I don't know whether to cheer, cry, yell "you are nuts..." I am amaszed. I am confused and Erik is too.

It's 2:26am US CDT and I'm still reading with a bit of wine left...maybe one more chapter?

OH, we're going to end up pregnant along here sometime...

Why won't she msrry him...hmmmm

"Stop crying like this, God Damn It!" PERFECT! YES!

Get your act together, Erik! You got the girl. You are going free. Everybody thinks you are a hero. NOW you are going to complain...yesh...

I find this impossible to lay down. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. So we don't know why Meg has been called to de Gas' other than a reporter, Erik and Christine are a sideshow on their own. This is more and more intriguing.

The devil is in the details. I think he should have read those papers.

"I am done with the Phantom" Another parallel. My Erik says something of this sort when he holds his stillborn daughter.

OK- you go Christine. Enjoy your evening.

This is good.

You have me hooked. One more before bed.

Anytime the French start calling people "citizens" bad things happen. Like loss of heads, loss of freedom, etc.

Will the Gandon's keep their silence. Will his burning of the opera with its accompanying chandelier crash come to light?.What a cliff hanger! I think I'll read another section before bed.

"Meg wished she had not tried to eat that chocolate whole." Love it! HEHE

"Human, both of them. Only human." Only a woman and a man.

You are seriously making me rethink Christine.

What a way to end a section!

Not to disregard the seriousness of this chapter's start., I keep thinking of the movie, where Ramin is her father. He's almost too brief. I have the DVD and if you didn't know what you were seeing, you would miss him.

I would have dearly loved to have seen Michael Crawford as Phantom. I was not able to get to LA before Robert Guillaume took over (the 1st black Phantom BTW). All we have of his performances are bad clips. He left "Barnum" to take the Phantom role. Ther is a very good film of Barnum (YouTube with commercials), it is a shame there doesn't seem to be a licensed one for Phantom.

"Rifles went up at every angle. One was dropped noisily, much to the mounted officer's disgust, and collected again amid snorts of stifled laughter from the ranked men. The officer rounded of them:"

I think that should be "Rounded ON them." (I have no idea if you want this particular feedback or not. Let me know."

Erik is having flashbacks...as handsome as ever...Oh poor Erik.

"And you are unduly fond of playing one..." You go Christine!

"Sing for me..." Oh boy. Darn it, Ben sang those words to a little boy, Creepy,I do like Ben Lewis in LND, but Michael C., on the other hand...

"Every nerve and sinew..." One of the best parts of 2018 LND is the revamp of "Beauty Underneath" one of the two songs that I endeavor to learn the lyrics as poetry. The revamped lyrics and I'm going to loosely quote "skin, and blood, and sinew." (The drum and bass part in Beauty is great. Classic rock.)

You may win me over on Erik and Christine.

"Are all your friends so obstinate?" hahaha.

I am familiar with Victorian and Edwardian dishware, including pots and pans (Lord knows I've washed enough of them at our Historic Recreational dinners. What is a pot stand? Is it like a trivet to keep the hot pot off the table? Just wondering.

When they see Erik out, after the soup supper, I visualize a line of people, like ducklings Erik, Christine, Meg and mama duck Madam.

Well, if he's going to really court her, with an eye toward marriage, this is the way to start out.

Hmm. can the zebra (or tiger) really change his stripes? We're on 41. I think there are 73. we've got a ways to find out.

Cacophony. That's what is going on over on this side of the pond. I'm reading this with Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge in the background, and not just any part, but the section where they are demoing the act to the Duke in Satine's rooms. So the background music is Offenbach. I think it's the only scene in the movie that actually uses the historic cancan music.

This section is excellent, as usual. I can tell you Erik can cook. I can't tell you how I know it, but he likes to cook, can't stand doing dishes.

i just had to come back...

Regarding Don Juan's discarded cloak. That is another change from the play to the movie, where the Phantom is not "hidden". Christine knows from the very first it's not Piangi. And my same comment fits here, it takes away from the suspense of that scene. I'm not one of the movie haters. Butler did have good cape management skills.

What I did love, and it was through the whole movie, is the historic theater stuff, for lack of a better term at this time of the morning. From the limelights, the spotlights, the use of reflective "flames" to give the flickering lights. and even the gaslight chandelier. The movie is a movie and the stage play is a stage play, not everything carries over from one medium to another. I do think Butler's make up could have been better.

OK, I love these guys!

"Erik stepped back from the trap door that sprung open under him..." It is an interesting tool. i'm working with an older Erik with health and memory issues, and he doesn't step back. I turn 70 shortly and it's given me a whole new view of aging characters.

It's interesting to see Erik growing as a person. Great angle.

Madam Giry steals the scene AGAIN! "You look freshly dug up." Too good! I really like her and hate to see her, and Meg maligned in any way.

(Off topic) The young lady (and I say young, because that is what she sounded like) on the discussion page, she wanted to discuss LND. I am fully ready to opine on that musical too, but I really didn't mean to offend anyone with my condensation of DJT and the gendarmes. I really have a tough time taking ALL of Phantom seriously, even the Leroux standard. Is humor NOT allowed on the discussion pages? You can answer me either by FB message or however you would like. I want to remain ACTIVE and I don't want to get banned from the group.

I really think I'm headed for the bed at this point, it's after midnight here.

Also, 8 Years!. My own stuff sat from 1990 to last year before I decided to rework it. I promise at some point, the quasi farce will make it's debut.

I MAY get another section in before I nod off.

Later.