Bread Talk by Yoko Ono
Published in Asahi Graphic magazine in 1974. Translated from Japanese.


What if there is a bread baked in the oven as long as 100 years? I am sure that it will be exhibited in a museum and everybody would come to see it. I imagine to have a bite of it. The fire was too strong, there was too much yeast, the kneading of the bread was insufficient, etc.; such things will cross my mind but the taste through eating and chewing has something that exceeds such rational criticism.

When I see human beings lately, it seems like I am seeing such breads in motion. Looking at an old lady about seventy in the park, I might think that she seems to be fairly salty; however, a bread that has been baked for more than several decades has only its volume. Therefore, I think that humans are indeed amazing. It is amazing to see just how humans move, compared to this human movement, the automobile's movements are indeed simple.

I feel myself a bread in motion that has been baked for almost 40 years. After various events and years were put into it, I started to become puffy - I cherish this about myself somehow.

I've come to think that there might rarely be such a delicious bread like this. If I see a woman like this on the street corner, I think I might fall in love. It gives me a chill to think of such a scene; I am such a hapless woman.

A woman who is falling in love with herself. A woman who is falling in love with the world. A woman who is falling in love with the universe. I want to live long. I want to live forever. I want to live infinitely. A woman who has no fear at all for thinking of forever or infinity. I think I am such a woman.