Funny Girl! Sat Nov 23 4-7 PT / 5-8 MT / 6-9CT / 7-10 ET Virtually Neighbors is having a Watch Party! (with a brief intermission) ALL and ALWAYS online. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84758987502 Meeting ID: 847 5898 7502 Please RSVP to Amy [email protected] so we have an idea how many people to anticipate! Can you invite friends? YES!!!! Please do! (IKAR membership is not required.) Our vision is a Virtual Dinner Theater, which means everyone can eat and drink whatever works for them! We deeply and personally get various dietary needs, so adapt or ignore these movie-themed suggestions as necessary. Turns out we can order pickles from The Pickle Guys on Essex Street, knishes from Katz’s Deli, and cheesecake from Junior’s. When Nick orders in French, Fanny says she would have just asked for beef and potatoes – making corn beef on rye another option and probably what Amy’s Great Uncle Jerry (z”l) would choose. One of Fanny’s famous lines is, “I’m a bagel on a plate of onion rolls!” Bagels, anyone? Onion bagels? In the movie, Fanny’s family’s bar serves beer, pastrami, and matzo ball soup – among other things. So, basically, if you are into Ashkenazic Lower East Side fare, this is your dinner and a movie, movie! We can read about Fanny Brice in The Original Funny Girl, by Herbert Goldman. She reportedly loved a good Coronation Cocktail. 2 ounces of dry vermouth 1 ounce fino sherry 2 dashes maraschino liqueur 3 dashes orange bitters Lemon twist There is also the “Funny Girl Cocktail” floating around the internet. ½ ounce dry sherry ½ tsp rosewater Pink champagne or sparkling wine No pre-reading or food ordering or cooking required, but ALL of the options for really getting into the movie are encouraged. **If you need anything to be able to fully belong and participate, please let us know!** [email protected] 651-285-2872 or Liddy 651-470-1310 Note: We will always have captions turned on, but the captions with the movie will likely be pretty hit or miss. We do not currently have an ASL interpreter, but we will find one if our community needs one. If there is a better way to make the movie accessible for all of us, please let us know. In Funny Girl Barbara Streisand’s Fanny Brice, famed Jewish comedienne and entertainer of the early 1900s, rises to fame as a Ziegfeld girl. The story follows her career and personal life, particularly her relationship with Nick Arnstein. Funny Girl is a 1968 American biographical-musical film directed by William Wyler and written by Isobel Lennart. It is loosely based on the life and career of comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein. A major critical and commercial success, Funny Girl became the highest-grossing film of 1968 in the United States and received eight Academy Award nominations. Streisand won Best Actress, tying with Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter). In 2006, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 16 on its list commemorating AFI’s Greatest Movie Musicals. Funny Girl is considered one of the greatest musical films ever made. In anticipation, Amy is getting Barbra Streisand’s 970 page (WHAT?) memoir My Name is Barbra, published Nov 6, 2023, from the library. We’ll see how far she gets! Maybe there’ll be a chapter on this movie!

We’ll have some fun and light some candles! Stay tuned for more details.

This book is lighthearted and full of good feelings. It’ll be fun to get together and talk about it. Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves. Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney, representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages? Why does the work Abby once found so compelling suddenly feel inconsequential and flawed? Is Abby willing to sacrifice the career she’s worked so hard for in order to keep her grandmother’s mysterious promise to a stranger? And is there really such a thing as love at first sight?

More details to come.

More details to come.

More details to come.