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19-JAN-2026 | Excerpt from “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver

19-JAN-2026 | Excerpt from “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver

Dan Bogachek
January 19, 2026

The Vault from Copywork365

The swipe file is dead.

Literally, and maybe figuratively as well.

When I first started working on this project, I gave it the working title, Toolbox. The simple tagline was: the swipe file on roids.

But the more I worked on it, the more it became clear that this wasn’t just a box of tools. Calling it a swipe file wasn’t accurate, either. Roided up, or otherwise.

Because at its core, the swipe file is merely a collection of pictures or text. A pile, in other words.

This thing behaves more like a navigable map.

And no matter how much stuff you hoard into a swipe file, its contents are inert.

This, on the other hand, grows deeper over time. Its contents are living.

So, henceforth, this will be known as…

(This is just a placeholder, made with the help of AI.
So hit me up if you can make this more human & prettier!)

The Vault is an atomic copywriting database. As far as I know it’s the first of its kind, so that’s what I’m calling it.

It’s a database of world-class excerpts just like the ones we cover right here on the daily. Spanning ad copy, webpage copy, and literature.

Each excerpt is x-rayed and dissected to reveal what makes everything tick, how it works — on the most granular level. (Hence, atomic.)

It covers all the tools, techniques, and psychology we touch on here, but in their full depth. Making it easy to master these “devices” and then apply them to your own persuasive writing. You can even filter by author or brand to steal the secret sauce from your very favorite writers, copywriters, and brands.

Same as before, I’ve still got a forever deal for you.

If you join the waitlist below, you get exclusive lifetime access for an ultra-low flat fee when The Vault launches. (It’s looking like Q1 or Q2 of 2026.)

After all, a sweetheart deal is the least I can do to thank you for your support.

And as I’ve mentioned before, yes, I really do mean lifetime.

Even if the internet ceases to exist. I’ll toil day and night to make sure you receive a physical copy. With however many thousands of excerpts this accumulates over its lifetime.

Pinky promise.

Excerpt from “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver

This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night. His wife had died. So he was visiting the dead wife's relatives in Connecticut. He called my wife from his in-laws’. Arrangements were made. He would come by train, a five-hour trip, and my wife would meet him at the station. She hadn't seen him since she worked for him one summer in Seattle ten years ago. But she and the blind man had kept in touch. They made tapes and mailed them back and forth. I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to. 🏁

Tight and simple. One idea per sentence.

The narrator keeps the focus on the blind man instead of himself: “He was no one I knew.” His word choice matches with what he’s told us already: “he’s the problem, not me.”