COGNITO.(singer Yoko Ono)(Interview)

AT TEA

On a recent sunny Friday afternoon, Yoko Ono was sipping an iced coffee at La Lanterna di Vittorio, one of the less touristy caf?s in Greenwich Village, and reflecting on life at the age of seventy. She wore black jeans, black su?de shoes, a black knit top, and a black blazer; the rectangular lenses of her glasses were tinted green, and her black hair was short, with mink-colored highlights. She didn't look seventy. She had with her some buttons and posters that said "Imagine Peace"on them--black letters, white background--as well as a copy of some thoughts on world peace which she had written on the occasion of her birthday, in February. She sat facing the door, with her back to the brick wall. The caf? got busier and people looked at her, although in a discreet, New York sort of way.

Not very many seventy-year-olds have a chart-topping hit. Ono's new CD features ten remixes of her 1981 release "Walking on Thin Ice"by various producers, including the Pet Shop Boys. Last week, "Walking on Thin Ice (The Remixes)"appeared on three Billboard lists--mostly dance charts that reflect what d.j.s are playing in clubs. Ono was recording the song on the night that her husband, John Lennon, was murdered, and it was released several months later. At the time, it seemed to be a commentary on her own fragile state of mind, especially the spoken-word lyrics about a frozen lake:

I knew a girl who tried to walk across the lake, 'course it was winter and all this was ice. That's a hell of a thing to do, you know. They say this lake is as big as the ocean. I wonder if she knew about it.

What did Ono think kids were finding in the song today?

"I think maybe they are feeling like they are walking on thin ice again,"she said. "There is this fear, and there is a desire to ritualize that fear by dancing.”

Ono said that she didn't listen to much new music: "I like Eminem. I think he's brilliant. His sensibility is extremely now. Otherwise, I listen to my remixes, I listen to my late husband's music a lot, and I listen to ...