Welcome to Night Vale - 33 - Cassette

Episode Date: October 15, 2013

Cecil finds an old cassette tape of himself at age 15, and he is surprised at what it contains. Plus, a new exhibit at the Museum of Forbidden Technologies, Children's Fun Fact Science Corner, and an important message from new station management. Weather: "Big Houses" by Squalloscope, squalloscope.com. Music: Disparition, disparition.info. Logo: Rob Wilson, robwilsonwork.com Produced by Night Vale Presents. Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. More Info: welcometonightvale.com, and follow @NightValeRadio on Twitter or Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy y'all. It is Jeffrey Craneer. I'm not sure which episode of Welcome to Nightville you're listening to, but I am speaking to you from April of 2026. And I'm here to tell you we're going to be in Europe. If you want to see Nightville live and you're going to be in Europe, come check us out at the end of May. We're going to be in Edinburgh on May the 27th. We will be in Manchester on the 28th, London on the 29th, and Amsterdam on May the 30th. Just go to Welcome to Nightville.com slash live to see the show dates and to get your tickets. This is. our newest Nightville live show Murder Night in Blood Forest. It is so much fun. Please come check it out. Also, coming up this month here in April, it is the return of Alice Isn't Dead, brand new episodes of our other crazy hit podcast. This is written by Joseph Fink, produced and with music by Dysperition and starring Jacique and Nicole. So make sure you are still subscribed to Alice Isn't Dead and go get those on April the 13th as new episodes come out. Finally, speaking of other shows, do you want to hear us talk about other things? things. We have three other really great chat shows. First of all, there's Good Morning Nightvale for all of your Nightvale needs. You can hear Hal, Meg, and Symphony talk about every single

episode in order of Welcome to Nightvale. Also, we have Random Horror Number Nine. That is me and Nightville star Cecil Baldwin talking about horror movies one at a time in a random order. And then Joseph and Meg do best, worst, which is a really fun podcast where they look at hit TV shows and they review the best rated on IMDB, the worst rated on IMDB, and if you're a Patreon member, they will review the middleest rated on IMDB. So check out all of those at nightfallpresents.com or just wherever you get your podcast. And hey, thanks. Perhaps you noticed something strange yesterday. And perhaps you have forgotten it. Welcome to Nightvale. Hello, listeners. I'll get to the news in a moment, but first, I was digging through some of these stored-up belongings clogging my closet.

You know, childhood toys, blood-soaked rags, a gem the size of a fist that shows you visions of yourself as an old man staring wistfully back at the past that is your now? that kind of thing. And I came across these cassette tapes, marked Cecil Radio Test, age 15. You know, listeners, I have no memory whatsoever of making these tapes.

Isn't that so weird? At one point, they must have meant so much to me, and now they are just objects, with no remembered life, attached to them at all. I thought we could listen to them together, just me and you. All of the yous out there. Here we go. Hi, Cecil here. Mom gave me this recorder for my birthday so I could make my own radio shows, just like Leonard Burton's show at the Real Night Vale Community Radio. I'm going to

replace Leonard one day. I really want to. Plus the tablets down at City Hall say so. So I better start practicing now. Leonard always starts on his show with his big catchphrase, and so I'll do it too. Just the way he does it. Here goes. The sun is actually cold. It's cold and empty and all is lost. Greetings from Nightvale. How was that? Hold on. Hold on. I want to hear that back. Wait, where's the stop button? Cecil again. Wow, is that what I really sound like? Oh, this is so weird.

Okay, okay. So, in local news, a new pizza place opened, and I went to it. It's called Big Rikos, and it's pretty good. I mean, I prefer Sammy's Ultimate Sliceria by the Ralph's, but it burned down last week. And that's too bad. Oh, well, I'm not. I'm sure it'll be rebuilt soon.

Wait, what is that? It went away when I hit stop. Oh, but now it's back again. It's kind of... It's this kind of flickering in the corner of my eye. Like someone's waving their arms right next to me, but when I turn, there's nothing there. Oh, well.

Oh, hey, do you want to hear me sing? Here's the Night Vale High Fight Song. That flickering got really strong when I sang. Oh! Oh, oh, oh, Leonard's going to be on soon. All right, goodbye for now, or, as Leonard always says, see you, Night Vale. See ya! Well, listeners, Leonard Burton. Now that takes me back.

Leonard was the host of this very show when I was a child. I remember... Actually, I remember almost nothing about him. I still don't remember making these tapes. Finally, on this show, something strange to talk about. But first, the news. The Museum of Forbibing. technologies is proud to announce their new special exhibit, a startling and highly forbidden

piece of technology brought to us by time travelers, or ancient long-dead aliens, or Russians, or whatever. The technology will be kept in a locked vault, which itself will be wrapped in thick black bandages with a handwritten sign taped to one side saying only. Nope. Your ticket includes a free audio guide, which will play a single piercing tone designed to considerably remove you from the world of thought and sound and sentience. The Museum of Forbidden Technologies.

Bring your kids. Otherwise, something even worse might happen to them. And now for traffic. Everything's looking clear out there today. All the commuters feel like, perhaps for the first time in their entire lives, they are seeing themselves, and the world around without illusions or denial. All of them have pulled their cars to the side of the road in the sudden shock of such absolute truth. Some are sobbing into their steering wheel, touching their skin, and remembering what they hadn't known they had forgotten. Others have stepped out of their cars and are picking up handfuls of dirt and laughing at the realization. this is bringing them about atoms and the universe and death.

A representative for the sheriff's secret police announced that there wasn't such a thing as a secret, not really, or that maybe the entire world was a secret, and we are all in on it. She then saw a cloud she liked and smiled at it. So, be sure to allow a lot of extra time for any journeys today, and be on the lookout for abandoned cars and dazed people wandering into the roadway, because listeners, everything's looking clear out there today. This has been traffic. All right.

I admit, listeners, I'm very curious. Let's get back to these tapes of this younger person with whom I share a life. Cecil again. My brother says that I'll never make it in radio because my voice isn't right for it. I need to get more like Leonard with that perfect radio voice, all high-pitched and grating like sandpaper, just the way radio voices should be. Um, I've been seeing that movement more, even when I'm not recording.

It's like someone is walking towards me, but when I turn, there's nothing there. And it's not the faceless old woman who secretly lives in our home, because I asked her, and the next day our kitchen table had been flipped over and superglued to the floor, which I'm pretty sure is her way of saying no. I wish whatever it is would just say hi. Whoa. I felt something touched me. I think maybe making these tapes is encouraging it.

I'm going to hit stop now. Hey, Cecil here. Great news. Leonard agreed to let me intern down at the station doing all the things he doesn't have time to. like organizing the tape archive, making the coffee, and keening to station management for the prescribed three hours daily. Oh, I cannot wait to start. Mother says to beware, be warned, be wary. She says this to everything, no matter what you say to her, so I think that means she's very proud of me.

Heck, I'm very proud of me. I wish my brother could be proud of me, but no family member is perfect. They become perfect when you learn to accept them for what they are. I... I don't remember having a brother. These tapes don't make sense to me. When did I intern here? Intern Jesus?

Are there any records of me ever interning here? Jesus! I forgot. Jesus never returned. from investigating the bottomless pit in the intern break room. To the family members and loved ones of intern

Jesus. Oh well, you know the usual. Sorry. I'm just distracted. More from these tapes of my misremembered past soon. But first, a word from our sponsors.

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Still the moon This message brought to you by an anonymous sponsor Looking for whatever product or service we offer We are, whoever we are The best choice in whatever industry that is Listeners, let's take a moment to discuss measurement. The cardinal directions are north, west, south, and east. The cardinal temperatures are 35 degrees Fahrenheit, 67 degrees Fahrenheit,

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Think deeply about meadows. Meadows are important. Okay. Enough with that. Back to the tapes. Oh my god, my first day as an intern was just neat. It didn't start out well, what with my brother staring at me from across the breakfast table with those hollow eyes and howling. Ugh, brothers, right?

But once I was in the radio station, I knew I had found home. A messy home, full of hallways winding away. into a labyrinth of audio equipment and tape stacks. Just like home. Oh, the station management's door, with its terrifying shadows whipping around in a hazy silhouette, just like that gauzy curtain in the living room, back home we never open.

And oh, the windows looking out onto empty recording studios that haven't been used in decades, but that still broadcast live shows, every night. Some just heavily amplified insect movement. Others, a whispered voice, describing a window opening, a hand reaching in, and then repeating, a window opening, a hand reaching in. Oh, oh, and working with Leonard, when he looks at you through the glass of the booth, and he signals you to crouch under a table and cover your head, you know, this is it

I'm actually doing radio my mom seems really proud of me too she hid from me for three days like the longest ever and she's covered all the mirrors in my house I'm not sure why but I think it must be because of pride

being proud does all sorts of things to a person I'm I'm sorry I got distracted. That weird movement is back. And it's closer now. Hello?

Hello. I'm Cecil. Cecil Gershwin Palmer. And you cannot scare me. You cannot. You cannot. Hello? Let's, um,

listeners, Let's just go to the weather. Okay? With this goodbye, I'd rather leave this embrace between you. Let's lock out the bearded old man in the nightgown. He can tap against the glass, but I'm not. I build bridges with these arms. I will not build a fortress.

In the circle around the kitchen table, I say my aim and because I feel blessed secretly. hoping while joining hands that you can't feel my trembling figure. Piece of paper do I sell my soul along with my duties and we won't put our money where you're a cattle and a mighty, mighty or they told us not to clap and we clap as loud as we can because the reverb in those holy halls is like a long-lost friend. Then the walls then comes all the way back and back again, back, back again, back again. Don't. Ancient books. Music in my hair.

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Interning is going great. Mom is gone. Um, oh, Leonard is super nice to me. My brother is gone too. Family, right? I think I'm learning a lot at the station. All the mirrors in my house are uncovered now. And I'm not sure who did that.

I'm standing in front of the hall mirror right now. Am I changed? Am I becoming an adult? I look more grown, I think. More professional. Leonard said, If I work hard, maybe I'll be a little. radio percenter myself someday. Leonard said he once was smaller too, but that he is larger now,

that everything is larger, that everything in the universe is growing to towering sizes, but all at once, all in unison, so no one notices, and it is all the same relative to itself. Leonard lulls his tongue out of his thick purple lips. Leonard hisses, being an intern is great. That flickering movement is everywhere now. Especially looking in this mirror, I see the flickering movement, and I know. I know it. I think the radio station is fun. I think the radio station is hidden.

I think the radio station is like a dark planet lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won't. be. I'm looking in a mirror. The mirror is not covered. The flickering movement is just behind me. I... Ah! What is this? What is this? What? No matter. I'm taking the tape just now and I'm... Crushing it. into little pieces. None of us have to think about it again.

I'll just double check that the mirror in the station bathroom is covered, as usual, and then that will be that. Done. Forgotten. We all do foolish things when we are teenagers. We all have foolish, false events that happen to us. foolish gaps in our memories. Not everything that has happened has ever really happened.

Listeners, especially our younger listeners, consider this. When we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn of expectation for disappointment. And this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive. But what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now. But talking back to the teenager we ourselves once were. All stupid mistakes and lack of fear and body of body. that hadn't yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia

and shame with which we speak to our younger selves. May we all remember what it was like to be so young. May we remember it factually, and not remember anything that is false or incorrect. May we all be human, beautiful, stupid, temporal, endless. And as the sun sets, I place my hand upon my heart, feel that it is still beating, remind myself, past performance is not a predictor of future results. Stay tuned now for whatever happens next in your life. Good night, Night Vale, good night. Welcome to Nightvale is a production

of Commonplace Books. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer and produced by Joseph Fink. The voice of Nightvale is Cecil Baldwin. Original music by Disparition. All of it can be found at dispersion. info or at dispirition.bancamp.com. This episode's weather was Big Houses by Squaloscope.

Find out more at squaloscope.com. Comments, questions, email us at nightvail at commonplacebooks.com or follow us on Twitter at Nightvale Radio. Check out commonplacebooks.com for more information on this show, as well as all sorts of cool Nightvale stuff you can own. And while you're there, consider clicking the donate link.

That'd be cool of you. Today's proverb, you can lead a horse to water, and you can lead a horse into water, and you can swim around with the horse and have fun. Hi, we're Meg Bashwinner. And Joseph Fink. Of welcome to Night Vale, 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 Skelly gets attacked by a vicious housecat. And also the really good episodes, too. What can we learn from the best and worst of great television? Like, for example, is it really a bad episode or do people just hate women?

The best worst. Available wherever you get your podcasts.