I spent a portion of my last afternoon of freedom watching Barbra Streisand's 1968 movie Funny Girl.

I can't quite articulate the extent of my adoration for it (if I had to, I'd say maybe 10"), so instead I'm going to just run through a few "thoughts" on the movie:

1.) The line "I'm a bagel in a room full of onion rolls" makes me extraordinarily happy.

2.) The line, "You must be around gorgeous girls all the time. I'm probably a change for you" and the reply, "You are" also makes me extraordinarily happy.
(this happiness is obviously more confusing to me, I still can't say why)

3.) My only sizable grievance with the movie is that Barbra is supposed to be playing Fanny Brice (ahem, see above), a funny, but ugly, entertainer. But Babs is GORGE. GORGE and HILARIOUS. I mean even the real Fanny Brice (above right) wasn't so bad. I hate the false dichotomy of pretty vs. funny. Fuck you C. Hitchens, you will never get laid again. Ha!

4.)A lesser grievance, and one that musicals are prone to, is the sex-via-a-song insinuation. The only musical I can think of that features outright sex instead of song insinuation sex, is Ave Q. But that's puppetry so it doesn't count. In Funny Girl the sex insinuation song is even worse because it's sung as what the characters are thinking but not saying out loud. So Nick sings "You are a women, I am a man...You are softer to the touch, I like that very much" in his head, while Babs sings, "It's a feeling, oy vey it's a feeling."

I'm sorry but if the writers were realistic about what those characters were thinking about during sex the song would go thusly:

Nick: "omg, I'm getting laid. Tits. Pussy. Tits. Tiiiiiiiiiits"
Babs: "Do I look fat? Do I look fat? Do I look fat?"


But despite these minor criticisms Funny Girl might be my new favorite movie-- I can't understand why I didn't find Babs as my jew girl role model earlier in life.

This weekend I'm going win a million at the slots, so I can finance Riesling's and my life to go as follows each day:

10am: A bagel w/Funny Girl

2pm: Lox w/Funny Girl discussion group

6pm: Kosher Chinese takeout w/ Funny Girl bloopers and extras