May 13, 2022 : The Pitch

For those of you who may not have made it to the bottom of Issue #16 yesterday, we’d like to re-send you the Important Announcement portion:

THE PITCH

Seriously, folks, we can’t go on meeting like this.

We've been unfurling this whole Wondercabinet series for over six months now, and I’ve been feeling blessed to have this new outlet for thinking the way I think, in public, and sharing my discoveries and observations with you, my fellow world-marvellers. Part of me firmly believes that culture longs to be free, but my wingman David and I are both freelance whatever-we-ares, and are going to need to ask for your financial assistance if we’re going to be able to continue this whatever-It-is.

We share the premise of Substack—that writing is work like any other, and deserves to be compensated as such. On the other hand, I am loath to put the enterprise behind any sort of mandatory paywall, and prefer to ask for your voluntary as-you-can assistance.

Please click the Subscribe button below, even if you are already "subscribers" (this being a quirky Substack thing), and help us continue this venture. The good folks at Substack have helped us come up with four options.

Continue to receive for free: $0
Monthly subscription: $6
Annual subscription: $60
Very generous custom-amount subscription: $???!

You’ll note that with regard to that last, Substack requires a specific Founding Member’s subscription amount, and suggested we say $250. If you can’t quite reach that amount but still want to contribute more than the $60 level, just fill in your own figure. Likewise (pray!) with those of you who can contribute more. Substack lists all such figures as “annual” subscription fees, but of course you are always free to reconfigure that level (all the way down to zero if it comes to that) next year. So don’t let that spook you.

Those of you who literally can't pay don't have to: Stay with us. Those who can contribute more generously will help subsidize the participation of those who can't. And those who really want to give us a shot of "Hell yes you can!" (that, incidentally, is David talking) will inspire us immensely.

Incidentally, there’s one other way all of you can contribute to our shared enterprise, no matter your financial circumstances—and this is very important. If you’ve been enjoying these offerings and know of others who might, please spread the word as widely as you can. It’s easy, just hit the share button and enter your friends’ email addresses.

Right now, fewer than 4,000 of you receive our fortnightly, and even though we continue to enjoy exceptionally high levels of individual-issue engagement, as the folks at Substack have been informing us, we won’t be able to make a go of this thing in the long run without substantially expanding our base.

Pfew. Okay, we’ve said it. In exchange for all of that, please know that David and I have all sorts of fresh innovations planned for the months ahead—starting with the relaunch of my good old Convergence Contest (from back in my McSweeneys days) in which all of you will be invited to submit odd convergent instances of your own, opening them to wider community discussion. (Stay tuned for details in the weeks ahead).

That's it: thank you for giving all this your kind attention. As ever, your feedback and comments (Weschlerswondercabinet@gmail.com) are always thoroughly welcome. As you were; Party on!