Phantom Sequel
Twenty-six years after Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” premiered, the evil genius is back with his sequel “Love Never Dies” being unveiled in London today.
Twenty-six years after Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "The Phantom of the Opera" premiered, the evil genius is back with his sequel "Love Never Dies" being unveiled in London today. It is due to hit Broadway in November and Australia in 2011. NPR’s Jeff Lunden explains: "Lush and romantic, ‘Love Never Dies’ picks up the story 10 years after the chandelier-crashing events of Phantom, with its love triangle involving the disfigured genius composer, his beautiful opera-singer muse and the dashing count Raoul. The new show is set at New York's Coney Island, where the Phantom has become a rich impresario running a freak show. The singer, Christine, now has a 10-year-old son, who's a musical genius himself. Lloyd Webber says the idea of writing the sequel came to him some 15 years ago, in a conversation with Maria Bjornson, the set designer of the original Phantom. ‘I remember saying to her, 'You know, I think it's slightly unfinished business, because all we do is we just leave a mask on a chair,' and what happened?’ he explains. ‘What did happen? Did Christine really live with Raoul happily ever after? I doubt it. So, there had to be a continuation of the story.’"
How to bring more confidence to your conversations
Entrepreneur and author Andrew Horn shares his rules for becoming an assured conversationalist.
- To avoid basing action on external validation, you need to find your "authentic voice" and use it.
- Finding your voice requires asking the right questions of yourself.
- There are 3-5 questions that you would generally want to ask people you are talking to.
Bespoke suicide pods now available for death in style
Sarco assisted suicide pods come in three different styles, and allow you to die quickly and painlessly. They're even quite beautiful to look at.
Death: it happens to everyone (except, apparently, Keanu Reeves). But while the impoverished and lower-class people of the world die in the same ol' ways—cancer, heart disease, and so forth—the upper classes can choose hip and cool new ways to die. Now, there's an assisted-suicide pod so chic and so stylin' that peeps (young people still say peeps, right?) are calling it the "Tesla" of death... it's called... the Sarco!
Scientists find a horrible new way cocaine can damage your brain
Swiss researchers identify new dangers of modern cocaine.
- Cocaine cut with anti-worming adulterant levamisole may cause brain damage.
- Levamisole can thin out the prefrontal cortex and affect cognitive skills.
- Government health programs should encourage testing of cocaine for purity.
SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by The Big Think, Inc. All rights reserved.