Close Encounters of the Barbra Kind No. 8

This is a phone card that was in the gift bag given to guests at the AFI tribute to Barbra.

It came in an small envelope which was in a small gold box. Global Crossing is the industry's global broadband network (at least that's what it says on the envelope!). "The ability to reach the world. The capacity to change it!)".

Never did use it. Doesn't matter now. It expired 12/21/01.

A Star is Born - Sun Devil Stadium

No, I did not attend the concert. But I bought this photo (along with some others) from another fan (he did not attend- he could these from someone who did). I had become a Barbra fan shortly before this time. I was aware that she was doing a rock remake of A Star is Born and I would have loved to attended the concert.

However, being 15 years old and living in Texas at the time, there was no way in H*** that my parents would have allowed it. It would have been beyond their comprehension that someone would want to travel across the country to see a concert. Besides, by the time I found out, the concert had already taken place. But don't worry. A few decades later, I would to see her.

You can Barbra walking down the ramp. Jon Peters is one of the people behind her.

The back of the photo scanned above had the following hand-written on the back:

"March 19, 1976
They had just finished filming the big motorcycle crash on the stage.
I was too far away but I was trying out my camera. They walked by me after this picture and I took more."

Close Encounters of the Barbra Kind No. 18

I'm calling this post Close Encounters of the Barbra Kind because I've had "physical contact" with Barbra a number of times. By contact, I mean I've been in the same space with her- either at a concert or some other event.

As I'm going through my boxes of Barbra memorabilia, I came across this info sheet given out to the ushers at the Bank Atlantic Center in Fort Lauderdale, (actually Sunrise) Florida. This concert was the 18th time I had contact with her.

For a number of years I worked part-time as an usher at the Bank Atlantic Center. I signed up to work both concerts. Imagine that, I got paid to attend a Barbra concert!

You'll notice some interesting tid-bits from the info sheet.

While the doors were suppose to open at 6:00 p.m. to let the crowd in, it was closer to 6:40. Barbra was still doing sound and wardrobe checks. Normally sound checks are done before we're assigned our positions, but once in a while we may get to hear an artist perform it. As far as wardrobe checks are concerned, I had never worked a concert that was being filmed so I never got to witness one. We (the ushers) had already been assigned our spots before 6:00 so we got to see a lot. I'll save the details for another post.

Parking for the event, you will notice, was $30! which was a record for the venue- and a number of patrons did complain about it (all I could do was direct them to customer service- which I doubt could do anything about it).

Michael Yormark was the chief operating officer of the Florida Panthers at the time (now president)in case you are wondering. Needless to say, I didn't have an invitation to the party.

I talked with some of the seat fillers to find out how did they get to be one. They were season ticket holders for the Florida Panthers.

Yentl filming locations Part VIII

Hadass's house in the background.

Yentl filming locations Part VII

This is the building from the previous post with the "green" doors.

Yentl filming locations Part VI

Beyond the green door. It was probably painted for the movie.

Yentl filming locations Part V

Hadass's house. O.K. Reb Alter Vishkower's house, but I'll refer to it as Hadass's if you don't mind.

As you can see the water fountain has been removed and the house has been repainted. The front door isn't in great shape either. The front steps have been modified too. This is one building that looks better in the movie than it does today. The pink house (I'm sure Barbra picked out the color) stood out from the surrounding monotone-colored buildings in the movie. Now it looks like it's in foreclosure.

Makes you wonder, at the end of the movie did Avigdor move into the house with Hadass? How many children did they have? I would guess at least seven. Hadass looked fertile and Avigdor was quite the stud.

Yentl filming locations Part IV

This is a building I found by accident. It's shown briefly in the movie when Avigdor is planning on leaving town after his engagement to Hadass is broken off.

Radically painted since filming. Don't know if Barbra would approve of the new color scheme. Would have preferred to take the shot again around sundown (before losing the light, because there's nothing without the light) to better match the lighting in the movie. It was overcast on the day I took all these shots similiar to the overcast skies when Streisand filmed her movie.

But time restrictions prevented me from waiting to get this night-time shot.

On my next trip to Zatec, I will allow more time!

Yentl filming locations Part III

Before I located this scene from Yentl, we ate lunch. We asked our waitress, through our interpreter if she knew where this picture from the movie was located. She pointed in one direction and said straight ahead. I knew from studying the film, that this area around Hadass's home would contain a number of shots from the movie.

So after we ate, we headed in the direction the waitress pointed and attempted to head straight. Since the area was mostly narrow streets, I kept my eye out for any wide open spaces with a fountain in the middle. I did locate an open area but with no fountain. We saw a local villager in this area and I asked my interpretor to show her the photo from the movie (top photo above) and asked her if she knew where this is located. The local villager told the interpretor that this is it- we were there! Turns out the fountain (which had been there for over one hundred years) had been removed. There is a plaque on the light blue angular building in the center that talks about it, but it didn't give a reason as to why they removed it.