5th
You stay classy, Babs
Self-Portrait Machine binds your hands then bends your will.
[T]he Self-Portrait Machine … snaps your photo and then forces you to draw your own face by dragging your bound hands around until the portrait is complete.
Call it a hunch: This robot will somehow figure into Barbra Streisand’s next movie.
True story (actually, no idea if it’s true or apocryphal but my mom told it to me 20 years ago so shut up):
When she was in high school, my mom knew a boy named Paul who would go on to be one of the early victims of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. But before that, he was an enormously talented artist and an even bigger Streisand fan. When he was fifteen or sixteen, after many attempts, he somehow managed to weasel his way into her dressing suite after a concert. Not for any unwholesome purpose, mind you. He’d been listening to her records since he was six years old and wanted to thank her in person for the impact she’d had on his young life, and the sixties were a time when you could try dumb shit like that without getting tasered.
He brought with him a pencil sketch of her that he’d labored over for days, using a magazine photo for reference.
Teenage heart racing, he presented his gift to Ms. Streisand. She glanced at it wordlessly and led him through the suite to a back room. When she flipped on the light he saw that the walls were covered, floor to ceiling, with portraits of all sizes and descriptions, most of them obviously the work of devoted fans. One wall was decorated more sparsely than the others, and a particular group of pictures was isolated from the rest in what looked like a place of honor. Babs gestured to them. “These are the ones I like.” Then she took Paul’s gift from his trembling hand and tacked it up.
On a different wall.
