Boston Globe writer Alex Beam today posted an article-column titled “John Updike’s trash is everyone’s treasure,” in which he recounted the story of The Other John Updike activist-archivist Paul Moran’s habit of hauling off bags of trash from Updike’s curb and rescuing all manner of ephemera.

“Moran rescued a lot more than ephemera,” Beam adds. “He has posted at least one explicit letter from a lover, and now owns an Updike address book, a trove of floppy disks (Wang!), and notes for a contemplated novel about Saint Paul, which may someday see the light of day.”

Beam, who says he disagrees with Moran’s assertion that Updike’s “tossed-out family and travel snapshots are copyright-protected”—actually, intellectual property law seems to be pretty clear that the person who took the photo is the author/artist and that his/her property is protected—appropriately closes with a line from Updike’s poem “My Children at the Dump” and says, “Thank you, Paul Moran . . . . To quote Updike, you are ‘giving the mundane its beautiful due.'”