Masquerade! Paper faces on parade

One of my top three favorite songs on The Phantom of the Opera is Masquerade. It carries a joyous tune but there's a strong undercurrent of malice and fear in between the lyrics, a contrast that I really appreciate. The whole sequence in the film draws heavily from Edgar Allan Poe's masterpiece, The Masque of the Red Death - even the Phantom himself comes as the Red Death to the party. I have always found this story chilling, up there with Annabel Lee and The Tell-Tale Heart.

Anyway! If you haven't watched the movie yet, I hope this clip of Masquerade will convince you.

The rambling is brought to you by this pretty ring I got from Ivy. She was the Commenter of the Month winner for July, and while I was perfectly fine with shipping her prize, she asked if we could meet up. Of course I said yes! I love meeting Project Vanity readers, they are almost always cool. And Ivy is cool. She just started her own beauty blog, you guys should encourage her. ;) There's nothing more inspiring than someone going out of her comfort zone to share the things she loves.

Gorgeous ring right? I love that it reminds me of the Masquerade song, the wretched Phantom (Gerard Butler FTMW), and Edgar Allan Poe - all at the same time! If you want to see more rings like this, Ivy's sister actually has a Facebook page where she sells rings at super nice prices. It's called Chicadora. Incidentally, they just uploaded the latest batch of accessories. Let me know if anything caught your eye; maybe you'll find something meaningful like I did!