Exhibit 22.8

New Cupboard

A Brief Encyclopedia
of Modern Magic
with tricks you can do at home!

by Michael Stewart

Now Available‏
1 tape-bound volume
Designed by Brett Yasko
$15/year subscription, $5/individual

The Cupboard is pleased to announce A Brief Encyclopedia of Modern Magic by Michael Stewart which will immediately become the most important compendium of magical knowledge you own.


*ABOUT THE VOLUME*

Every illusion carries a price and no one is more aware of that than the wondrous, tragic magicians detailed here. They know darkness that leaves scars. They know failure that gives birth to terrible life. They know their journey is one of haunting, their competition one that doesn't end with this world. Did it never occur to us they keep their tricks a secret to protect us?

Plus tricks you can do at home!

(You should never do these tricks at home.)

Read excerpts here.


*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*

Michael Stewart is a writer and professor living in Providence, R.I. He teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University where he graduated with an MFA in 2007. His work has appeared in a variety of journals including Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, and elimae among others. Recently, he has been anthologized in both Thirty Under Thirty and Best of the Web. More of his work can be found at strangesympathies.com.


*SUBSCRIBE*

The best way to enjoy The Cupboard is to subscribe. The Cupboard publishes four great volumes per year and this, our fifth volume, begins our second year. Now is the time. One year=$15. Subscribe here.

Past volumes from Louis Streittmatter, Mathias Svalina, and Caia Hagel are also available individually for $5.

Note: If you've been a subscriber since the birth of The Cupboard, your subscription is now up. We hope you will renew it. Thank you so much for your support.

Exhibit 20.15

I Don't Know

At the dance
I should have
said I'm sorry
for your injury
instead I said
Michael Jackson
who is dead
which you don't appear to be
because you eat
lunch
I am sorry
about lunch

Exhibit 19.7

A Cumulative and Evolving List of the People I Would Want on My Team Should Any of the Following Occur: 1) War between Robots and Humanity Fought across Post-Nuclear Wastelands, 1983, and the Guns 'N Roses-Era 1990s; 2) War between Aliens and Humanity Fought in Space or on Recently Colonized Planets Undergoing Terraforming until Communication Break Down Following Mysterious Wreckage Discovery Being Investigated by a Team of Space Marines of which I am a Member; 3) War between Aliens and Robots and Humans Involving Any of the Previously Mentioned Conditions Excluding the Guns 'N Roses-Era 1990s Sub-Clause; 4) Rogue Marines Take Over Alcatraz and Threaten San Francisco with Stolen Chemical Weapons in Order to Force the United States Government to Acknowledge Their Fallen Comrades Whose Deaths Occurred During Illegal, Clandestine Missions and Who are Using Human Hostages to Prevent Direct Assault from Government Fighter Jets; 5) Scenario Identical to Scenario 4 Only the Disillusioned Marines are Using Hostile Aliens and/or Robots as Hostages; 6) All Prior Scenarios are Null and Void Should Any Coincidentally be Occurring in a Deep Sea Exploration Scenario Where High Pressure Nervous Syndrome Might Be a Possibility; 7) Maybe I Just Want to Talk through Some Stuff; 8) Amendment to Scenario 6, Not Null and Void If There are non-Water Based Hostile Aliens in the Deep Sea Exploration Scenario, Even if Said Aliens are Different than the Aliens at War with Humanity in Scenarios 2,3, and 5; 9) Whatever Happens in the Cancelled CBS Drama "The Magnificent Seven;" 10) Game of Horseshoes, "Polish" or standard; 11) Whatever Happens in the Cancelled CBS Drama "The Magnificent Seven" plus Aliens and Robots but Not Minus Shotguns; 12) A Predator is Running around and We Can't Find Danny Glover

1. Cross-Armed Michael Biehn


That's the list.

Exhibit 18.11

On Editing a Novel #14

SHOEHORNING IN REFERENCES TO KILLER BEES SHARK ATTACKS SWINE FLU. So you've been working on your novel for a long time. Maybe not some-of-your-characters-have-polio long but there's still a shocking amount of dated material here:

* That little girl is always pointing at Halley's Comet
* A casual reference to Secretary of State George Schultz has made it through round after round of editing
* Everyone is excited to read about George Lucas in their newspapers
* Burma is given to the Queen as a gift
* The character based on your brother is still alive

The reality is, there are only two ways this novel is ever going to be published:

1) You die--wait, hear us out--you die and hope that your brother's daughter, your only living relative, gets over her grief and feels obligated to self-publish the manuscript as a work of historical fiction in 2045. Teens around the universe laser etch quotes from your novel into hovertrees.
2) You make it relevant to contemporary readers

Frankly, we think option #1 is much more likely, but we're willing to acknowledge its shortcomings. Mainly, who knows if we'll even have hovertrees in 2045. Or if we'll be around, what with the swine flu and all.

Which brings us to our next point: swine flu.

It's got everything that made Michael Crichton great only he's dead (presumably from swine flu) so there's nothing standing between you, a book deal, and a major motion picture adaptation unceremoniously released in February.

It's easy. All you have to do is insert the following conversation once a chapter, every chapter:

"Did you guys hear about the shark attacks swine flu?" asked [protagonist].

"Yes," said [love interest].

"Guys, I don't feel so good," said [unlikeable or minority character]. He was dead from shark attacks swine flu within days.

And use this as the last sentence of your novel: In the autumn of his life, her memory would come to him whenever he walked, evermore slowly, passed the wild lilac that grew near the riverbend. That, finally, was how he found love and a cure to shark attacks swine flu.

You're welcome.