IT'S INCREDIBLE YOU ' VE SWALLOWED THE BAIT !!! MY LETTER WAS MEANT TO MAKE FUN AND TO MAKE RINGOWORMS PUT HIS TRICK ON THE TABLE ! I DIDN'T KNOW THE QUESTION HAD ALREADY BEEN FACED IN THE PAST ! SO, SORRY FOR HAVING WASTED YOUR TIME WITH MY STUPID LETTER. I THOUGHT THAT PEOPLE SENDING MAIL ONLY TO HAVE A PIECE OF PAPER TOUCHED BY SOMEONE WAS IMPOSSIBLE... AND I STILL THINK THAT RINGOWORMS WANTED US TO SWALLOW HIS BAIT !!! Annalisa ---------- Da: Bethany M. Edstrom <Bethany.M.Edstrom@Dartmouth.EDU> A: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu Oggetto: Re: autograph Data: domenica 26 aprile 1998 15.33 --- You wrote: So now you have something he probably touched! I'd love to do the same, I mean to send JDS a letter only to have it touched by him. Could you please so kind to let me have his address? --- end of quote --- ENOUGH! Several months ago we endured a similar thread on this list, when someone posted asking for directions to Salinger's house. Curiosity is a normal human characteristic, okay, but so is the common sense that tells us when it's time to put a clamp on our curiosity and leave people like JDS in peace. Yeah., that guy has something JDS--along with a couple dozen postal workers-- probably touched. Personally, I'd rather "have" his ideas and his stories, which he did more than touch--he labored over them. If we subject Salinger to the treatment accorded a Hollywood star, we are lowering his work as well to the level of those mass-culture icons. Salinger is an icon, sure, but of a far, far different kind. We can appreciate Shakespeare without trying to dig his body up from the grave. It is doubly important to give that kind of respect to Salinger, since he is still alive and his solitude is his choice. My $.02 worth, Bethany ----------