Stolen iphone nudes and John Updike's trash

by liberal japonicus

Been seeing a lot of articles about the stolen nude photos, (here is the google realtime newsfeed) and, as it usually happens, a bit of serendipity in seeing this New Yorker article. This is not to suggest that John Updike's trash are nude photos of celebs, but juxtaposing the two stories is interesting.  

I'd connect this to notions of toleration, defined as things you could do, but you won't. I'm not sure if there is anyone who I am so interested in that I would like to rummage through their roadside trashbags, but I would give my eyeteeth to find some discarded detritus of Native American linguistics, along the lines, if not the size of, the Herrington archives. I can't help but think that there is something seemingly dysfunctional about the academic culture of letters that sanctions the relentless excavation of any point related to anyone deemed researchable, yet draws such a strict line around co-opting the expression of those thoughts.

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[liberal japonicus]

And just to note, I realize that Herrington wanted to maintain that archive, so it is quite different from Updike's trash, but, whenever I see his name or see a note about how an article is based on his archives, I think of his wife's book about life with him, entitled Encounter with an Angry God.