E-Mail This Article to a Friend Lost and Found For Davy Rothbart, discarded scribblings open up a world of meaning BY TAMARA WIEDER

WE ALL DO it, every day: pass by scraps of paper swirling in the street, torn envelopes caught in the gutter, scribbled notes left behind on the T. These things go unnoticed, are considered garbage — or aren’t considered at all.

But Davy Rothbart notices. And for the last several years, he’s been trying to get you to notice, too, by publishing Found magazine, a collection of love letters, to-do lists, bar-napkin poetry, and other lost or discarded scribblings. What began as a Xeroxed magazine for the entertainment of his friends has become a cult favorite, gaining Rothbart interviews with the likes of the New Yorker and the Washington Post and bringing to his mailbox a daily offering of found items from readers across the country.

In his new book, Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World (Fireside Books), Rothbart, a contributor to National Public Radio’s This American Life, compiles more than 250 pages of his favorites.

Q: How different was the process of putting the book together versus putting the magazine together?

A: I would say it was really similar. I’ve continued to get more and more careful about changing the names of people and identifying info. Originally, I never thought that anyone would ever see the magazine; I was going to make 50 copies for my friends, you know? But as it’s grown, I’ve realized people will see it, including the people who might know the authors of the notes. So we were especially careful in the book. I think we changed all the names.

Q: So you never expected the magazine to find the success and the audience it has?

A: No!

Q: How did this happen?

A: It’s continued to stun me. I just thought this was like my own little private hobby, and that a few of my friends might enjoy it. But I’ve learned that there’s just so many people who share my fascination with these glimpses of other people’s lives. But it still continues to surprise me. I can say why the Found stuff interests me so much, and I speculate that that’s why it interests other people, too. We’re surrounded by strangers all the time: walking down the street, going to work, going to school, going to a friend’s house. And I think it’s natural to be curious what other people’s experience of being human is like. And I think that’s what these notes give you, in such a powerful, kind of profound way. To me it’s just endlessly fascinating. It’s sort of thrilling. I think because I can relate to the people, who maybe have very different life circumstances, or I might think of as very different from myself, but they’re still going through the same kinds of small moments — or big moments, big emotions — that make up what life is. I always think I’ve seen every kind of find there would be to see, but seriously, every three days something else comes in that’s just so unexpected and either hilarious or wrenching.

Q: Do you think it’s a little like the pull toward reality TV?

A: Yes, but I almost think it’s realer than reality TV. There’s a really critical, distinct difference, which is that in reality TV, they know the cameras are all around, so it’s almost engineered and manipulated. Whereas the authors ... it’s like reality TV, but real. Because the people that were writing these notes, they were writing for an audience of one person, the person they were writing the note to. Or maybe nobody. Maybe it was a journal entry, or a letter they were writing to someone that they never even were going to give to that person. Or a shopping list. A to-do list. That’s something that’s just for themselves. So because of that, they’re totally unself-conscious. Some of the letters are really private and personal. People reveal themselves in very raw and intimate ways, because they don’t think anybody will ever see them. There’s just this truth, this openness and honesty. I think that’s what it is, this real honesty that people have when they don’t think they’re being observed. It’s like if I was in the same room as my brother or a girlfriend or something. Have you ever been where you’re in the room with them, and they think you’re asleep or something, and you’re just watching them move around? Even just to watch them move around and do the little things that they do is so thrilling and fascinating, because they’re just being themselves, how they really are when they’re alone. And there’s something so honest about those movements, and so unself-conscious. That’s the same kind of feeling that I get when I read the notes.

Q: How often do you find stuff that really moves you?

A: That I find stuff personally, or that it gets sent in?

Q: Either.

A: Okay, because I still am always looking for Found stuff, but I think I’ve always been sort of a mediocre finder. People like my little brother are the real talented finders, and some of the people who send this great stuff in all the time. But now I have the luxury of just going to the mailbox and having hundreds of awesome stuff every day. We probably get 10 things in the mail every day, and I would say it’s probably once a week when I’m just floored: something that’s just really so devastating or crushing. What came last week? A girl’s long letter to her older brother. It’s like 12 pages, talking about the problems she’s having at school and with her friends, and telling good things too, but you can tell how sad she is, so you kind of feel like maybe the parents are separated and the brother lives in another state or something. And then at the end you find out that he’s dead, and she’s writing to him anyway. It’s already a lonely letter, but you’re like, well, it’s nice that she has such a great relationship with her brother. And then you find out at the end, she’s like, "If only you were still alive ..." That killed me.