Exhibit 24.6

It's Hard to Understand How Weird This Must Have Been

In my Shakespeare in Production edition of The Merchant of Venice they spend a paragraph talking about Edwin Booth as one of the first notable American Shylocks. Edwin Booth is John Wilkes Booth's brother, something I knew but didn't really think much about in the past because he never came up in National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. Well, I went to the ever reliable Wikipedia to brush up on E. Booth up and came across this gem:

In an interesting coincidence, Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert, from serious injury or even death....The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865, shortly before Edwin's brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Lincoln.

To recap: the most famous actor of the era saved the life of the president's son then the actor's quasi-famous brother killed the president.

It's impossible to put this in a contemporary context. It'd be like if terrorists took over a plane with the president's daughters on it only to have Sylvester Stallone save them. Then, months later, an aggrieved Frank Stallone shot the president.*

Who would even cover that story? TMZ? Honestly, I think it would end the internet. We'd all walk outside blinking and muttering to ourselves. Nothing would make sense. From this point forward I think history textbooks should have a chapter on the Lincoln assassination called: "Seriously, this was bizarre."

*Yes, I'm writing that screenplay. Yes, Frank Stallone is attached.

Exhibit 24.5

Better than Me at Basketball:

* A short barrier you'd have to walk around like in American Gladiators

* Skee-Lo

* The basketball itself

* A robot designed solely to turnover basketballs built by Steve Guttenberg's character from Short Circuit

* Colicky babies

* An idea to start a coffeeshop

* Waiters or anyone else who brings things to tables

* Lyrics by Bernie Taupin

Exhibit 24.4

"Posterity might think I had terrible handwriting. Truth is, I wrote everything on trains.”

Bridge & Tunnel
(& Tunnel & Bridge)

by Joshua Cohen

Now Available‏


1 tape-bound volume
Cover Image F by Eric Doeringer
Book Design by William Todd Seabrook

$15/year subscription, $5/individual

The Cupboard is pleased to announce the release of Bridge & Tunnel (& Tunnel & Bridge) by Joshua Cohen. 12 stories, to be read as they were written—on the bridge, in the tunnel, in the bus, on the train.


*ABOUT THE VOLUME*

A man performs the role of the Sun in a bit of modern choreography, a young ballerina ruins a dinner party with one violent sneeze. A painter paints paintings of walls and hires a painter to paint onto a wall. Some lifestories get rejected. Some stalkers get stalked. Here, for you: twelve stories. Read excerpts here.


*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*

Joshua Cohen was born in New Jersey in 1980. He is the author of two collections of short fiction: The Quorum, and Aleph-Bet: An Alphabet for the Perplexed, and two novels: Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto, and A Heaven of Others. Another novel, Witz, will be published in 2010. Cohen lives in Brooklyn, NY and can be found online at http://www.joshuacohen.org.


*SUBSCRIBE*

This is our sixth volume of The Cupboard, and we publish a new volume every three months. One year, four volumes=$15. Subscribe here. Past volumes from Louis Streittmatter, Mathias Svalina, Caia Hagel, and Michael Stewart are also available individually for $5.


*SUBMIT*

The Cupboard will be accepting submissions until March 1st. We are looking for prose submissions between 4,000 and 8,000 words. Submissions should be sent by email attachment to submit [at] thecupboardpamphlet [dot] org. Full submission guidelines can be found here.


*OUR NEXT VOLUME*

Amanda Goldblatt’s essay Catalpa will be the next volume of The Cupboard. It's good. Very good.


www.thecupboardpamphlet.org

Exhibit 24.3

If Given Access to Future Wikipedia I Would Search For, In Order, These Things

1. Kansas City Royals World Series

2. Apocolypse

3. Apocalypse

4. Adam Peterson pope

5. Twin Peaks episode guide

Exhibit 24.2

Books You Need

Like a Sea by Samuel Amadon




The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney by Christopher Higgs



I'm fortunate enough to know both of these guys, and while I don't have the books yet, they're both writers I trust. I've ordered them. Your turn.

Exhibit 24.1

Reading List Review

Shakespeare's Histories and Comedies
The Tempest (Oxford)
Measure for Measure (Bedford)
Merchant of Venice (Cambridge's Shakespeare in Production)
The Taming of the Shrew (Norton)
Richard II (Cambridge)
1 Henry IV (Arden)

Nearly perfect though I could do without Shrew and maybe even Measure given the fact that we are only doing six plays. One more history wouldn't kill us though I guess my choice, Henry V, would make the entire thing a little too Bolingbroke heavy. In any case, I think it's a nice list given the course's emphasis on critical editions of the plays which, although it might sound shallow, has been great. The comedies especially take advantage of this as, with the possible exception of Shrew, they don't neatly fit with the conventions of the genre.

Overall verdict: excited.

Exhibit 23.27

Bad Ideas

* Having your Pulitzer Prize winning story collection include an "interview" in the discussion material between the author and the titular character. "Wait, you were following me?" the titular character says and we all die a little.

* Telling the dog that the wind is chasing us Happening style. Well, maybe this isn't a bad idea, really.

* Writing a boring half of a story to meet the requirements of a class exercise then making a note at the end of the file that says, "Make second half good. Add monsters."

* Thumbs.

Exhibit 23.26

Things I Want You to Remember About Me After I Die Playing Basketball Tonight

1. I thought playing full-court was a dumb idea
2. I never would have died if I'd been playing small forward
3. My favorite team name was "Poetry in Motion"
4. My only heart condition was team spirit
5. Also, enlargement
6. I died the same way as William Blake--playing a zone defense
7. I would have appreciated my team using my death as a distraction to run a fast break which would have led to a foul and our team making one of two freethrows
8. My only regret was once saying I'd play basketball
9. My last thought was to wonder if Gatorade would have prevented this
10. In the movie, I want to have a kid who overcomes his fear of basketball to come off the bench for Division II Fort Hays State University

Please feel free to forget everything about me unrelated to basketball.

Exhibit 23.25

Journal

The new Open City is all kinds of awesome, and you should go out of your way to support them. Right now. The first story from Sam Lipsyte is hilarious and not just because there is a character named Vargina which--I'm surprised and ashamed to say--made me laugh almost every time I read it. There are some nice looking debut fiction pieces I'm working my way through as well though I had to put off finishing them because I kept giggling about poor Vargina.

I have a few Flasher pieces in it which are only notable for continuing to exist. He buys a painted turtle among other things. That (still) nutty Flasher.

Exhibit 23.24

Things That Are True in a Story I Wrote for an Exercise Demanding a True Story

1. Depiction of human faces


2. Things that beep in gas stations


3. Poughkeepsie


4. Hotdogs


5. Depiction of human feelings

Exhibit 23.23

Plays

Yesterday I watched a great talk about Camus and Derrida (Grad School!) but I was so worried about having joined the department's basketball team (Grad School!) that I kept seeing everything as basketball plays.


The Algerian Conundrum




It's More Bent Than You Realize




The Power of His Silence




Defending de Man




Attacking the Anti-Dreyfusards

Exhibit 23.22

You're Probably Already Using This

Grooveshark - It's pretty amazing but only if you like having streamable access to nearly every song and using a simple and intuitive interface. What is not so amazing about it: my ability to take it over and make long Gangsta Rap and Brit Pop heavy playlists with themes knowable only to me. That's when everyone gets sad.

Exhibit 23.21

On Editing A Novel #18

ACQUIRING THE PUBLISHING RIGHTS TO TOAD THE WET SPROCKET SONGS. You can't. Forget about it. There's only one way you're going to get the emotional wallop of a Toad the Wet Sprocket song in your novel and that's to write one yourself.

Find the places in your novel where you used Toad the Wet Sprocket songs to explain all the main character wanted, how they were pondering the moment of their collapse, and how exasperated they were at the world's consistent imperfections. You can find these moments quickly by searching for the phrase "It was 1991-1994 and in the background Toad the Wet Sprocket sang on the radio..." There will probably be three or four places where you used this phrase. That's okay.

The first step is to name the band something that exactly suggests Toad the Wet Sprocket but isn't Toad the Wet Sprocket. Do that before reading on.

Next, you'll need to invent a singer named something generic like Todd Robinson and invent a Sprocket-esque background of his having formed a band with his high school friends. Find a singer with the name you made up then learn how to play the bass guitar for the tour. After the tour, lose a battle to your addictions but redeem yourself by releasing an acoustic solo album that maybe isn't great but really shows what you can do without smack and Todd Robinson.

Return to your novel and look at those places you highlighted to add song lyrics and think man, I don't want to live in the past. Start a memoir that's really going to tell the truth about things, especially Todd Robinson. You're done.

Exhibit 23.20

A Primer on the Rules of Cricket, Pt. 2


11. In the event of a wide, a run shall be scored to the batsman's team but not the batsman. This run shall be called a holly or a bosh depending upon local playing conditions.

12. Should play be interrupted by the flight of a sparrow, time shall be given for gazing before play is restarted and the hourglass is overturned.

13. It is given that the wicket-keep should keep the wickets throughout the nights of the match should his quarters prove suitable. Should they not prove suitable, the wicket-keep shall retire with the wickets in nearest suitable boarding house at the wicket's expense.

14. Henceforth, the Irish are allowed to play.

15. Balls shall weigh no more than a poussin and be no less in circumference than a school marm's apple.

16. Should a player wish to smoke a pipe they may do so with the affectations of a bannister on the condition they maintain good cheer with their fellows by offering their tobacco.

17. A captain shall be elected from each side and from among the gentlemen observers. These captains shall, in the event of a tie or jig, determine the winner of the match through conference. Should the observers prevail, each shall be awarded their share of the biscuits upon retiring from the grounds.

18. Revision to rule 15 after adoption of metric standards of measure: Balls shall weigh no more than a poussin 163 grams and be no less in circumference than a school marm's apple 229mm.

19. In the event of a mystery, play should be stopped until the apprehension of the culprit with the assistance of the judge's bludgeon. Play shall then continue on in the manner of the last seen sparrow.

20. If a captain declares an innings closed, or forfeits an innings, or enforces the follow-on, and the other captain is prevented thereby from exercising his option of the rolling permitted (maximum 7 minutes), or if he is so prevented for any other reason, the extra time required to complete the rolling shall be taken out of the normal playing time.

Exhibit 23.19

Stock Photography Review



Image 1 - Bad. In all likelihood, this person's only conception of home ownership is when he returns the shopping cart he's been living out of to an abandoned Kroger in order to prove to himself that, despite this post-apocalyptic wasteland, he's still a man.

Image 2 - Good. This person is demonstrably smoking and her agape mouth shows her interest in breaking news about same.

Image 3 - Wash. On the one hand, this person might have credit card debt. On the other, this photo only made me want to start an early Cat Stevens cover band called "The First Cat is the Deepest."