Tamiment Library and NYPL

I think the reason that collections like the Tamiment Library and the Jack Kerouac exhibit at the NYPL are so appealing is because of the realness of them. To be able to look at something and think, Jack Kerouac touched this notebook, that is his own handwriting, that is his blood dried on that piece of paper—it’s tangible creativity, visible history, relatable history. The collecting and presenting to thousands of people someone else’s private notebooks seems like such an enormous violation of privacy. And I said this in my post about Fales, too, but I will always be fascinated by the need to collect that was as a society has. The very fact that people keep things that aren’t supposed to be saved because they are some going to be history is amazing.