ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130079
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH WEISE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Speak to me, love, in words poetic. With passionate phrases edged in desperation, intellect touched with regret. On this Valentine's Day, let your tender, written words find their way into my heart.
And if you can't, let the Internet do it for you.
For the romantically impaired, the appearance of red boxes of chocolates and an abrupt rise in the price of roses signal not the approach of the day of love, but the day of dread. It's Valentine's Day, when missives so moving as to melt the hardest heart are called for.
But dread not, oh ye for whom words of love do not leap eagerly from pen to paper. Are computers not meant to aid mankind, free us from labor, allow us to expand our reach? Or, maybe, just to get us out of a serious jam?
If the thought of writing an epistle of love brings terror to your heart and tremors to your hand, if you know you'll say the wrong thing or you can't think of anything to say at all, the Internet has the answers.
Hie thee over to the Cyrano Server, where Fraser Van Asch has created a site in honor of that most persuasive writer of love letters, Cyrano de Bergerac.
What do you feel for that obscure object of your desire? Desperate longing, intellectual connection, misty-eyed regret? Perhaps steamy passion, poetic ardor or even surreal concern?
Whichever it is, simply click on one of the options listed, supply a few bits of information about your beloved - a descriptive adjective, a name, a favorite food, the most attractive physical feature - and voila! A Valentine to woo the hardest of hearts is written, expressly for you.
Not only that, but you can arrange it so that the e-mail is sent on the big day itself.
``My wife and I sat around with the original programmer and her husband one night, had a few beers and went at it,'' said Van Asch, the art director for Nando net, the site's sponsor.
Lest you think that's not a proper qualification, Van Asch hastens to add that his wife was an English major in college.
``She was always great with words,'' he said from his Raleigh, N.C., office.
But is it cheating? Shouldn't one write one's own love letters? In a word that's according to the final word of all that is right and proper, Miss Manners herself.
``This, too, has a precedent. I have a shelf full of 19th-century books of model letters, including love letters,'' says Judith Martin, whose most recent book, ``Miss Manner's Basic Training: Communication,'' deals specifically with the machine age.
``These letters could have been taken practically word for word from that older genre - though perhaps not the steamy part. It isn't as though we were all bursting with originality in the past and now everything has to be done for people.''
And if you find yourself the recipient of a Valentine's missive that seems a wee too polished? Best let romance be your guide, Miss Manners suggests. ``After all,'' she says, ``you're welcome to flutter your heart at the thought that he has untold sources of eloquence that you never expected. As long as your best friend didn't get the same letter.''
But what to do if the passion once so assiduously sought causes only heartbreak and pain?
Why rely on your own resources when, once again, Cyrano can find the words that now stick in your craw? Fill in the blanks, and he will write a note explaining to your soon-to-be-ex that he or she is just not the one for you.
Or, as one such carefully worded billet began, ``I have enjoyed our relationship for the past few days, but fear that we have soared to exuberant heights only to alight upon a plateau of happiness. It would have been better to have just remained friends, but alas, our passion prevailed.''
There now. Isn't that better than ``Dear John''?
CYRANO SERVER SAMPLES
Here are two samples, in passionate and regretful mode, respectively, of the art of the Cyrano Server:
Dearest Louise,
I can imagine myself kissing your willowy body and slathering you with various oils and chocolate. Your wavy hair is my anchor in the stormy sea of life; I wonder how I ever made it through a day without you.
Please meet me tomorrow dressed in your Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt, bring your trombone, and we will celebrate our on-again, off-again love together.
Yours overwhelmingly,
Horatio
My dear Ted,
Please forgive me.
I have been waiting my whole life for a lover as wistful as you, but I might have offended you by staring so frequently at your powerful arms or by telling your mother that she looks like Hedy Lamarr.
I yearn for your forgiveness! I will make it up to you. I'll cook, and then we can watch anything you want on TV. ``Melrose Place,'' the Discovery Channel, ``Inside Edition'' - it doesn't matter. I won't see it. I'll be transfixed by you in your Guatemalan sweater, munching on tapas.
Forgive me this time, and our cautious love will last forever.
Yours longingly,
Annette
The Cyrano Server can be found at http://www.nando.net/toys/cyrano.html
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