In the end, the shrimp tasted a whole lot better than the M&M’s, and I somewhat found a weird sense of reassurance from that. I had a tummy ache that night too but I swear, the M&M’s are equally guilty.
I’ll never get tired of this song. Classic from U2! :)
(Btw, this is the long-intro version as arranged by the guitar god Sungha Jung. So the actual song starts at 1:10)
I can’t tell who’s luckier — Gwyneth Paltrow or Chris Martin. But this one I’m sure of: You know you have something good if you can write iconic songs out of every moment you’re together.
“She came home from the hospital after her father passed covered in tears. I started crying and kept asking her ‘What can I do for you? Tell me how I can help’…And she looked up at me and said ‘Just hold me..’cause you’re the only thing that can fix me right now.’ ”
-Chris Martin on the inspiration for ‘Fix You’
Every Teardrop is a Waterfall - Robyn
Robyn combined my all-time favorite band with my current obsession for Techno. Dance-ready Every Teardrop is a Waterfall! <3
My Mom used to have breast cancer. Fortunately, she had it when breast cancer was already among the most curable types of cancer. We still had to go through the emotional plague called chemotherapy where I would go home to find less hair on my Mom’s head (at least, until she shaved it off), or where we would wake up in the middle of the night due to bouts of vomiting. Stressful, yes, but that’s all in the past. Thanks to the wonders of Science, she’s now cancer-free.
My Aunt and Cousin were not as lucky. My Aunt (Dad’s sister) died of breast cancer in ‘95 because chemo at that time was still very ineffective. Breast cancer was the feared top killer of women. A few years later, her son was diagnosed with Leukemia and died within 2 months from diagnosis. I can never imagine the stress my Uncle had to go through, having lost a wife and a son because of cancer.
So you can just imagine how scared I am of cancer. Having it in my genes on both the mother & father sides, I have always been paranoid that I might, you know… I can’t even finish the sentence. I don’t like saying it because it’s just too real. Add the fact that I have always been pale and you would understand why I am always stressed whenever I go for blood tests.
But today I ran across this tweet by Jim Paredes:

Curious, I clicked on the article and it was about an experiment done by University of Pennsylvania scientists who found a potential cure for Leukemia. Leukemia, being the cancer of the blood / bone marrow, is one of the deadliest types of cancer because it spreads quickly across your body, affecting more organs and cells in an accelerated pace versus other types of cancer. Chemo is weak for Leukemia, as there are more cancer cells to kill in more parts of the body. Success rate in eliminating cancer cells in Leukemia cases is very low. So it was a HUGE thing for cancer fighters all over the world when this experiment turned out to be successful. It was tested on 3 patients, 2 of whom are now 100% cancer-free; the last one is currently at 70%, but treatment is still on-going. Isn’t that a big whew?
I REALLY hope governments and other organizations will fund this, as this will form big progress on the fight against cancer. For one, it appeased the paranoid in me, just knowing that there is a potential cure for it already. When before, some people just wait to die as soon as they are diagnosed with leukemia, now we actually have a weapon in the making.
Aaah, the wonders of science. I hope I’d see the day when vaccines against cancer are already available at health centers. Until then, let’s cheer for these geniuses. :)
For more details, watch this video:
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