On children and their noising

My good friend and I have had the common habit of enjoying an under four dollar breakfast at a coffee place near her house for the past few months. Then one day she told me about another place, serving much better food for the same cost in Little Italy, only a few minutes farther away.
"But I like the place we usually go to," I protested.
"Don't be silly Rotem," she said, "that place serves runny eggs and under toasted toast. This new place is much much better."
I had to incline.

We set ourselves at a table outside and waited for a waitress (or waiter) to come and, well, wait. When we were done waiting we waited some more. In the meanwhile a lady entered the restaurant followed (or actually, preceded) by a crowd of three to four children ages two to six, I couldn't say exactly since they kept running around from place to place, screaming for attention, climbing to the roof and jumping on parked cars, that sort of thing. The lady, after having inspected the premise and discovering she can sit anywhere her heart desires, camped herself and her little swarm at the table nearest to us, and proclaimed, "Never have children!"

My friend and I tried, out of sheer courtesy, to show the least amount of interest, lest she start a conversation and by doing so neglect her children, an act which we felt strongly against. The woman nonetheless showed impressive multitasking capabilities, speaking to us and at the same time tying her boys to the chairs.
"And if you ever have children," she continued, "make sure you only have girls."
"Nonsense!" I exclaimed, "At these ages girls have a mission to discover how high a pitch they can scream."

Breakfast did arrive at some point, and the weary mother realized we did not come there to lend an ear for her motherly tribulations. She moved on to handling the order of her sons' eggs and sausage and, while they were rioting in joy, I was dreaming of our old little place, with runny eggs and under toasted toast and peace and quiet since no one would dare take his children into such a dump.
"I hope I didn't disturb your morning," the mother said, "young people as yourselves should not be bothered by an old nuisance as me."
She continued to gaze into the distance the rest of the morning, trying to ignore her children as much as possible.

Ok, so I made up the last part.
Well, actually I kinda blew everything up in general. But there is a point to it. I sat at a movie theater the other day and a baby kept crying. This baby, I assure you, had no idea what was going on on the screen - how could he? Was only nine to fifteen months old. But his mother (or father) brought him anyways.

Why?
I can understand people who want to get away from their troubles at home, the constant crying, screaming, tossing of refrigerators. But what sense is there, when in the process of getting away, for one to brings his troubles with him? Is it some sick twisted reasoning saying, "If I should suffer, why not let others suffer as well?"
"Look everybody, I got this little devil at home and I want to make EVERYONE understand how ADORABLE he is!"

Some kids are such a pleasure. I swear, I've seen quiet babies in my lifetime. They were so cute! And I've seen nice little boys and girls talking sweet innocence in reasonable volume. It's just that there's a group of noisy kids and they give a bad name to the rest of them!

There are, of course, many solutions readily available to this problem. For one, we can borrow many examples from canines. Businesses can put signs saying "No babies allowed", municipal law can ensure that parents do not take their young out in public without a leash, and airline companies should demand that children under the age of eight must be put in a cage and placed in the cargo bay.

All I can say is this: When I have a child, in case the little guy tries to train his vocal chords on account of my hearing, I will simply take him to an ice-cream parlor, order his favourate flavour, and eat it all by myself. I will then promise him that unless he wants some next time, he better be quiet from now on.

Maybe we could have a nice conversation.

Me and Yoko and John

(Written in hope of getting published, that's why it's so "formal", especially at the end)

(Oh yeah, I just came back from a visit to Montreal, it was lovely)

"I'm taking you to an exhibition about John Lennon and Yoko Ono," said my distinguished friend, who I will call S', "it's about some sleep-over party they had in the late 60th to encourage peace. I heard Yoko calls on the phone every day and people can talk to her."
"That sounds interesting," I said.
"It's free."
"Let's go!"

The event mentioned, known as the Montreal Bed-in, happened in 1969 when Lennon and Ono were denied entry to the US (John was convicted for marijuana possession) after holding the first Bed-in Amsterdam. They flew to Canada to have their fun in suite 1742 of Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel instead.

S' and I entered the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with passion, eager to understand what happened in 1969 without paying for it. The exhibition started with an introduction to the couple's activities leading to the event. As we came inside, the room said "John?"
And replied to itself, "Yoko?"
"John?"
There was a moment of silence, and then,
"Yoko?"

There was a big screen showing a video of Ono kneeling quietly on the floor while someone walks around her with oversized scissors, cutting her clothes piece by piece. There was a chessboard with only white squares and two sets of white pieces on it, ready to play. There was a wooden panel hanging on the wall with nails and hair hammered into it, and a box of nails and a small hammer by its side.
"What's with the hair?" said S'.
"That's what she wanted people to do," I said with confidence, having read the explanation on the wall.
"It's disgusting," determined S', "you wanna try it?"
I hammered a nail and complained that the hammer is not the best kind to use for this type of job. Another nail fell of as I worked.
"Look what you've done!" said S'.
"Shh," I said and struggled it back in its place, "don't tell anyone."
I didn't leave my hair, but I did notice some people nailed Metro tickets instead. For some reason it made sense.

"Yoko?"
"John?"

"I like the way they designed this," said S', who is by chance a Master of architecture student. All the rooms were very spacious, inviting, and white: the walls were white, the ceiling was white, the art was white. It was nice just to walk around, had a warm nostalgic feeling to everything displayed.

We entered a room showing a video of Lennon's musical performances after his time with the Beatles and displaying lyrics on gigantic newspapers printed on the wall. There was the cover for the album Two Virgins, showing cutouts of the couple's heads in one picture, and full frontal nudity in the next.
"He looks better without the long hair," said S'.

"Come read this," I said and showed her a panel describing the couple's creation of Nutopia, a country with no land or boundaries which flag is an empty white rectangle and anthem is six seconds of silence.
"I never knew about that," said S'.
"Neither did I."

The next room was devoted to the Montreal Bed-in. From May 26 to June 2, the couple had invited celebrities to their suite to promote peace, from their bed. Hundreds of reporters had covered the event. On the wall was a photograph of Yoko and John sitting on the floor inside a white two-person bag with "Baggism" written on its front, and a photographer sitting on their bed behind. In the centre of the room there was a large white bed in front of a movie screen showing the head of a reporter interviewing, more precisely – arguing, with the peace-seeking couple about the Vietnam war. This interview could only be heard by putting earphones on or getting close to small speakers at the back of the bed. Otherwise we listened to the famous song recorded in that suite, which goes "let's come together, and give peace a chance." You can play with this dual audio experience by alternating between the two and hearing something like: "Let's come to…I am not your spokesman and you are not mine! I refuse to have you as my…and give pea…I am not part of your race, whatever race that is! For all I know you two are Martians…a chance!"

"I wonder if it's the same sheets since the beginning of the show," said S'
"I'm sure they wash it every day," I said.
"I'm not," she said and sniffed the air. Unfortunately there were no white bags to be found anywhere.

There is something very odd for a person of 2009 to see the behaviour of artists in 1969. I don't think I will ever be able to fully understand what drove John and Yoko to such bizarre experiments. While I am full of admiration to their attempts at world peace, I can't help making a little fun of it. I think that is the true way to go – we no longer live in the seventies and hippies are something our society treats with kind humor (for example, Leo from That 70's Show.) I am actually a bit jealous of people from that period of time – who pulls crazy stunts like these our days?

In one of the next rooms stood a white grand piano, which S' figured to be different than the piano in the pictures on the wall because it had different legs. The song Imagine was playing in the background and a girl was playing the piano beautifully. It took us a minute to understand that the playing was part of the recording and the sound produced by the piano can only be heard via a set of headphones.
"That's sorta clever," I said, "people can enjoy playing without bothering others."
"I wanna try it!" said S'.
"Exactly."

We reached a room occupying a long table holding white chess boards, just like in the first room, inviting people to sit on tall heavy white chairs and play till they can't remember who owns which piece. There were maps all over the walls and stamps saying "Imagine Peace" on them. This is the only room that wasn't completely white, since visitors stamped the maps, the walls behind them, the ink boxes, and, in some cases I'm sure, themselves.
"I wanna make a bold one!" said S', and continued to stamp a spot with great vigour, to eventually turn it completely blue.
"Good job," I said. "You can't even see what it says anymore."

That was also the place where we found a white phone, to which Yoko calls and speaks to the lucky visitor who happened to stand close by.
"What would we say if she calls?" asked S'.
"Hello Mrs. Ono, we are enjoying your exhibition very much. We've also seen you naked – good job!"

When we got to the last room a guide reminded us we have only two minutes left till nine – closing time. "Oh, five more minutes," we cried, "please?" but he was very professional. There were a couple of trees in the room with paper hanging from it. We hurried to write something on a piece of paper but all I managed to scribble was an unsuccessful victory sign (it looked like a slingshot instead) and the emoticon ":)". We rushed to the souvenir store and there was another place to write on. I wrote, "S' was here," and she wrote, "and so was R'," and I wrote, "no I wasn't!" S' got attracted to a musical box the size of a match-box but decided to pass when she saw it's priced for ten dollars."

Imagine, The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko, is holding until the 21st of June and I sincerely recommend it. The pieces are successfully interacting, the content is to the point, and the subtext is rich and intriguing. With videos of concerts, hilarious interviews that last hours, and the chance to play chess in a new way, I wouldn't be surprised if some people got stuck in the Museum for hours without leaving. And it's free, so why not? Go check it out.