Yoko Ono’s 1964 book Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings has been reissued. I’m not a big Yoko fan, myself. I remember her chiefly for her half of the Double Fantasy album by her and John. John’s half was excellent. Yoko’s half unlistenable.
But to the book! A Matthew Slaughter has posted a review of the book on Amazon. His review includes this:
“Grapefruit” is filled, for the most part, with short, koan-like “pieces” such as “Wall Piece for Orchestra.” Yoko directs the piece as follows: “Hit a wall with your head.”
This immediately brought to my mind a class I had in high school. I suspect it was the only class I had in four years in which I sat in the very last row. The back of the chair was up against the painted concrete block wall. I discovered that if I moved my head away from the wall just an inch or so and then quickly moved it against the wall I was rewarded with a very low tone that emanated from the entire wall. And, most importantly, it did not hurt (I guess I have a hard head.) Through the year I performed occasionally, successfully not doing it so often that I would be discovered.
Sometimes my Solo Wall Piece seemed to go completely unnoticed, but there were times when I could tell that the teacher heard it and was looking around trying to see where the sound was coming from (funny that I have no idea who the teacher in this class was, or which class it was!).
I always wondered what kind of reactions, if any, where taking place in the next room.
I had no idea I was following the instructions of Yoko Ono!
Hat tip: Ann Althouse
It’s likely you’d have better luck with remembering the class and teacher if you hadn’t spent so much time banging your head on a concrete wall… ;)