Spark notes for Sanford, et. al.

Note to philandering middle-aged male politicians everywhere: if you’re going to wander and thus subject us to your romantic email messages, at least take a writing course first.

This excerpt: 

<<I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding  yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light – but hey, that would be going into the sexual details we spoke of at the steakhouse at dinner – and unlike you I would never do that!>>

leaves me feeling as if I were reading the scribblings of a frat boy.  If you were in my Comp class, I’d flunk you.  If you were sending this to me, I wouldn’t f**k you.

Take, instead, the master of missives, Cyrano de Bergerac.  On contemplating a kiss he gave his lover he wrote:

<< A kiss..but what is it?  A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb ‘to love.’ …infinity captured in the bee’s brief visit to a flower…an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover’s lip: ‘Forever.’“>>

 It’s even better in French:

<<Un baiser, qu’est-ce qe?>>

But be careful because while “un baiser” means “a kiss”  the word “baiser” itself means…well, it means what you and Maria were doing in B.A.

Anyway, always check your translation and before you dip your stick into the inkwell-so to speak-please dip first into the classics.  It will make my reading much more interesting.