He wished he knew.

yesterday, i received an e-mail (did they announce it in BBC World?). sent by a college classmate of mine addressed to my class e-group.

it had a poem.
there was also a texted-image which strangely egged me on to open an attachment so that it can play a movie for me! the email's subject said something like 'Will you be my Valentine?' (what the hell?!)

i realized it was a virus sent by a bot posing as my friend. (don't worry. this ain't some techie blog. i'm coming to the point).

what caught my eyes were the starting lines of the poem in that impostor of an e-mail.
"A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
..."

i was attracted instantly and started reading the verses. (well, as long as i don't click on the blighted attachment, my laptop won't complain of any infection!).
the poem amazed me.

here it is, in its entirety.
Quote
"
A STRANGER came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.

He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.

The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, 'Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.'

The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
'Stranger, I wish I knew.'

Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart's desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.

The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;

But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
By harboring woe in the bridal house,
The bridegroom wished he knew.
"
End Quote

it turned out to be the work of Robert Frost. (i mean the poem of course, not the e-mail. Frost definitely ain't spamming me!)
i found he had titled it 'Love and a question' (yes, i googled).

the way Frost paints the scene in words is breathtaking.
and so does the skill he shows in portraying the inner minds (the lurking questions...) and hearts (the burning desires...) of the bride and her groom.

and the question that tortures the groom's psyche...what would one do in such a scenario....he wished he knew!

intriguing.

.

Zoom...Whizz...Vroom...

as i'm writing...i mean...typing this, F-18 fighter planes are zigzagging over my apartment.
no, it ain't a terrorist attack. and they are not for my protection.
it's the largest free air show in the United States. Chicago is known as America's City of Festivals and Events. so, especially in summer, there is not a day that goes by without this or that event happening.

the air show shook up the lakefront (the Great Lake Michigan) yesterday and continues today. i'd gone yesterday to the shore with a couple of pals. my home is by the lakeside.

one of the world's premier aviation events, the show includes a wide array of military and civilian acts. people had gathered in huge crowds all over the beaches that lie spread out across many miles of the city's favorite shoreline. for many Midwestern families, it is an annual picnic. the show lasts from 12 noon to 4 pm.

there were numerous boats, small yachts and cruise ships parked in deeper waters of the lake with people there waiting to get an 'other side' view of the show.

the pilots performed cool stunts.
the speed! the maneuvers!

two planes come real fast at each other, almost collide and at the last minute they change direction!
(me was reminded of 'pearl harbor', the movie).

another heavy plane - it came soundless from our left, over the lake, parallel to the beaches, climbed down steeply, flew very low above the blue waters, and then climbed back up slow and steep to disappear into the murky skies.
slow clinical depiction of methodical arrogance.

two fighters - one upside down and the other exactly over it. they flew in tandem!
then they did the same with three other birds closely surrounding the aerial lovemaking duo.

the vrooming sounds were threatening and exciting at the same time! a great experience.

it was a cloudy day. we were standing by the lakeshore with the city to our back and the lake panorama enveloping us.
sometimes, slowly we'd hear the humming sound of an invisible approaching plane, probably from the stratosphere.

all the gathered people would search the gloomy skies to spot the blighter making the noise. some of them, when they couldn't see anything on the skies over the lake, would turn back.

and suddenly the metal bird would roar out of the clouds from above the city's downtown skyline.
majestic.

.

When New York is asleep...

there is this to-be-released Tamil movie 'Jillunu Oru Kaadhal' starring the real-life engaged pair Surya & Jyothika (whew! they sure look made for each other).

the movie's soundtrack was released recently. and critics were labeling it as A R Rahman's comeback album after a brief (or was it rather long?) hiatus. Vaali had done the lyrics. Vairumuthu does not do Rahman (also) anymore.

i listened to a couple of tracks from the movie. they seemed to be good. then started playing a single - 'New York nagaram urangum neram...'.
Golly! What a song!

when one listens to it, it feels like the song was actually composed & written by a person on a snowy new york night sitting alone in some condo of a skyscraper....
anyone who has witnessed such a night in the Big Apple can relate to it.

and i bet it'd prove to be extremely harmful if someone listens to this number, alone in such an atmosphere... yes, never attempt to do that!

the tune, the city, the night, the snow, the river shore, the wind, the glass walls, the solitude, her memories, the cold outside, the heat inside...

the music, the lyrics, the voices...
pure class.
haunting.

.

How to attend a meeting...

one fine day,...ya, ohkay, today...bored to the hilt, i typed just 'haha' on my firefox (what a browser!) and hit 'Enter' (too much computer jargon, eh? ...sorry.)

it took me to a site (well, Firefox does a Google search behind the scenes for the blighted word and automatically loads the first result - now that's some useful info, isn't it?) where i happened to read the below stuff.
i found it to be remarkably funny.

Quote "
How to Attend a Meeting
by Dave Barry
...
The modern business meeting, however, might better be compared with a funeral, in the sense that you have a gathering of people who are wearing uncomfortable clothing and would rather be somewhere else. The major difference is that most funerals have a definite purpose. Also, nothing is really ever buried in a meeting.
...
When it's your turn, you should say that you're still working on whatever it is you're supposed to be working on. This may seem pretty dumb, since obviously you'd be working on whatever you're supposed to be working on, and even if you weren't, you'd claim you were, but that's the traditional thing for everyone to say. It would be a lot faster if the person running the meeting would just say, "Everyone who is still working on what he or she is supposed to be working on, raise your hand." You'd be out of there in five minutes, even allowing for jokes. But this is not how we do it in America. My guess is, it's how they do it in Japan.

2. Meetings where there is some alleged purpose. These are trickier, because what you do depends on what the purpose is. Sometimes the purpose is harmless, like someone wants to show slides of pie charts and give everyone a big, fat report. All you have to do in this kind of meeting is sit there and have elaborate fantasies, then take the report back to your office and throw it away, unless, of course, you're a vice president, in which case you write the name of a subordinate in the upper right hand corner, followed by a question mark, like this: "Norm?" Then you send it to Norm and forget all about it (although it will plague Norm for the rest of his career).

But sometimes you go to meetings where the purpose is to get your "input" on something. This is very serious because what it means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal,you'll get some of the blame, so you have to escape from the meeting before they get around to asking you anything. One way is to set fire to your tie.

Another is to have an accomplice interrupt the meeting and announce that you have a phone call from someone very important, such as the president of the company or the Pope. It should be one or the other. It would a sound fishy if the accomplice said, "You have a call from the president of the company, or the Pope."
...
If somebody falls asleep in a meeting, have everyone else leave the room. Then collect a group of total strangers, right off the street, and have them sit around the sleeping person until he wakes up. Then have one of them say to him, "Bob, your plan is very, very risky. However, you've given us no choice but to try it. I only hope, for your sake, that you know what you're getting yourself into." Then they should file quietly out of the room.
"
End Quote.