ABSTRACT
Every year adolescents across America compete in an essay contest and the winners get to go to Washington DC to be honored. The subjects are things like "Democracy" and "Freedom" and some kids win and get the big trip, but these essays are almost inevitably terrible. The emotion and the originality and interest and excitement are all in specific details. The importance of being specific when speaking about love was made crystal clear in Cyrano de Bergerac by author Edmond Rostand, here the Brian Hooker translation into English. It is important to express thoughts and feelings of love in original heartfelt detail. Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything is one of those singular, unique characters in a love story. The Way We Were is a similar love story in some ways to the classic Tracy/Hepburn film State of the Union, in which they play a married couple as he is pushed to run for president.
