Love Never Dies

Over spring break, my family was on a long "bike" trip, which featured a lot of driving and walking through old cities and not much biking. On one such city-walking excursion, we stopped in a music shop. I was absently browsing the Musicals section when I came upon a dream come true. Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of the Opera.

A bit of background: I've been a phangirl since the summer I was 10, when two of the older campers at my camp started singing "Phantom of the Opera" in the courtyard at break. Anyway, this was a very exciting find for me. However, much to my dismay I remembered that I had spent all my money on books fairly early into the trip (read: at the first used bookstore we came across). So I put the CD back on the rack and pushed it to the back of my mind. However, in the last week, thanks to the miracle of Youtube, I've listened to the entire play. Several times. Non-stop since Thursday. Anyway.

I must say, I rather like most of it. There are several very excellent songs, my favorites being "Beauty Underneath", "Beneath a Moonless Sky" because I am, at the core, a hopeless romantic and this song reduced me to a quivering pile of shipper, "Devil Take the Hindmost" and the required over-10-minute finale, "Please, Miss Giry, I Want To Go Back" (clocking in at 14 minutes and change.)

Speaking of Miss Giry, in one of the more interesting aspects of this sequel more than half of the returning characters get a total character change. Raoul is a drunken, gambling loser, Meg takes over the Phantom's role as a jealous psychopath, while the Phantom becomes a family man. Being a total Christine/Eric shipper, I don't mind Raoul's transformation, because it justifies my pairing. However, I can see it not making much sense. The new Meg offers more emotional depth compared to her "Phantom" self, who is basically Christine's best friend, with no other major role. The one complaint I have about her character is the song "Bathing Beauty" which is repeated about four times over the course of the musical, and will get stuck in your head and never leave.

All in all, I liked the soundtrack to Love Never Dies (I have yet to see the play). I don't think it will ever match the brilliance of Phantom, but there are several fantastic new songs and characters. Recommended to all my fellow Phangirls and boys.

I Was (well, AM) a Teenage Grammar Nazi

Many teenagers ask themselves "What can I do to alienate my friends, scare off potential friends, and get pushed into the pool by irritated swim team coaches?" The answer is simple: become annoyingly obsessed with correcting other people's grammar.

TRUE FACT: When I was thirteen, I told my swim coach that the word she was looking for was 'acronym', not 'annagram'. Even then, I though this was an error most severe, and was shocked that a grown-up would make such a mistake. She pushed me into the deep end of the pool.

I blame my mother for this severe character flaw. I remember watching Caillou on PBS. Every once in a while (but frequently enough for my mom to notice) the narrator would say "Caillou felt badly." This annoyed my mom to no end. She would come into the room and tell the TV that by saying "Caillou felt badly" they were insinuating that Caillou was, to a certain extent, unable to feel, or that he was just bad at feeling. What they meant to say was that he felt bad. Soon I began to make corrections myself. So began a long and illustrious career of E.J., badge-holding member of the grammar police (really. My friend e-mailed it to me.)

TRUE FACT: Once, I was reading a first draft of a fellow grammar nazi's story. I started to say something about how her verb tenses didn't agree, and when I refused to stand down on the subject (probably not the best idea) she threatened to slap me in the face.

It doesn't even stop at correcting real-life people's grammar. People in movies and on TV have poor grammar too.

TRUE FACT: I have been told by my friends that they would duct-tape my mouth shut if I didn't stop correcting the grammar of a movie character.

This is possibly the reason all my friends are nerds, and that I don't have a boyfriend.