The real object is signified by a spade in Harman's Quadruple Object and it may be considering in light of Heidegger's "Thing" so that in this post we wonder, like MH, What is a Thing? "We shall not reach the thing in itself until our thinking has first reached the thing as a thing" (p. 165). We can't reach the thing in itself in a blog post because we cannot represent the thing. The thing matters in a formal sort of way and in an informal sort of way since "thingness does not lie at all in material of which it consists, but in the void that holds" (p. 167). Science is for objects while things are "to be the standard for what is real" (p. 168).
Minding the void and the claim that it holds, "[t]he void holds in a twofold manner: taking and keeping" (p. 169). That will suffice for now. Check out this spade:

Harman, G. (2011). The Quadruple Object. Washington, DC: Zero.

Heidegger, M. (1971). The thing. in A. Hofstadter (Trans.), pp. 161-180. Poetry, Language, Thought. New York, NY: Harper Collins.