R: autograph

Annalisa Baicchi (baicchi@ats.it)
Tue, 28 Apr 1998 20:28:30 +0200

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

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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
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