A Frost in the Air
Here's the lead from a Daily News editorial, The bike path not taken, that ran on Monday, Sept. 17:
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
AH, but what a bigger difference would have been made if, in his 1920 poem "The Road Not Taken," Robert Frost had to choose not between two roads, but between two stretches of the same bike path - one in Los Angeles, and one in Burbank.For all his enthusiasm for conquering the unconquered trail, we suspect even Frost would have opted for Burbank.
And here's the lede from a column by the Boston Globe's Joan Vennochi, dated Sept. 23:
THIS IS a real Robert Frost moment for Massachusetts.Two roads diverged, as the poet famously wrote. One directs the Commonwealth to casino gambling, its promise and pitfalls. The other keeps Massachusetts on the well-worn and unpopular path of conventional taxation.
Governor Deval Patrick placed Massachusetts at this crossroads when he endorsed a proposal to introduce three resort-style casinos. But the path to this point was cleared long before he took office.
Hmm, seems this poem has made the cultural shift from "art" to "cliche." Maybe it's time for a new literary reference. Just don't call something "Orwellian" -- that one's been beat to death.