Over the Memorial Day weekend, I had an interesting trip to the National Archives. This building, as National Treasure fans know, is where the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and the Constitution are held. Pretty moving stuff when you see these documents up close and personal. Along with these seminal documents in American history, there are exhibits showcasing interesting and humorous things that are held in the archives. Letters to the President, Howard Taft’s bathtub, and letters from military servicemen and so on and so forth. If anyone gets a chance, I suggest you go to the Archives whenever you are in D.C.

It’s funny to see all these letters for more than their historical significance. It lets you know that there is a whole market of research that is disappearing for aspiring biographers. George Washington wrote thousands of letters during his lifetime, and the majority of them are held in the archives. These letters have been necessary to write the history of his administration. But what about Barack Obama’s blackberry? What if I’m reading a biography on Obama and I get to a paragraph that is telling me about one time when Obama wrote an e-mail to Michelle that reads “Karl Rove is such mofo. LOLZ!!! luv u g2g!” Seriously, I don’t want that.

There also has been a pretty big market for an author’s published diaries and letters. Susan Sontag’s diary, John Cheever, Plath’s, and Cobain’s. The list goes on and on. Soon they’ll be publishing “The Collected Blogs of T.C. Boyle”. Lame. Plus, e-mails can be easily deleted. The joy of reading someone’s letters after they die is knowing that you are learning all their dirty secrets without them being able to defend themselves. You get to stick it to Kafka every time you read his stories. I’m sure tons of authors have had their diaries or letters published against their will. Good, I say, because we have a right to know if our favorite author is a closeted homosexual or if he enjoys wearing women’s underwear. We have a right to know because we want to know. There’s logic in that reasoning, but I’m not going to take the time to explain it to anyone.

Plus, letters just mean so much more to a person. But everyone already knew that.