"YOKO IN NEW YORK"
Published in Shukan Bunshun, August 15th 1974

"Yoko Ono is coming back to Japan in 10 years - in order to appear at the "ONE STEP FESTIVAL" sponsored by youngsters in Koriyama city, Fykuoka prefecture. She is not only the originator of Happening and Free Sex, but also Mrs. John Lennon. Now she has become the most famous Japanese in the world, but little is known of her private life. We reveal the real face of the standard-bearer of the avant-garde movement.

She has recently separated from Lennon and is currently living alone in NYC. She is living in an apartment on the seventh floor with a view of Central Park. All of her 11 rooms are painted in white. Yoko follows her motto of "a free daily life". She sleeps whenever she feels like sleeping and eats whenever she feels like eating. Her reason for her separation with her husband is because: "when I am with John Lennon, the strongest man on Earth, I get influenced by him by all means, and I would no longer be able to see myself clearly." It is her daily routine to talk to her husband on the phone even now, and she insists that they are not at strife with each other.

When she is alone, usually she reads books or writes her manuscript on her extra-large bed, and spends time in a telepathic dialogue with her potted plants. When close friends visit, she greets them by cooking her homemade dish in her favorite kitchen.

Before her visit to Japan, her message addressed to the Japanese youngsters is: "I want to be faithful to myself. I don't have to be resolved by the opinions around me. I believe at least I have lived by being loyal to myself." At age 41, Yoko Ono has not forgotten roots. She might cause a big happening at the Festival in Koriyama."