Welcome to Night Vale - 190 - Listeners

Starting point is 00:00:04 Hey, Nightville, it is Jeffrey Craneer speaking to you from April of 2026 with a couple of cool things coming up. First off, we're going to be in Europe touring our newest Nightville live show, Murder Night in Blood Forest. We're going to be in Edinburgh, UK, on May 27th. We'll be in Manchester on the 28th. We will be in London on May 29th, and we will be in Amsterdam on May the 30th. You can get tickets for these shows at Welcome to Nightville.com slash live, and hopefully we'll have more. shows coming up later this year. Who knows? Just get on our newsletter. Go to Welcome to Nightville.com. Sign up for our newsletter. We will send you emails twice a month to let you know all of the news that you need to know about Welcome to Nightville. One of the big news things to tell you

Starting point is 00:00:48 right now is that our other hit podcast, Alice Isn't Dead, is coming back on April the 13th, written by Joseph Fink, produced by Disparition and starring Jacica Nicole. More episodes of Alice Isn't Dead return on April the 13th. So make sure you are still subscribe to that podcast. Finally, do you want some cool nightbale merch? Go to welcome to nightville.com, click on store, and we have all kinds of cool t-shirts, things for the summer, tank tops, beach towels. And if you like coffee mugs, if you want calendars, if you want backpacks, all kinds of cool stuff there. So check out Welcome to Nightville.com and click on store, click on live. If you want to see our live shows, we will see you in Europe. And hey, thanks.

Starting point is 00:01:37 Lawrence Henwick lived an easily unnoticed life. He worked at the cell phone kiosk at the mall, did his grocery shopping late at night, and mostly kept to himself. His few friends were those he had known since high school, and he only saw them one or two times a year. He was polite and orderly and kept the world out. And maybe this would have lasted the rest of his life if he had not let his car registration lapse.

Starting point is 00:02:05 A routine traffic stop led to him. a suspicious officer to obtain a search warrant on Lawrence's house. And what the sheriff's secret police would find would put him in the record books of U.S. law enforcement, a collection of material considered so illegal and so vile that many agents refused to transport it to the station. Lawrence Henwick was in possession of the largest collection of writing utensils in the country. I'm Phoebe Judge,

Starting point is 00:02:37 This is criminal. Listeners, something has changed for our quiet little town. It seems that the rest of the country has become aware of our existence. I don't know what this means for us. We are usually such private people content with our corner of the world. I hope this doesn't affect real estate values or property taxes and the like, but then maybe tourism would help boost our economy a bit. I suppose we shall just have to wait and see.

Starting point is 00:03:18 This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. When we talk about pizza, we don't talk enough about the crust. There's thin crust, cheese-stuffed crust, thick crust. But no matter what crust you prefer, it's not a pizza without it, right? Maybe not. On today's show, we talk with Rico Goldblum, owner of Big Rico's pizza in Nightvale. As they're saying goes, no one does a slice like Big Rico. No one. And that's probably true, because all of Rico's pizzas are crust-free. How do you eat that, let alone cook it?

Starting point is 00:03:58 Time to find out. Hey, your friend hosts Steve Carlsberg here. And it's time for dotted lines, the only podcast to give you the truth behind Nightveil's lies. Today I have my daughter Janice on to talk about the total lack of wheelchair accessibility at the Mudstone Abyss. Lee Marvin was many things. A decorated Marine whose medals included the Purple Heart, who was discharged as a private after being demoted for troublemaking. A Western actor whose work in Cat Ballou earned him an Academy Award

Starting point is 00:04:38 and a man who turned down a starring role in Jaws because he thought it would make him look silly. A veteran who publicly opposed the Vietnam War and the defendant in the case of Marvin v. Marvin, which established the concept of palimony, the financial support of a former partner to whom a person was never married. But least known of all is Lee Marvin's later life

Starting point is 00:05:09 after he moved to a town called Night Vale. A strange little desert town, almost unknown to the rest of the world, of the world in which Lee Marvin would turn 30. And then, turn 30 again, over and over, every single day a birthday. Time would cease to move for Lee Marvin. To be honest, even I find this story difficult to comprehend. Join us, won't you?

Starting point is 00:05:47 for the story of Lee Marvin in Nightville. Hello and welcome to Oh No, Ross, and Carrie, the show where we don't just report on French science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves. Yep, when they make the claims, we show up so you don't have to. I'm Carrie Poppy. And I'm Ross Blotcher, and this week... Oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:06:10 This is so crazy. This is a wild one. Okay, so this week we checked out the joyful church of the smiling God, And it was... I mean, well, we are already smiling. Just describing it. We're definitely smiling. Very painful.

Starting point is 00:06:27 In fact, it won't stop. And I think it's permanent. I think it's permanent. And it's painful. Oh, it's tough. Who is dead? It's technology. Entertainment.

Starting point is 00:06:39 It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Anoush Zamoroti. Today on the show, Wheat and Wheat Buy Products. can they be trusted? This episode of Comedy Bang Bang is brought to you by yearn.com. Have you ever yearned? You know what I mean? What a pain it is to yearn for things.

Starting point is 00:07:01 Sitting by the window, looking at the sky, feeling specific emptiness. Every one of us does it all day, every day, and it leaves a little time to eat or sleep or make long-running, incredibly successful, critically acclaimed comedy podcasts. Well, now there is yearn.com. You tell us what you're yearning for, and one of our professional yearners will yearn for it on your behalf. Uren.com, yearn better. Urn now.

Starting point is 00:07:29 All right, back to the show. We are here with Lee Marvin, star of the new HBO sitcom Howard's End. Brothers, for years, my brother-in-law was pretty mean to me. He works at the local community radio station, and he would tell lies about me from his position there. Ooh. Telling his listeners, for instance, that my scones lack salt. and are tasteless, which is ridiculous. I am an excellent scone baker.

Starting point is 00:07:54 Recently, everybody feels like they're good at scones. Anybody's ever made scones, I feel like it feels like they're good at scones. Well, it's hard to make. If you can make them just to begin with, it's already an achievement. Recently, we have reached a point of understanding and are now quite friendly. Sometimes, however, I feel like his niceness can just be as aggressive, sorry, can be just as aggressive as his former meanness. He still talks about me on the radio, and he shouts compliment

Starting point is 00:08:18 about me to the government agents tasked with watching my house. It's overly friendly and it makes both me and the government agents feel uncomfortable. How can I help him find a balance between his former malice and his current well-intentioned but overly friendly behavior? What do you think,

Starting point is 00:08:38 Trev? Hello, Guy. Hello, Tim. Welcome to another episode of the worst idea of all time. A title that feels, if I'm honest, More and more literal every episode. Yeah, sort of a joke at first, but now more like an eternal torment. Yes. So we are watching the movie Grown Ups 2 once a week.

Starting point is 00:09:02 This is our 10,000 third watch, so that puts it at... Just around 190 years we've been doing this. Right here in this grey room where there is nothing but a grey couch and a single TV that only plays grown-ups 2 once a week and otherwise does not function. It's a grim existence, Tim. It really is. What was your shining light this week?

Starting point is 00:09:24 I had a dream that we escaped this room. It was a beautiful dream of freedom I felt. Light on my face. I saw the sun. But then I woke up and I was here. Well, it seems that our existence is causing something of an uproar for the rest of the country. I'm not clear why. We are just one small town, ordinary.

Starting point is 00:09:53 in most ways. We are Americans like you, unless you are not American, in which case, unlike you. Surely this clamor and outcry is unnecessary for a town as tiny as ours. But what do I know of the world? Honestly, very little. Hey, I'm Gabby Dunn, and this is bad with money. Okay, Dead Beats, today we're talking about how money works in a very strange place. I'm sure you've seen the news. I don't have to tell you. we've all discovered that there's a town called Night Vale in the American Southwest, and, folks, it's very weird. It's just, wow, a very strange place in more ways than I have time to summarize here,

Starting point is 00:10:41 and I love to talk. It might not surprise you to learn that my first thought, upon hearing about Night Vale, was, huh, how does money work in a place where, until recently, time didn't even work? Money is so much a trust game. the belief that currency will still be worth something by the time you get around to spending it. How does that trust game work in a place with a literal sheriff's secret police? To find out, I hopped on the phone with a couple citizens of the town. I had to.

Starting point is 00:11:12 And the first was named, are you ready? The glow cloud. Let's hear what they had to say. Today on the pod, the discovery of a town called Night Vale within the U.S. borders in which every known law of physics and metaphysics is broken. And what does that mean for the upcoming special elections in Minnesota? Also, President Biden looking at cutting funding to a vague yet medicine government agency. Can he do that? And should he?

Starting point is 00:11:44 This is under understood. Hey, everyone. Hello. Hello. Hey, Adrian. What do you all know about the town of Nightvale? The town of Nightvale? You know, I think I know kind of everything.

Starting point is 00:12:04 Mm-hmm. Like, I just woke up recently and the knowledge was just in my mind. And I knew literally everything there is to know about Nightvale. And everything about the town is impossible, but my knowledge of Night Vale is absolute and invalid. Yeah, me too. Me too. Welcome to the Dark Owl podcast. I'm a Shelton Wing, and you are definitely not cool enough to listen to my music opinions.

Starting point is 00:12:41 End of episode. Goodbye. This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zaltzman, try to find language on a map. There it is, up there at the top, right next to the Great Lakes. This episode is about Michigan, or is it Michigan or Minstakan? Michigan. Michigan. No two people have ever agreed how to pronounce the word, and if you've never heard of Mentionetan, you're not alone. It's widely considered the least recognizable state in America.

Starting point is 00:13:30 All right, so the guy sees a dark planet lit by no sun. Oh, Dave. Above his workplace. What? What you mean what? Dave, I don't like where this is going. So, okay, so he decided to move to Night Vale. I knew it. Oh, like every time. Yeah. Ugh. I'm Sarah Marshall. I'm working on a book about the satanic panic. I'm Michael Hobbs. I'm a reporter for the Huffington Post. And on this episode, if you're wrong about, we're going to talk about the mudstone abyss. Ooh, it's like Boston's big dig, but in the desert. All right, Sarah.

Starting point is 00:14:13 Should we get to our listener mail? Yes. Our first email is from Cecil Gershwin Palmer. Cecil says, hi, percast. Hi. My cat, Koshek, pronounced Koshek, by the way. Oh, okay. And I listen to your show all the time.

Starting point is 00:14:26 He doesn't photograph well, but here's the best picture I own. Oh, let's bring out the picture. Oh. Is this a prank? This photo is completely dark. No, no, no, wait. Look, there's a faint outline. What?

Starting point is 00:14:41 Are those wings? It's a cat, Stephen, not a bird. No, those are clearly tentacles. Everyone has a blind spot. It's literally the place on the retina where the optic nerve connects to the eye. No visual information is collected there, which leaves a blank in our vision.

Starting point is 00:15:09 But these blind spots aren't obvious like a hole in a photo, or a smudge on a window. No, even the existence of a blind spot is a blind spot to us. We don't see what's missing because our brain fills in the rest of the image. We think we are seeing everything we see.

Starting point is 00:15:26 But we're not. So in 2012, when landscapers in the small desert town of Night Vale discovered the house that wasn't there, a scientist explained it as simply a trick of the mind, a blind spot. The house was right there when you looked at it, and it was between two other identical homes,

Starting point is 00:15:44 so it would have made more sense for it to be there than not. After years of research, though, the scientists concluded that the house didn't exist at all. But that scientist discovered a blind spot of his own. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore. Hello from the Magic Tavern, a weekly podcast from the magical land of fune. I'm your host, Arnie Neacamp, and six years in a couple of days. of months ago, I fell through a dimensional portal behind a Ralph's in the town of Night Vale

Starting point is 00:16:22 into the magical, fantastical land of fume. And I am Usador. Wait, who is this, Ralph? Ralph is not a person, Usadur. Ralph is a grocery store chain on my world. Liar. Oh, and why were you behind Ralph? Were you trying to surprise him? Or puke? I was behind a Ralph's. Not behind a guy named Ralph and I was just huddling with some of my buds you know like you do who is this a ralphs huddle buds I want us to be huddle buds chan we are huddled buds come on let's go behind the ralph blue wizard 42 blue wizard 42 huddle huddle hike oh my legs are so sore we just hiked yesterday oh there's something about it's not as satisfying if it's not behind a ralph's wreck it Welcome to Whatever Happened to Pizza at McDonald's, the investigative journalism program,

Starting point is 00:17:39 or IJP, where I asked the question, whatever happened to the pizza at McDonald's. I'm your host, Brian Thompson. Many of you have written in to inform me that there is a McDonald's in the town of Night Vale. This McDonald's does not serve pizza, but it does have a hole in the back that they call the pizza hole. It is a small hole in the wall near the storeroom, and customers are encouraged to crawl into the pizza hole. No customer has ever returned from such a trip into said hole. I knew I had to give this McDonald's location a call.

Starting point is 00:18:26 Welcome to Song Exploder. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Michelle Winn is the owner of the legendary music shop Dark Owl Records. She's a champion of underappreciated music forms. But not a lot of people know that she was also the leader of the early 2000s music collective, hands, legs, mouths, horizon. They're best known for their 2003 single, Buzz. In today's episode, Michelle breaks down the making of Buzz, starting with the demo that she created by shaking a beehive.

Starting point is 00:18:54 And she tells the story of working with superstar producer Max Martin, who convinced her to update her sound by shaking a wasp hive instead. This is Maintenance Phase, the podcast that turns snakes back into wheat and wheat byproducts. Aubrey, I just want to eat a normal loaf of bread again. Hi, I'm Deb, the sentient patch of haze. And welcome to Night Vale through the side window. Your travel companion to all the wonders and delights of Nightvale. Today, we will be looking at the best hikes for kids in Radon Canyon.

Starting point is 00:19:37 How to eat like a local at the moonlight all night, and how to leave Night Vale. Spoiler, it's pretty hard. And you probably can't. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. When John Peters was 17 years old, he was an elite baseball player. Major League Scouts loved his strength, his speed, and his mechanics. But before he graduated high school, John inherited his family farm. And he gave up his hopes of playing professional sports to grow invisible corn.

Starting point is 00:20:11 Today on the show, Home Town Blues. Why we choose to stay in the communities where we are raised? And is it possible to leave? Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Mary Childs. And I'm Sarah Gonzalez. Today on the show, what happens when a billionaire dies and leaves all of his money, as he phrased it in his will, to the hierarchy of angels?

Starting point is 00:20:38 And what do we make of the conspiracy theories that the late investor Marcus Vansden is still operating his business from beyond the great. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. If you were a resident of a small desert town of Nightvale in the last 10 years, you probably heard radio commercials that went like this. Listeners, are you lost? Don't know where to turn.

Starting point is 00:21:10 Might I recommend the Brownstone Spire? Do you need cash? Cast your eyes to the Brownstone Spire. Stone Spire. The Brown Stone Spire. It's a real structure, but no one knew what the ads were selling or who was paying for them to play multiple times a day. We were inspired by crystals. You know how crystals have a voice, but not when you can hear, just a resonance that speaks to you,

Starting point is 00:21:42 up through your bones, into your visor, and then overtakes your soul. That was the impetus for our marketing case. campaign and it's been hugely successful. That's Missy Wilkes. She lives in Nightvale. She's also the director of community outreach for Wendy's. And so it goes. The world is talking about us now. After all these years we have taken our place in the conversation. Well, I suppose it is nice to be talked about now and then.

Starting point is 00:22:16 But I don't think we should get used to it. Surely they'll move on. Once some new headline distracts, a plane crash or blight or the visiting king of a galactic civilization, these things come and these things go. But if you are a new listener, I welcome you. You are all welcome here. Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

Starting point is 00:22:59 Welcome to Nightvale as a production of Nightvale Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Criner and produced by Disparition. The voice of Steve is Hal Lublin. The voice of Michelle Wynn is Kate Jones. The voice of Deb, the sentient patch of Hayes, is Meg Bashwinner. The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin. Original music by Dysperition. All of it can be found at dispirition.bancamp.com.

Starting point is 00:23:28 Thank you to the many podcasts who generously agreed to take part in this episode. For a list, in order of appearance, please consult the show notes. comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvail.com or follow us on Twitter at Nightvale Radio or invent a desert town and spend nine years writing about it. Check out Welcome to Nightvale.com for info about our Nightvale Live North American tour in 2022. We cannot wait to be in a room with you once again. Today's proverb, hope for the best. Prepare for the best too. It's going to be great. What could go wrong?

Starting point is 00:24:10 Well, you need to start, I guess, doing more neutral things for him to observe. Just standing right between the lines. Yeah, standing on your lawn with as neutral faces you can wearing all khaki is a good place to start. Maybe like a big sandwich baggie full of porridge or oatmeal. Because it's like, thank you for this. It is inconvenient, but I appreciate it. the thought and oh my gosh these two just canceled each other out yeah and maybe uh maybe like uh fly a kite but that's really bland and maybe like made out of like some kind of plain white paper yes that's yeah

Starting point is 00:24:49 absolutely like informational like you know the parts of the tax form that you don't have to send back but you print off anyway because you're a bad boy perfect just make a kite out of those really boring things and there's like it's neutral this is perfect right make it make a kite out of of like saran wrap, right? That's gonna, you're getting into some challenging aerodynamic ideas, Travis. That's fair. Like really challenging. That's fair.

Starting point is 00:25:14 Maybe, okay, here's what you, you make some scones, right? Half of them, delicious, half of them, gross, right? And then you just kind of mix and match. Okay, here's some, I want a red flag one of these. Okay. If they get one of the bad scones first, they're never going to go back for a good one. You know, like you're not, you're not. not going to house that bad one and then be like, let me check, let me try, let me find out.

Starting point is 00:25:39 Let me try one more time. We do, how about like a perfectly made scone? Yes. That is flavored like cut grass. Yeah, that's neutral. That's neutral. Hi, we're Meg Bashwinner. And Joseph Fink.

Starting point is 00:26:24 Of welcome to Nightvail. And on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the Golden Age of Television. To do that, we're watching the IMDB viewer rated best and worst episodes. of classic TV shows. The episode of Star Trek where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost. The episode of the X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat. And also the really good episodes, too. What can we learn from the best and worst of great television?

Starting point is 00:26:48 Like, for example, is it really a bad episode or do people just hate women? The best worst. Available wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Night Vale - 190 - Listeners

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