Is Glass Onion Japanese?

[jarvitronics]

I went to google books and tried to find a reference to the phrase "glass onion" from a book older than 1968. Amazingly, the phrase is found in the 1936 Yearbook of Japanese Art, called Nihon Bijutsu Nenkan.

Google books shows only a fragment of a page, which as you can see is a huge tease because it cuts off right at the important spot! But you can see on the line after "Looking through the" that the first two words could very well be "Glass Onion."



Can anybody on this board read Japanese? (My oldest son can so I am going to email this to him and see if he can enlighten me).

[jarvitronics]

P.S. I forgot to mention that google books returns two other books containing the phrase "glass onion." One is called A Manual of Experiments in Elementary Science, 1918. The other is called Genetics Abstracts, and was published in 1968, the same year as the white album.

Given the rarity of the phrase, and given that John was shagging a Japanese artist, I am going with the Yearbook as the most likely connection.

[plastic paul]

Good find, lets hope this leads to something. Keep us updated.

[lovelyrita]

I don't know if this is true or not, so please don't knock me if I'm wrong, but I was once told that the English refer to the knobs on a coffin as Glass Onions because most are shaped like an onion and made of glass.

[lovelyrita]

I guess that would kind of go along with "looking through the bent back tulips trying to see how the other half live."

Glass onion refers to the coffin and bent back tulips refers to a grave? Anyone agree?