i had an e-mail from billie that had me very excited.
she's watching the barbra streisand thing on pbs. probably right now.
she e-mailed this morning to weigh in on a few things and mentioned that my name is barbra was airing tonight.
so i made sure that no 1 was coming over, made sure i have microwave pop corn and almond joy, my favorite candy, on hand. i even bought some hard candies just to munch on.
this was going to be time to spend in front of the tv and just kick back.
i was really excited.
i forgot, as ava and c.i. have pointed out, pbs doesn't have a national schedule. i've had roy orbison and now wild chronicles.
i love nature. but having your heart set on barbra and getting anything but barbra . . .
i hope i haven't already missed it here.
there are some voices that i just respond to.
otis melts me.
jack johnson makes me feel playful.
with barbra ... it's always been like hearing bells ring.
i've never been impressed when her voice goes all over, hitting the lowest of lowest notes, the highest of highest notes.
she has a range and that's nice.
but it's always been this clear sound, regardless of the note, that has reached me.
when she holds a note, any note, she can stay on it. that's not true of every 1.
a lot of singers on the radio mean to hold a note but their voice waivers and wobbles and never comes near the note.
barbra's voice has always sounded like bells to me.
something that excites you and makes you stop.
the way you do if you're walking down the street on a cold day, not really paying attention, when suddenly church bells start to ring. you have to look. you have to stop. you have to respond.
that's barbra's singing voice for me.
i'm a fan of her films too.
when the mirror has 2 faces came out, i had to see it right away.
i went to an early show. i wanted to have the chance to watch it immediately again, don't freak i bought tickets for both showings.
my fear was that i would hate it.
i always fear that.
she gets trashed so much.
but i loved the mirror has 2 faces. i thought the film looked gorgeous and i thought it was hilarious. i found rose, barbara's character, very moving.
she surprised me with meet the fockers.
it was laid back barbra and i had forgotten how wonderful that was.
she was so relaxed onscreen.
that's not insulting her other roles. rose isn't a relaxed character. but it was like the character she played in up the sandbox to me, just a really down to earth character.
now some couldn't get behind that and it was their loss.
i couldn't sit through meet the parents. fly boy thinks it's hilarious and, though it wasn't a reason listed for our divorce, i'm sure that the repeated viewings of it didn't help either us.
that was a joke, though fly boy may be the only 1 laughing.
but barbra and dustin hoffman were so funny and worked so beautifully together.
fly boy and i can both watch that dvd and enjoy it. repeatedly.
there are so many currents, that you're supposed to laugh at, in the 1st 1 that limit women and encourage women to be limited.
in the sequel, there's no way to limit barbra.
and she does it not by going for a heavy role.
she just radiates and warms you.
after yentl and after the way we were, in that order, that may be my favorite barbra film.
there's a 3rd voice to barbra. there's the singing voice that is beautiful and most critics who don't like her and don't like a song choice or all of her song choices will usually point out that the voice is beautiful. then there's the acting voice and you get a huge split.
after all these years, people still feed the need to point out that she doesn't look like kim novak or whomever they were expecting.
i think she's equally as beautiful and that the things that are different about her looks make her beauty.
1 day at the grocery store they had a photo of her on a tabloid taken outside, in the sunlight. the headline was trying to tell you that barbara had lost her looks. had she?
i don't know. i just know that her skin was amazing. i saw the headline and realized i was supposed to see something frightening. but i just saw a wonderful complexion and a woman who looked like she was doing errands. i mean the hair not perfectly set, the make up not expertly applied. i didn't see any 1 losing their looks.
so let's talk about the 3rd voice which is the political voice.
after jane fonda, she's probably 2nd on the list of women in the entertainment industry that the right wing loves to hate.
i always wonder about the women who hate barbra for her politics.
it has nothing to do with this war because in war or not, the right wing loves to hate her.
and you have to wonder about the women who hate her because what she's standing up for is, hello, women.
'barbra thinks i should have a right to pursue any avenue i want without anyone saying "no, you're a woman!" and stopping me? oh, i just hate her.'
i mean what is that all about?
'please put me in a burka' seems to be the message of women who gripe about barbra's politics.
as a long term barbra fan, i do have complaints.
here's my biggest 1, no more pictures of her and her son jason.
when he was a child, they looked so good together.
she looked like the proudest mother in the world. the 1 who might get too involved and you might have to say 'back off, mom, i need some space' but not 1 who would ever have to be asked to be included.
she would be there, from a distance if you need space, but she just always looked so proud of her son in those photos that i truly do miss having new 1s.
that's my selfish wish.
jason's a grown man and the last thing he may want to do is pose for photos, for the press, with his mother and that's his right. but something tells me that if barbara got to choose, there would be just as many photos of her with jason as there are of her with her husband james brolin.
that may be what i responded to the most in meet the fockers. it met my image of barbra the person. just this wonderful source of love and strength.
i didn't get the special on my pbs station tonight and i may have missed it. so i've made due with listening to some of my cds and, having made the mistake of making yentl 1 of them, i'm now jonesing for another viewing of that film.
so that's what i'm going to go do.
