La Streisand and me

Barbra Streisand turned 75 on April 24th, 2017.
That is 3 quarters of one whole century.

She has been a major star for over 6 decades bridging two centuries.

There is a place way deep down in my heart which is frozen in time.

In this place I have only circled the sun 12 times and La Streisand is just 26 years-old and is setting the world on fire.

It is forever 1968.

"Where has all the time gone to?"

It is wise to remember where you were and who you were when you fell in love with something or some place, said Tennessee Williams about Barbra Streisand.

 THE TUNDRA BELT.
My homework assignment is to color in the Tundra Belt for Geography class.

I hate Geography class and so I don't do my homework until the last minute on Sunday evening. CBS has cancelled Ed Sullivan's show for Barbra's special: "A Happening in Central Park."

Streisand is singing to an audience of 135,000 people.
No she isn't, she is singing just to me.

Other talents are not those from which we age away, but which age us, in the most positive sense. There are but a handful of talents that startled, stunned and aged their audience. After seeing the work of these people, it was necessary to put away all childish things, not least of which were concepts of what dance or drama or music should be.

                                                   Barbra Streisand aged me.

I don't remember anything about the Tundra belt.
All I remember is this feeling of unbridled joy of finally identifying with someone who seemed to be as passionate as I imagined myself to be.

I longed to be Jewish, have a big nose, be s Brooklyn native, grow long fingernails, be married to Elliott Gould but most of all I wanted my voice to be heard, also.

That voice.
Full of wonder and purity and full of yearning.
She is a woman who knows and gets what she wants.

Everything

From "A Star Is Born"

I want to learn what life is for
I don't want much, I just want more
Ask what I want and I will sing
I want everything (everything)

I'd cure the cold and the traffic jam
If there were floods, I'd give a dam
I'd never sleep, I'd only sing
Let me do everything (everything)

I'd like to plan a city, play the cello
Play at Monte Carlo, play Othello
Move into the white house, paint it yellow
Speak Portuguese and dutch

She tells stories with the turn of her head, you will listen, she says, and you will learn and you will love.

I will learn in later years that my yearning is not enough and I will not leave any kind of impression or mark on this world.

I discover that I am ordinary.
I will learn just like my mother tells me, I cannot and will not have EVERYTHING I want or dream of becoming.
I will never set the world on fire.

Such is life when you don't know how or where to channel your talents.
Or if you do have any talent at all.

Tennessee Williams remembers Barbra's plaintive sound: pure and sweet but bolstered by so much rage, all of which have been invested in the pursuit of artistic excellence. Rage put to perfection and the sound was pure.

"Turn your broken heart into art": said the late Carrie Fisher

Purity born of rage.

The untalented angry find an art in cruelty or destruction, and the world I am afraid, is a perpetual battle between the two types of abused and frightened people.

I forever play the victim and where has that got me?

Absolutely, NOWHERE.

Probably because I have given all my power away which I truly believe is a woman kind of thing.

And if it's not too much
I'd like to have the perfect twin
One who'd go out as I came in
I've got to grab the big brass ring
So I'll have everything (everything)

I'm like a child who's set free
At the fun fair
Every ride invites me
And it's unfair

Saying that I only
Get my one share
Doesn't seem just
I could live as I must

If they'd
Give me the time to turn a tide
Give me the truth if once I lied
Give me the man who's gonna bring

More of everything
Then I'll have everything
Everything.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BARBRA AND MANY HAPPY RETURNS!!!!!

I have laundry to do now my Gentle Readers.

Such is the stuff of an ordinary life.

.