{"id":7493,"date":"2018-08-04T09:39:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T14:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefest.com\/kdstaging2\/?p=7493"},"modified":"2018-08-04T09:39:46","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T14:39:46","slug":"why-we-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/why-we-fest\/","title":{"rendered":"WHY We Fest…"},"content":{"rendered":"

WHY We Fest\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Jude Southerland Kessler<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.johnlennonseries.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A decade ago or more, it seemed as if ages and ages crawled by between Fests. The span of time between the New Jersey and Chicago events dragged on forever<\/em>! But now, the days seem to fly by, and I\u2019ve barely unpacked before it\u2019s time to find my Beatles sweatshirts, buttons, hats, and paraphernalia\u2026and head right back again.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to another <\/em>Fest?\u201d my hairdresser said (as I asked her to \u201cput the fire back in those locks!\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cYep, as fast as my car can drive me!\u201d I smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut\u2026I mean\u2026don\u2019t you get tired of\u2026it\u2019s just\u2026you go all the time, it seems like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I really thought about it for a moment, \u201cI know it seems<\/em> that way to an outsider, but to those of us in what we call \u2018The Fest Family,\u2019 there can never be too many in a year. It\u2019s never enough\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy<\/em>?\u201d She skeptically closed one eye at me. \u201cWhat\u2019s so special? Why<\/em> do you\u2026um, fest?\u201d<\/p>\n

And just like that, the question was on the table.<\/p>\n

I mumbled my pat answer \u2013 I said that the Fest was like Thanksgiving for all of us. But, over the next few days, I really began mulling her question over. I thought about it as I mowed the yard, planned my book release party, drove to the grocery store, and worked on my Chicago presentations. And the answer finally came to me one night as I was running\u2026a direct answer, in fact, \u2013 not from our own Liddypool boys \u2013 but from the Eagles!<\/p>\n

They sang the answer into my earbuds\u2026those haunting, beautifully immortal words from \u201cHotel California\u201d<\/em>: \u201cSome dance to remember\u2026some dance to forget.\u201d<\/em> Yes, that was it! Dead right!<\/p>\n

At times, we go to the Fest for Beatles Fans to remember\u2026to recall the night we sat glued to our parents\u2019 enormous black\u2019n\u2019white TV set while Ed Sullivan swept his arm across his body and shouted, \u201cThe Beatles!\u201d We Fest to remember how it felt to see John, Paul, George, and Ringo scamper quickly off the concert stage after what we presumed (though no one could hear a note) was \u201cLong Tall Sally.\u201d We Fest to conjure up that rush we felt when the needle hit the first groove of Sgt. Pepper<\/em>\u2026.to relive those Christmas mornings when even the shiny foil paper and full satin bows failed to disguise the latest Capitol album from our Fab Four.<\/p>\n

We Fest to remember who we are\u2026not grandparents or businesspeople or mothers or fathers or husbands or wives\u2026but our truest selves: that young man proudly wearing the pale grey, pocketless jacket, Cuban heels, and \u201clong hair\u201d of his heroes; the giddy girl skipping school to trek out to JFK; the frightened but determined school reporter penning the essay defending John Lennon against the out-of-context Datebook <\/em>quote\u2026and ending up in the principal\u2019s office for being so \u201cdisappointingly radical.\u201d At The Fest, we are still the young, bright-eyed Sam Goody employee counting the seconds \u2019til the stroke of midnight when the next Parlophone LP will finally be released! We are the still young mother singing a \u201cNo Reply\u201d lullaby to her child or the scared young dad pacing with his baby in the dark and weakly crooning, \u201cBeautiful Boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Fest, we return to who we are. We cross the barrier of time and age. We become US again.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I was crossing the Chicago lobby when someone shouted at me, \u201cHey Lennon Chick!\u201d I chuckled. I wasn\u2019t offended\u2026or insulted or diminished or threatened. Instead, I smiled to know that someone saw me for who I was\u2026not a studious author buried in research, manuscripts, and conference presentations\u2026but a fan who loved John Lennon and wasn\u2019t afraid to let the world know it.<\/p>\n

Indeed, we Fest to remember.<\/p>\n

But just as importantly, we Fest to forget.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is too much with us, late and soon,\u201d wrote British poet, William Wordsworth. Indeed, day after bitter day, we are being pummeled by the world\u2026by politics, divisiveness, anger, and hatred. There are dark accusations lurking around every corner and enough suspicion and blame to make even Kent State look tame. Our world is madly enraged.<\/p>\n

And so, we Fest to retreat from it all. We need to hear, \u201cGive Peace a Chance\u201d and \u201cLove is All You Need.\u201d We need to \u201cCome Together\u201d and \u201cLet it Be.\u201d We need to find common ground instead of fault. We need to hug our friends on both sides of the aisle and find in each other\u2019s eyes a bond and not a barrier. We Fest to forget\u2026if only for one weekend.<\/p>\n

In many ways, I think, the quick, pat answer that I tossed out to my hairdresser was accurate. The Fest is<\/em> my Thanksgiving (and yours) \u2013 a chance to sit down and share deep dish pizza at Giordano\u2019s with a loud, rowdy group of people we love. It\u2019s our chance to catch up on their lives and to tell stories of our own. We Fest to cry on each other\u2019s shoulders and share the photos in our phones and stay up too late and tell too many corny jokes and secrets. Without a doubt, the Fest is our Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

But more than that, it\u2019s the place at the end of the long and winding road where we are happy just to dance\u2026some to remember, some to forget.<\/p>\n

I hope to see you in Chicago. You can wear your favorite jeans or bell-bottoms. I\u2019ll wear those same, old be-jeweled flip-flops that enable me to stand for 11 hours in my booth. I know you\u2019ll still believe that Paul is the genius. And I\u2019ll believe it\u2019s John\u2026and secretly, we\u2019ll both agree that it took \u201ctwo to tango.\u201d But we\u2019ll never admit that out loud. We\u2019ll stick to our guns, because we\u2019ll be at the Fest. And at the Fest, we aren\u2019t grandparents or businesspeople or mothers or fathers or husbands or wives. We are BEATLES FANS\u2026and that, dear friends, is what calls us to the dance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHY We Fest\u2026 \u00a0 By Jude Southerland Kessler https:\/\/www.johnlennonseries.com \u00a0 A decade ago or more, it seemed as if ages and ages crawled by between Fests. The span of time between the New Jersey and Chicago events dragged on forever! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7494,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7493\/revisions\/7494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}