http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/travel/51504822.html
A Montreal hotel celebrates John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Bed-in for Peace."
By NICOLE BRODEUR
Last update: July 25, 2009
MONTREAL - We were sitting in a Montreal hotel room that could only
be described as disheveled -- covers strewn across the bed, towels on
the floor, half-empty coffee cups on the table -- when there was a
knock on the door.
No chambermaid. No bellman. Just two middle-aged women wearing meek smiles.
"Is this the room?" the first woman asked.
"We're staying in the hotel," stammered the other. "And we just
wanted to see. ... "
"Come on in," I said, stepping back to allow two strangers into our sanctum.
So it goes when you're living in the lap of history: Room 1742 of
Montreal's Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where, in 1969, Beatle
John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, spent an eight-day "Bed-in for
Peace" to protest the Vietnam War.
In this hotel room, the long-haired newlyweds wore white, conducted
countless media interviews and received visitors such as Timothy
Leary and Dick Gregory before recording the cacophonous anthem, "Give
Peace a Chance," with the help of some 50 packed-in revelers.
The luxury hotel is making the most of the 40th anniversary, with a
"Bed-in for Peace" package available through the end of the year in
Room 1742, now known as the John Lennon and Yoko Ono Suite.
The Fairmont has made sure that John and Yoko are all over the room,
in framed black-and-whites taken by photographers Ted Church and
Gerry Deiter, who was at the "Bed-in" on assignment for Life magazine.
A 'Beatle nerd'
While it has been refurbished numerous times since John and Yoko
stayed here, Suite 1742 has been in steady demand for 40 years (the
room is already booked for the 50th anniversary of John and Yoko's visit).
We came because my boyfriend, Gene, is a self-described "Beatle nerd."
"I wanted to visit some place with a more positive memory," Gene
said. "Here, John Lennon was alive and funny, hairy and artistic. Who
else could lie in bed for a week and have the world come to him?
Lennon said he knew it was silly, but he was willing to be the clown
to do a positive thing.
"It wasn't Sid and Nancy at the Chelsea Hotel, rock 'n' roll at its
most narcissistic, sad and dark," he added. "The Bed-in was the
opposite of that."
What it looked like then
Thanks to YouTube videos and a 2008 book of Deiter's photographs
called "Give Peace a Chance: John & Yoko's Bed-In for Peace" (Wiley
Publishing, $24.95), we were able to puzzle out how the rooms looked back then.
Over there, against the west-facing wall and under the window, is
where the bed was set up in the suite's living room. John and Yoko
spent their nights in another suite, and started seeing visitors
after breakfast.
Over there, by the (new) French doors and where the television
cabinet now sits, is where engineer Andre Perry set up the
reel-to-reel tape recorder on June 1 to record "Give Peace a Chance."
"Is this the bed?" asked one of the women who knocked on our hotel room door.
The exact same bed? After an eight-day "Bed-in" with John, Yoko,
journalists, cartoonists, Hare Krishnas, deejays, Petula Clark, Allen
Ginsberg and one of the Smothers Brothers? Plus 40 years of guests?
Let's hope not.
Ono came to Montreal for the opening of a springtime exhibit about
the "Bed-in" at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and thanked the
city for hosting them all those years ago.
"I think without your help, without your vibration, without your
spirit about us, 'Give Peace a Chance' may not have been born," she
told the crowd.
That spirit still lives in Montreal, 17 floors above the street.
--
IF YOU GO
The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel is offering a "Bed-in for Peace"
package to mark the 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's
"Bed-In for Peace." It includes one night in Room 1742, the John
Lennon and Yoko Ono Suite; breakfast; a copy of the lyrics to "Give
Peace a Chance" and a $50 donation in your name to the local chapter
of Amnesty International. The rate is about $703. Reservations:
1-514-861-3511.
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