OCTOBER 10, 2024 : Wondercab Mini (77A)

ON BENDED KNEE, WITH BATED BREATH—TAKE THREE

Fellow Cabineteers!

As some of you will have noted, our next issues will be bringing to a close our third year of fortnightly efforts here at the Wondercabinet, perhaps a good moment for taking stock.

On the content side, we do feel like we’ve hit our stride both in terms of more manageable volume (supplemented by mini-Cabinets between the fortnightly grand efforts) and wildly free-ranging variety. As always, you can check out our COMPLETE WONDERCABINET ARCHIVE  here. 

In terms of circulation, we’ve been making steady if incremental progress, and are now closing in on 4,500 total subscribers. On the other hand, only 210 of you have elected to pay your way, such that Ren is netting a salary of barely $1000/month for fully half-time work, hardly a sustainable state of affairs. 

Most Substacks seem to share only a portion of their content for free to everyone while keeping the best parts behind a pay wall, and we’ve been urged to do likewise. But from the very start we insisted on making everything in the Cabinet available to everyone—such seemed of the essence with a project in which themes would braid and compound from issue to issue, and in the understanding that times are tough and commitments wide and not everyone will be able to contribute to the fullest degree at all times.

But still. We also fervently believe that writerly and editorial labor is work like any other, and deserves to be fairly compensated. And so once again we come to you, urging you to consider whether you might indeed be able afford the annual subscription rate of $60 (a sum which has remained steady despite inflation), and more if you can manage that, or the monthly rate of $6. See the whole range of options here:

In addition, in recognition of the fact that many of our readers themselves work on a freelance basis (in which income is periodic and unpredictable, and ongoing commitment to a recurring payment is not practical) we have added what is in effect a tip jar: if you find yourself momentarily flush and, reviewing the previous year, likewise find that the Cabinet has been bringing you insight and pleasure, perhaps you can make a one-time contribution (one time, that is, until the next time you feel thus enhanced). 

TO MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION, CLICK HERE.

We will continue to provide that button from now on, so please help us when and as you can. Annual subscriptions, however, remain our preferred option since they help to steady our ever-precarious ship of marvels.

And even if you can’t bring yourself to contribute financially at this time, do please PASS THE WORD about Wondercabinet to your friends; (the wider our base, the greater the number of paid subscriptions we can eventually expect). It’s easy: you can share our entire catalog by passing along THIS URL. And remember, too, that you can share individual issues by clicking the “SHARE” button at the bottom of each one, or for that matter, here:

 

Enough for now. Our fingers are in a rictus of crossed-ness, our breaths are thoroughly bated, our anticipatory thanks veritably abounding. 

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MORE FROM THE KRULWICH SAMPLER

Continuing what is fast becoming a Mini-Cab tradition, following on from earlier entries here and here, here’s another of Robert Krulwich’s recent collaborations with a range of inspired young animators—in this instance Nate Milton—and in this case, a quite literal (or should we say audible?) meditation on this and that:

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See you next week!