The BARBRA Book We Have All Been Waiting For, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!

                                      Despite the plethora of material having been written about BARBRA, I have never read any, nor have I been interested.  Besides, I feel like I have LIVED BARBRA , being old enough (or young enough, as the case may be!!!!) to remember her first album, and her Broadway appearance in "Funny Girl."

                                       So a Streisand bio has never aroused my interest.  For one thing, the part of BARBRA's life that always fascinated me was everything pre-"Funny Girl," which would explain her formation, not only in performance, but psychological terms.  Every bio having been written has to cover that, but it is only a minor portion of the book.   Now, coming out to coincide with BARBRA's overpriced Brooklyn return at the Barclay Center, William J. Mann's book, "Hello, Gorgeous--Becoming Barbra Streisand" uniquely focuses exclusively on that very period!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       Sweeties, I am telling you, I CANNOT wait to read it!!!!!!! A Sacred Text about Becoming Barbra Streisand for all of us, especially those of my vintage, who grew up either wanting to become BARBRA, or thinking we were, already!!!!!!!!!!  No secret that I am in the second category, girls!!!!!!!!

                                      Barbra Streisand's childhood was the childhood of us all--wanting to get out of whatever enclave we felt we were stuck in, and wanting to be NOTICED like it was nobody's business.  And now comes this textual template, telling exactly how she did it, and you better believe a great many, not to mention myself, are going to follow it step by step to a tee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Then, there was BARBRA's mother, Diana!!!!!!!!!  Oh, brother!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fifty years from now, I can see a Broadway musical called "BARBRA" featuring not so much the daughter but  the mother as the lead character!!!!  I know this sounds familiar to all my girls out there.  But fifty years later, when most of us will be pushing up daisies, and cultural illiteracy will have risen higher, who then will remember "Gypsy????"  Too bad Jule Styne can't be resurrected  to write this future show, too!!!!!!!

                                       Diana Streisand Kind was a piece of work, about whom reports are conflicted.   That her relationship with her daughter was not as acrimonious as often portrayed.  That she favored Roslyn (whose career went nowhere) and resented BARBRA because hers did, and, just like the opening number in "Funny Girl," told her daughter she wasn't pretty enough, that she should become--get this!!!!--a school secretary!!!--, and whose second husband, Louis Kind, (father of Roslyn) would tell Barbra she was ugly to her face!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Added to which, Diana was supposed to have had this beautiful voice, which BARBRA inherited, only she did something about it, and Diana didn't.  So she had frustration towards herself, and resentment to her daughter!  Like I said awhile back, here comes the Broadway Musical!!!!!!!!!

                                        I cannot wait to get my hands on this book, darlings!  It will help to exorcise whatever childhood issues I still have, as well as those of my girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!  For those, like me, who steadfastly refused to read a BARBRA bio, this is the BARBRA bio we cannot afford NOT to read!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                         Because it will tell us all, we are still the Greatest Stat!!!!!!!!!!

                                          No, wait!  I'M the greatest star!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!