Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon

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It is hard to pick up a book about John Lennon these days without coming across the words "icon" or "iconic." So for die-hard Lennon fans, this book does not disappoint. The book consists of 138 pages of text and photos, chronicling was has become known as his "lost weekend" with May Pang--the employee designated by Yoko Ono to "date" John when they were on the outs. But this weekend was not a weekend at all, but an 18-month relationship that quickly became a love affair from 1973 to 1975. May was the yin to Yoko's yang (forgive the alliteration), and she created a safe harbor for him to escape his high-profile and sometimes destructive lifestyle and to reconnect with his son Julian and old friends. John and May took informal snaps of each other and of those in their world during this period, both in color & black and white, most taken with either a Polaroid or Instamatic camera. Unfortunately some of the shots, quite frankly, are a bit substandard to publish. They are the kind that we all take of our significant others without much regard to setting or composition or even focus, and then we throw them in a shoebox just as May did and forget about them. These only got into print because John was who he was. But there are others in this collection, many never seen before, that help to burnish or enlarge his image. He could be youthfully handsome or playful or cynical or contemplative, and those shots act as a Rorschach for those of us still wanting to understand who the "real" John Lennon was. He was comfortable enough with May to let his unguarded side show, and for that we should all be grateful for this visual history. A very touching element was the tribute from Cynthia and Julian Lennon on the book's back cover, lauding May for her openness and compassion towards them for which they say they will always be "her greatest champions." There was both a public Lennon and a private one, and this book is an interesting insider's peek at the latter.

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