“I can't believe you conceded my Benjamin question so easily!” said one questioner at Rutgers the other day. Why not? Benjamin sits quite nicely in the wider configuration space of OOO. And philosophy, if it is indeed a love of wisdom, is profoundly non-violent.
In any case HT Dirk Felleman for showing me this piece by Tom Jacobs. He's brought up short by some objects: “A shoe, a pack of cigarettes, a few scraps of letterheaded paper, a fireman’s oxygen tank, bits of twisted metal of inscrutable but portentous provenance.” And a bed soaked with George Washington's sweat.
I was just beginning to think about the historical dimension of hyperobjects.