New Year's Eve potpourri

From the New York Times: "Hard Day's Night for Beatles Reissues."

Ever the activist, John continues to promote social progress decades after his death. Kinda weird maybe?

Here's an excerpt from a review of Philip Norman's John Lennon: The Life in the Los Angeles Times:

"'What captivated and fascinated Britain in late 1963,' Norman writes about the early bloom of Beatlemania, 'was not just a pop group more extraordinarily and unstoppably successful than any before. It was the new definition of 'pop group' they had created, something closer to the Marx Brothers than any forerunners like the Blue Caps or Shadows -- a gang laughingly on the run from overblown adulation and desire, a brotherhood that in the brightest glare of publicity still kept its own intriguing secrets, the ultimate impenetrable clique.'

That's a great description, and it establishes the key conundrum of the Beatles -- the tension between public image and private life. They spoke to us, but at a distance. Their emergence not only helped usher in the era of pop culture, it changed society at the broadest level by redefining celebrity as a potent social force."

Finally, here's how Yoko has been occupying herself of late.