Curses! While I was going to read Ann C. Hall's collection of impressions next, thus continuing my Quest for Knowledge through nonfiction, after a quick skim through it's become obvious that it's not possible until after I've done my own reading of some of the materials involved. Blast! Another time, Hall.

Instead: Hospital Phantom. It's happening.

REVIEW! IT'S DONE! Oh, praise the lord, et cetera, I finished something during the holidays.

And if you guys think that's good, wait until I read another book soon. Oh, yeah. I'm that kind of bad, baby.

(Seriously, happy holidays all around. This Christmas day I discovered that I'll be marrying the love of my life, the fabulous and long-suffering John, so consider me un-Grinched for the season.)

I do not have a review up yet, but check out what I do have instead: an eagle-eyed internet spelunker Jade just sent me this amazing link to the best thing ever, which she describes as "the laziest Mary Sue I have ever seen". If you've ever wanted to be as completely ridiculous as possible about the Phantom story, now you can do so without even writing your own bad fanfiction: these guys will do it for you!

Except, you know, with Leroux, so it'll be better. I think. I can't actually tell what translation or retelling is going on there, plus the character selector defaults Christine to dark brown hair, so your guess is as good as mine (but the Persian is there!).

Clearly, I need to own one just for the lulz. But also for Serious Scholarly Study. Yes. That's what this is about.

EDIT: It says "Adapted from the classic by Gaston Leroux." The opportunities for comedy are really endless.

Jiminy Christmas. I complained a while ago about eBooks that I couldn't get because I don't have a Kindle, and apparently that made the market explode with them. I turned up four new ones today while digging around on Amazon. Oh, Amazon, you're making me crazy.

It's not that I don't want eBooks to succeed, because I totally do. I think it's great that people can publish much more accessibly (though when I'm going to be having to read things like this, occasionally positivity is challenging), and it's not like I can complain about the price (would that all the books on my list were less than a dollar). No, it's just that so many of them are currently Kindle-only, and I don't have two to four hundred dollars to dump into an eReader (and let's be honest... I don't have a problem with eReaders, but I'm not excited enough about them to want one of my own at the moment).

I'm just going to have to soldier on somehow. This post brought to you by the Why Haven't I Won the Lottery Yet Foundation.

What's this? Can it be? BOOM, yes, it is a second review this month! You can't see my celebration, guys, but it's way celebratory. This is some Dionysian shit.

In other news, Worldcat.org is the most wonderful thing in the world. I've been using it for various academic projects for a while, and yet it never occurred to me to apply it to this one, probably because so many things on my list are self-published and unlikely to haunt the halls of your average library. But, lo and behold! In my house right now are copies of the unattainable Hogle and the exciting Kraft!

This is the best month ever.

I didn't quite make the end of the month. Oh, well. Next time. In the meantime, have an early-bird review for October. It's a bad one, oh, holy chocolate on crackers, it's a bad one.

I'm going back to my cave.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you something?

What, pray tell, was that, you ask? You are probably confused by its utter batshit quotient. You are probably even more confused if you happen to have noticed that those people are singing numbers from the 1991 Yeston/Kopit review.

Well, you'll just have to check out my sexy review to find out. Come with me down the rabbit hole.

Will wonders never cease? There is apparently another Phantom of the Opera/Sherlock Holmes crossover out there, and eagle-eyed Blair emailed me to let me know (thanks!). What literary wonders could it possibly contain? I don't know, but judging by the forthcoming sequel, which involves both characters teaming up against Jekyll/Hyde, it will either be amazing or make me move to Tibet to become a Buddhist nun, and either will certainly be interesting.

I've really got to step up the pace if my list is going to continue growing like this!

You'll all be pleased to discover that my latest literary adventure was a fantastical one, and not in the usual sense where I'm using that word to communicate how much it made my frontal lobe ache. There's a new review up, and while it's something a little bit different this time, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed reading the book.

In other news, this is the sixth month in a row with only one review. For shame. Luckily, the fabulous donation of a new film plus upcoming free time may conspire to double (or even triple? nay, say it not lest it come not to pass!) that number for September.

I'm so glad I gave up the hopeless dream of finishing this project in 2010. Oh, me. I'd be so disappointed right now.

Aha! My critics (mostly John and my cats) thought I wouldn't make it, but here it is - another review and it is still technically July! Booyah! Take that! I'm going to celebrate and you can't stop me!

That was exhausting. I'm off to cleanse my palate with a little modern horror. And speaking of modern horror: Greydon Clark's 1990 film Dance Macabre, featuring Robert Englund in the main role, is seriously going to get to my house if I have to go to Clark's and hit him with a bat until he gives up the reels. I'm not playing around anymore, Amazon. Stop making my life hard.

My enthusiasm over this crime drama has substantially dimmed, due to the fact that it is a torturous chore to read. You can all probably tell this is true because the review of it is still not up yet (goal set: finish that before August, or so help me I will be very disappointed in myself and probably self-medicated with dairy products). It has gotten to the point where every day I read a chapter, fall down on my desk in operatically dramatic despair, and then have a fight with John as he tries to confiscate the book and burn it so he doesn't have to continually watch me reenact Isolde's death scene over a piece of literature.

While I will be finishing it despite these trials, I've had some interesting discussions with my erstwhile partner in Phantom readings, and he's of the opinion that if something is making it so hard to read that I'm literally grinding to a halt on the Project, I should probably stop and move on to something else. While this idea has some merit - not reading and writing < reading and writing - it also feels unfair: how can I properly review something without reading all of it? What if there are serious plot changes, style shifts or clever denouements at the end that change the entire piece's impact or tone? It seems like not finishing a piece is always selling its possibilities short, even though nine times out of ten it's probably not going to improve at the last minute. But this is scholarship, so fairness is what I'm about. And goddammit, no book is going to beat me. I will KO this book if it thinks it wants some.

You asked for it: you got it. One painfully vampire-filled review served up fancy-style. I seriously thought I was going to get it finished yesterday and then I could proudly claim I'd done two reviews in May, but obviously that didn't pan out. Anne: can't even keep imaginary deadlines that no one cares about. I'd hang my head in shame, but then I wouldn't be able to see the next book in line.

Which, by the way, is apparently a crime drama. So there's that to look forward to, right? Bring that shit ON.

What, what? It's a review!

I really need to start pacing reviews better; I keep putting big chunks of full-length novels and films together, instead of breaking them up with short stories, and as a result I do one review a month for a while and then do four in a fast and furious you-can't-handle it flurry (alliteration!). There's no time! The engines can't take it anymore!

But seriously, we're going to try to keep this ball rolling. Next up: a short story from eeeeveryone's favorite vampirically-oriented author. Watch this space.

Today, I received the Kraft book. It promises sure literary delight. The important thing about having received it is that I didn't buy it: you guys did, with donations, because you are basically more excellent than anybody else on the internet. THE ENTIRE INTERNET. I want you to know that.

It will get a special place of honor on my shelf while I contemplate how many things I have still to read before I can ever touch it. And in the meantime, there'll be a review in the next few days to thank all of you for being the raddest of rads.

Back to the grindstone. Anne out.

Ta-daa! The Cartier review is up and running, and if you were feeling a dearth of vampires, histrionics or horribly abused period language in your day, I have come to your rescue. I'm optimistic; I mean, how many more bad vampire versions of this story could there possibly be? (Please don't give me realistic estimates. It's too early in the day to start drinking.)

Three, count 'em, three whole people have found it in their hearts to toss me a couple of pennies since the donation button went up; SY, JD and AM, you are my heroes forever. Five dollars says I'm now off to review Popcorn, a 1991 horror adaptation with a cover featuring a woman's skinned face. This can go nowhere but up.

As we all know, I try to keep it gangsta around here. So, while I work on this review, you can all enjoy this slice of keeping-it-real:

Please. There's no need to thank me. Just the knowledge that you're basking in the glory of Lil' Jon's teeth is enough.

Being broke is the worst thing for a reviewer. The worst. It's not because of the surviving on ramen noodles or the wearing of the same pants for ten days in a row; I am a pro at thriving under those conditions. No, it's the inability to purchase materials for reviewing, because the world turns, and as it turns sometimes books fall off of it.

I'm talking about things going out of print, of course. Back when I started this project, barely had I started amassing my now-sprawling collection of things to read when one Sarah Russell, author of such amazing tour-de-forces as The Angel in Hell, yanked her books from Lulu, making them no longer available to the general public. Why did she do this? I have no idea. Maybe they weren't making enough money to justify her keeping up the Lulu account; maybe, with a few years since publication under her belt, she decided to remove them to make way for newer, better things; maybe even Lulu discovered it had a quality threshold. I don't know.

But what I do know is that I was the saddest creature ever when I discovered this. I was the only Who in Whoville who did not get a replacement Christmas gift, that is how sad I was. Because how can I do a really thorough representative run through these things if they're disappearing before I can buy them? How will I ever know the true academic enlightenment of being A Real Expert if the things I'm supposed to be expert in disappear? It's like they never existed; only I and the ISBN database know the truth.

Now, in Russell's case, I was able to find someone out there in the world who had bought a copy of one of her books and was willing to part with it for the low low price of $5.95 plus my dignity, but that was still only one of them. I feel confident that I have a pretty decent grasp on Russell's place in the grand continuum of Phantom-inspired works from the sample of her writing I did get to peruse, but I don't know for certain. She could have been completely different in another work and I just wouldn't know. My Whoville sadness from this debacle has never truly healed, you see.

This has had the effect of causing me to buy things heinously out of order; whenever something comes out for a self-pubber instead of through official channels, I'm all OH SHIT GOTTA BUY THAT RIGHT NOW BEFORE THE AUTHOR DISAPPEARS IN A SWAMP ACCIDENT. It's a practice I have not been able to shake. You don't understand. THIS IS FOR LITERATURE.

This is all coming up today because I had finally scraped together enough dollars to go ahead and purchase the second Phantom-inspired book by one Angel Taormina, whom I believe I have discussed on this blog previously. She is a woman who clearly believes in herself even when everyone else is calling her a delusional nutjob so I was hoping I'd have some time, but lo, when I went to Amazon, there was the dreaded OUT OF STOCK tag. Worse, when I went to Labor of Love Publishing, Taormina's self-headed publishing outfit, its website was down.

I CANNOT GO THROUGH THIS HEARTBREAK AGAIN.

So while I'm busily rampaging around the internet trying to find Taormina and see if she's interested in some secondhand, obviously used-goods dignity that I found in the back of my closet of shame, I'm also offering said tatters to you people. The Phantom fan community, oddly enough, appears to enjoy reading my reviews; in the past, you guys have been absolute dolls, emailing me encouragment, being patient through my long working silences, and even sending me packages with various books for my perusal. I can't even name everyone who's done so, that's how many of you guys are made of excellence and cherries.

So, since there seems to be some support and since I don't want to have to cry into my beer for another couple of months while visions of amazing, perfect literary manifestos lost forever to the sands of time dance in my head, I'm adding that fancy donation button to the right-hand side of my website. WHAT, you say, YOU EVIL CAPITALIST SHILL! But hear out my stipulations:

1) Nobody ever EVER has to donate. Ever. I love you all exactly the way you are, even if you're Cheeto-dust-covered lurkers who hate my guts. If that donation meter stays at zero, I'll still be chugging along putting out reviews as often as I possibly can, just because I love doing it that much. (I'm not saying you can't buy my love. You can. But you don't have to.)
2) Any pennies that come from the donation button will go to buying Phantom Project stuff only. That means books, movies, scripts, soundtracks, games, or anything else that gets reviewed just for the Project. If I can't pay rent, well, me and my new shiny Phantom book will have to read in a bus station for a while, because these are earmarked pennies and they're going nowhere else.
3) You can now not only buy my love, you can buy my reviews. Not the grades - bad is bad is bad, and I think we all know that me trying to straight-facedly say that something bad is good or vice versa might cause a nuclear incident - but if you'd like to send me a note when you donate requesting a certain thing be reviewed next, I'll move it up to the front of the line. If I don't have it yet, I'll move it up to the front of the buying line. There are a lot of lines in my life.
4) Just in case anyone is concerned, there will never be ads here. Dude, I'd have to look at them, too. I do not have the patience or fortitude of mind to be assaulted by advertising on my own website, and I assume you guys don't, either.

So that's all there is to it, really. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish ranting at this vampire-filled book, buy ten bottles of something that can strip paint off my front porch, and then drink it while crying tears of regret and remorse over Taormina's missing book and fear of recrimination from the wildness of the internet.

Review when finished emerging from drunken stupor. Probably this week, but I make no promises.

Oh, the internet.  Every day there is a new moment when I realize that opening my web browser is like diving into a Roman orgy in the hopes of finding a pocket dictionary hidden somewhere on the premises.

I figured I'd kick this blog's new inaugural day off with a look at all the things it's not about, because Google, Yahoo and other search engines of note are very confused about it.  I kid you not: out of the top twenty search terms that lead people to the Project, ten of them are the names of porn stars.  Fifty percent of my readership are confused, horny people who were just out looking for sultry pictures of their favorite adult film celebrities and instead were hit in the face with a wall of literary criticism.  It's got to be deflating for them, so I'd like to apologize: sorry, internet vagabonds, but I only talk about the non-fun parts of porn.

For a jaunt into my world, let's take a look at some of the other amazing search terms that have led wanderers to my site:

worksafe porn - Um... I feel like someone may not have fully disclosed the meaning of at least one of those two words to you, searcher.

proctor phantoms - Is this referring to some kind of version of the story wherein Erik acts as a district attorney, like Leroux and Dick Wolf collaborated on the new blockbuster television craze?  Oh, my god, I would watch that forever.

blood red throne monument of death - Technically all of those words are on the site multiple times, but I can't help wondering who on earth is searching for this, and why.

one day at a time sweet jesus sheet music - Boy, are you lost.  I'm so sorry.

baby hand deformity - When in doubt, consult the medical wisdom of the internet.

shelob's lair - Ah ha ha ha ha, yes.  Come into my parlor, unwary internet travelers.

sudden sniffing death - I... what?

phantom shit - May I direct you to my F-grade section?

okay man - You... searched for "okay man" and somehow you chose here out of all the places you could have clicked on?  I mean... okay, man.

ricksavage.com - Yes; this person searched for a web address and then clicked through to a completely different website.

what did people blame for causing the plague? - Many things, but your answers do not lie here, wee one trying to use the internet as a source for a paper.

This could go on for hours, but luckily there is only so long even I can be entertained by internet stupidity.  Luckily, enough people actually get here that are trying to get here that I don't feel the need to just give up and reinvent myself as a porn-vending thesis-writer for hire.

If it looks like I'm trying to procrastinate instead of having to read yet another book about the Phantom as a vampire... that's probably because that's what I'm doing.

And here we are, with something that (hopefully) looks less like the chronology of the Phantom Project was sick all over one of the pages of its website.  Nothing too snazzy, I know, but perhaps someday I'll be motivated enough to even make this look like it has something to do with the Phantom story.  Probably not, but y'all can dream.  In the meantime, you can enjoy new features that blogs (as opposed to webpages that say they are blogs but are clearly lying) are supposed to have, including the ability to comment (le gasp!) and follow on your fancy RSS feeds if you feel so inclined.

Moving all the posts over to this new blog was a nostalgic trip down memory lane; the Project is over four years old now and looking back at the things I once thought about it is hilarious.  Oh, me of 2007... you thought maybe you'd have to buy "ten more books or so"?  And what about Anne of 2009, who thought she was going to finish in time to be up to date when the new Webber musical came out?  Join me in a sorrowful chuckle at that poor, naive girl.

Since it's all sparkly and new, I'm even going to try to update this shiny new toy of mine more than once a month, and possibly even with more than one-line "here's a review, now get off my lawn" updates!  We'll see if the dream lasts.

In the meantime, thanks for being badasses, internet readers!

The Alonso/Tilford review is up, after a long time of waiting.  Everybody send a big holler of thanks out to Tom Alonso himself, who was nice enough to let me listen to his musical and say things about it on the internet.

Now that it's a giant, sprawling, useless pile of gross on my website, I'll be working on fixing this blog so that it's actually, you know, a blog.  Watch this space for, at some point, the ability to see blog entries without your eyes bleeding and your browser crashing, and even the ability to leave comments on them (oh, that I can't wait for).

Damn, now that I said I was going to do it, I have to actually remember to do it instead of eating a pint of Half Baked and going to sleep.

The Hessler/Reynolds review is up.

THAT SHIT JUST HAPPENED.

The last Hernandez review is up!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a cinematic wonderscape to go experience.

The second Hernandez review is up, and now that rehearsal hell has ended and won't begin again for another week, I cherish fond hopes that the third will follow.  Wish me luck.  Send help.

Another year, another pile of books.  The first of the trio of Hernandez reviews is up, and the year is looking more positive already.

Happy four years old, Phantom Project!  I have so many more grey hairs now than I did when I started.