Adviser Contract

Overview

1. My contract with my MFA thesis advisers.
2. A highly confidential official document, filled with barely-comprehensible legalese, outrageous loopholes, preposterous demands and mysterious redactions.

Process

1. Outsource the writing to a friend-with-law-degree-yet-sense-of-humor.
2. Forget everything ever learned about typography.
3. Add $8.60 on a copy-card + 1 somewhat temperamental photocopier + 50 or so sheets of 8.5x11" white paper.
4. Smoosh, twist and bend on the copier glass – but just enough to be believable. Repeat.
5. A trip to the local office supply big-box retailer for red ink and document stamps.
6. Finish with a generic corporate-seal embosser.
7. Present for signing.

Form

I could have opted to produce some kind of ornate, calligraphic, medieval, I-now-own-your-soul style of document. All blackletter, and signed in red. But after I got to thinking about it, what I ended up doing is probably closer to what a soul-owning contract actually looks like.

And while I’m not entitled to anyone else’s eternal essence at this particular time, I do reserve the right to drag my instructors onto The Rikki Lake Show to have it out should they decide to fail me.