signatures

Least expected incoming Google link today:

“graham harman autograph”

You won’t find one for sale on eBay, I don’t think, but you can have one absolutely free of charge. Just send the desired item to my university address, but please not anything that will require packaging, because that can be a hassle from here. It should be a flat item that fits in an envelope.

I’ve signed about 5 total autographs, lifetime, so they’re not that in demand. But you’re welcome to one.

While we’re on that subject, however, I do have an interesting story about my signature, which is slightly bizarre in form…

One day in Chicago, I was killing time in that Barnes & Noble on Diversey. I happened across a handwriting analysis book, and decided to see what it said about my signature. What it said was roughly as follows:

“This is a person of absolutely no creativity whatosever. You can tell this because he makes all of his letters in exactly the same shape as he learned them in 3rd grade.”

I was infuriated by this verdict. Those who made stylized letters different from those of 3rd grade always struck me as arbitrary rule-breakers at best or affected charlatans at worst. I had always simply assumed that respectable, honest people would make the letters the way they were supposed to be made.

This was in about 1993. I decided then and there to change my bank signature permanently to something well off the beaten path. I’ve seen weirder ones, true, but my signature for the past 18 years has been deliberately strange-ified.

Now the book would probably say: “This is a devious sociopath who cannot be trusted, since he deliberately disfigures each of the letters he learned in 3rd grade, probably as a result of unquenchable rage against existing social mores.” Or something like that.

I’m not sure Mubarak’s upcoming TV appearance is such a good idea

Here is ONE CRITIQUE.

This guy makes one good point that hadn’t even occurred to me: what on earth is a detained suspect still under interrogation doing making a TV appearance? It’s so out of the ordinary that it will just look like one more undue privilege, especially since it is openly being announced that his ace speechwriter from February 1 will be writing the TV statement as well.

I also question the wisdom of the whole approach… “All right, I stole a whole bunch of money from Egypt. But I only did it because my advisors told me to. I’ll give some of it back. Please don’t put me on trial.” There’s a real risk that this could inflame the country all the more.

perversion

From a draft of someone’s article received recently:

“It should be mentioned that both Deleuze and Harman make heroic attempts to overcome this logic of perversion.”

The key word is “attempts,” I suppose.

Suleiman’s name resurfaces in criminal connection

He’s been so seldom mentioned since February for such a disturbing figure, and is one of the few top regime figures not jailed so far. But now I notice his name mentioned in connection with the ISRAEL GAS DEAL. The deal itself is not a crime; Egypt and Israel have been technically at peace since Camp David, and Egypt might have a tough time selling its abundant gas to an equally large market (though quite a few people oppose any sales nonetheless). No, the crime consists in the Egyptian negotiators supposedly selling the gas to Israel at below-market prices and demanding kickbacks in return. If Omar Suleiman is linked to such a deal, this could open the door to his first taste of trouble.

Mubarak to ask Egypt for forgiveness on TV

This comes as a big surprise, to me at least. He always seemed too proud to do something like THIS.

Ennis book now available

Or so Amazon tells me. HERE.