Welcome to Night Vale - 37 - The Auction

Episode Date: December 15, 2013

The Sheriff's Secret Police are holding their annual auction of seized property, and our favorite community radio host finds Lot 37 particularly interesting. Plus a new challenger for the mayoral title and some great advice for toddlers. This episode was co-written with Glen David Gold. Weather: "Absentee" by Jack Campbell, jackcampbell.bandcamp.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 Dissin 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. It's something else here now. Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell.

Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-Fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now We're running out of time And we still don't know the rules Don't miss what the movie blog calls Something you need to watch Saving those children is how we all go home

From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus Velvet Darkness Silk and Light The Rough Burlap of Evening The Frayed Cotton of Daybreak Welcome to Night Vale. First off, welcome back.

Everything is fine. Nothing happening if you know what I mean. You shouldn't know what I mean. If you do know, you should forget. I'm not going to mention anything and you're not going to hear anything. And both of us will fail to. remember. No one will be named. Nothing will be referenced. And so, listeners, today is an exciting and important day in Night Vale. The sheriff's secret police are holding their annual auction of

contraband and seized property to benefit their purchase of balloons, birthday candles, yellow cake and a pinata. They hope to raise $7.3 million and they say the pinata is armored and will be used to crush rebellions. Personally I love the annual auction. You never know what sort of fun stuff might come up. The catalog has so many interesting items. Let's see. Lot one is is an all-clad dinnerware set. Eight pans in cast aluminum for perfect distribution of heat, new in the package.

It's just waiting for you to season it with a dollop of olive oil and start cooking for friends and family. Regardless of how no one comes over anymore after the last dinner party, when your mother drank all the kianti and announced you never lived up to your potential. At least, that's what the description of the lot says. Lot 2 is a glowing coin with the image of a grim horned god on the obverse and a half-collapse panopticon on the reverse. It's been graded MS-45 by the sheriff's Secret Police coin

grading service, which in no way colludes with the sheriff's secret police auction house to inflate the grade and thus the value of the coin. Lot 3 is a silver candelabra that once floated across a series of dining rooms turned abattoirs to better illuminate the flying daggers that accompanied it. Lot 4 is a set of flying daggers with maniacally detailed designs on the shaft collars. Knife collectors and maniacs alike will want to bid on those. Don't get in the way of that bidding war. Let's see.

There are also carpets and some mid-century modern furniture. Oh, these are very stylish. And look, lot 17 is a near mint copy of Uncanny X-Men number 3, 1964. It has slight foxing on the back cover, perfect registration of the color separations, off-white pages, rustless staples, high cover gloss and no marvel chipping, and it features the first appearance of the blob. Not the blob who lives in the housing development out back of the elementary school, the fictional one. What else?

Lot 37 is... Um, Cecil Palmer. There is no description. Listeners, we'll have more on this auction as it develops. On the lighter side of the news, Today, an invincible, all-powerful alien presence with telepathic powers came to Nightvale to enslave us all. It planned to bend every sentient being to its will, ending violence and conflict by subjugating all of us to its omniscient telekinetic powers. Hilariously, this all-powerful but bumbling alien presence didn't know

we were already subjugated to the omniscient force that's been controlling our thoughts for years. We're guaranteed to continue our violent and irrational ways, so, in your face, inept newcomer presents. Toddlers of Night Vale The Night Vale Community Preschool invites you to fulfill your potential. Commit to a new and demanding educational curriculum while exploring your ultimate dream. The same dream that every toddler has. Economic opportunity. That's right.

You too can learn to learn. to be a chimney sweep. Clean the many, many chimneys of leading citizen and friendly billionaire Marcus Vanston. What a good man Marcus Vanston is. Every one of his houses, from his smallest penthouse apartment atop the dirigible hangar, to his 46-room hill top estate, has multiple chimneys. He has built chimneys even in places where he has no houses, so his well-deserved carbon credits can go to good use. There are numerous chimneys on his shopping mall, his office buildings, his dirigible, his moon rock-plated recreational vehicles, and, due to new and creative laws that allow imminent domain for the generous Marcus Vansden,

every other house in town as well. He has strapped traveling chimneys onto the push carts of festive peddlers, whose rags, hunched shoulders, nagging coughs, and forced tin-whisdellers, and forced tin-whisdhist. merriment accompany the sad antics of their emaciated vest and marching band cap wearing cappuccin monkeys holding tin cups rattling with a single penny from some defunct outmoded currency asking us to contribute to their upkeep as we turn up our collars clear our throats and make convenient excuses to walk a little faster, until, instead of embarrassment about their fates, we find our way to feeling superior about our fragile position on the economic ladder.

Marcus Vansden understands. He doesn't want you to be a lowly peddler, or a capuchin monkey. He wants you to be a chimney sweep. So, little ones, lower your standards, smother your dreams in carbon, and enroll in the preschool chimney sweep academy. Make good old Marcus Vanced and happy for a few brief moments. An update on our earlier story. Violence has broken out among bidders in the sheriff's secret police auction.

Bidding has been frantic and angry. It is confirmed that there has been hair pulling. Unfortunately, attendees have been using their bidding paddles to slap each other across the face. A motion, the auctioneer, has been repeatedly mistaking as indication of a new bid. Thus, lot one, the all-clad dinnerware set, sold for $175,000, and that's before the buyer's premium. Listeners, I have been in touch with the auction staff about lot 37, which is of a certain interest to me. I want Lot 37. I want it badly. I asked if they might take a photograph of it and send it to me. Well, the peals of laughter that broke out in response were a cross between sleigh bells and the cackles of hunched, gray-faced, court gestures.

You know how that sounds. Listeners, in order to learn more about Lot 37, it's likely I will need to visit the auction myself. More as it develops. The Night Vale mayoral race is heating up in preparation for the mayoral election this next June. The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home has taken to leaving leaflets inside the wiring and pipes of your appliances to be found when the sparking and the shaking becomes so much that you must hire or capture a repair person.

The leaflets are tastefully designed with an anatomically detailed drawing of a sparrow's heart and the simple slogan, you are fragile and blind and wanting and stepping alone into the great darkness of the future. It also has her five-point policy platform, which is mostly interesting facts she has learned about bees. Meanwhile, Hiram McDaniels, in the interest of saving time,

has taken to standing on corners giving five different campaign speeches, one with each of his heads. His heads have radically different personalities and agendas, leading to some discord in their messages. But they all agree that they would like to be elected, that youth sports programs are important, and that the Time of the Lizard will soon be upon the helpless human race. Oh, and speaking of the good heart. and great walleted Marcus Vansden, he has also thrown his hat into the proverbial ring. He actually constructed a special proverbial ring in the middle of town,

with an LCD light display and a fountain with hourly water spout show, and commissioned a gold-plated hat with remote-controlled hat launcher for just that purpose. As the hat flew into the ring, a 40-piece children's choir sang a song composed for the occasion entitled, Hi, I'm Running Too, I guess. Oh, I'm Marcus Vanston. Whatever. Anyway, I'm going to be mayor, thanks. Many tears were shed by onlookers, due to civic pride and some helpful gas, Marcus had added to the air supply. Well, this is starting to look like a mayoral campaign for the ages. When reached for comment, outgoing mayor, Pamela Winchell, showed us a collection of mosses and explained the songs that must be sung to each of them

for proper growth. Hey kids, ever go walking in the woods and wonder whether a fairy ring of mushrooms is poisonous, well, look at its center. If there's a body, no older than yourself flying there, the ring is perfectly fine. If the body is also screaming, the ring is perfectly fine.

Everything is perfectly fine. There is nothing under your bed. There is nothing in your closet. Your parents are most likely, actually your parents, regardless of what the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home might tell you. Do not fear the black helicopters or the black windowless school buses that circle your block at night. You need not be afraid of the boogeyman. There hasn't been a sighting of a boogie man.

for several months or at least a couple weeks and yes you will die but probably not until everyone you know is already dead too your parents your friends your pets each death leaving a small but irreparable scar on your not yet still still beating heart. The living tell the dying not to leave, and the dying do not listen. The dying tell us not to be sad for them, and we do not listen. The dialogue between the living and the dead is full of misunderstanding and silence. There's nothing to fear in oblivion, unless of course your consciousness survive, life's death, if so, it would be reasonable to fear the sensation of consciousness without senses. Suspended alone in the cosmos, with no one to hear you, and no way to make yourself known.

No reference point for counting time. A count that does not matter anyway in a literal eternity. You might wish that you still had a corporeal form. only so that you could make your mouth move to express your terror, to make the universal form of a terrified scream, the form of a letter O. But you won't be able to. You just won't.

This has been the Children's Fun Fact Science Corner, brought to you by shame, loneliness, and the letter O. I have been told listeners that the auction has descended into chaos. Michelle Wynne, owner of Dark Owl Records, having bid on a sealed box of Elvis Presley 45s, opened the box to find. It was in fact a box of Elvis Presley's 45 caliber revolvers.

The upended box has made bidding much more treacherous. Mayor Pamela Winchell, interested in lot 28, a gently used five-cup coffee maker, has begun laying down suppressing fire over the ducked heads of anyone trying to outbid her. Despite this, I must enter the auction house now myself, taking my life into my hands even more than usual. Lot 37, Cecil Palmer. I must know. I must bid. I go now, listeners, to await the crying of Lot 37. As I go, you go to the weather.

Listeners, many complications. Listeners, many complications ensued during my attempt to bid on Lot 37. First, in registering for the auction, I had to indicate my current income, which is made difficult as our new owners, who I have been asked to stop talking about, are now paying us in script, redeemable only at merchants they own, like Dust Hut, or the Ralph's. Luckily, the sheriff's secret police turns out to be one of those select merchants. I was able to get a paddle, only moments before the bidding on lots of 37 began. When confronted with destiny, there are external events to record, yes, but also internal.

I would say, time slowed down, even more than usual. The edges of the room went blurry, and then went completely. There was a deep throb of distant machinery that I realized was my own heart propelling inadequate amounts of blood through my parched and aching body. If I did not win lot 37, I would be unraveled. Perhaps I would be unraveled either way. The dull ache I felt was a primal ache of incompletion. The separation and infant feels when pulled too soon from its mother's embrace. My cheeks flushed with the irrationality. of desire. I needed

lot 37. I counted my breaths. I judged myself for wanting and judged myself wanting. I focused on those parts of my life completely out of my control in order to calm myself down,

drowning my fears in pleasant helplessness. The upshot is, I forgot to raise my paddle. Oh, foolish Cecil! And through the tears that came then to my eyes, I couldn't see who won Lot 37 with only one bid. Winner of Lot 37. If you're listening, on one hand, I wish you,

good luck with your prize. On the other, I will be using the mightiest bully pulpit of all, community radio, to strike back at you and destroy you. But also, congratulations. Also that. I am authorized to tell you that the sheriff's secret police have declared the auction a resounding success. In celebration they deployed the pinata to the screams, presumably delighted, of everyone in attendance.

The winning bidders walked away grinning, laden down with trinkets and trophies that reassured them with the cleverness of sheer acquisition. The sheriff's secret police went on to say that objects are invested with mana, magic power caused by the dangerous ideas of property and ownership. And holding on to them is our attempt at having something that will never let us down, even though eventually all will. People leave.

Parents leave the room. Lovers leave your life. You leave the world. We clutch. Teddy bears first. Then doll. then sports jerseys and automobiles with hand-sown leather and excellent gas mileage. As if that were something permanent.

The sheriff's secret police gave a great cheer in honor of constant decay and the inevitability of abandonment. Listeners, accumulating objects is just a way. We hope to turn back the grim specter of death. Thank you for your participation in this auction and for your hope that making a certain purchase, all-clad cookingware, a candelabra, a comic book, a community radio show host, would render you anything more than mortal. I go now to find myself, or to find who has myself,

or to find someone that might make me feel better about what has happened today. I'd take that last one, honestly. I'd take that honest last one. And so, dear listeners, and whatever unknown person or entity that is now the owner of Lot 37, I bid you a farewell, the fondness of which is determined by your place relative to mine in my heart. Stay tuned next for our popular home medical program. Yes, that's probably cancer.

Good night, Night Vale, good night. Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Commonplace Books. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer and produced by Joseph Fink. This episode was co-written with Glenn David Gold. Find his books, wherever amazing books that will instantly become one of your favorites, are sold. The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin, original music by Disparition. All of it can be found at disparition.com or at disparition.combe. This episode's weather was Absentee by Jack Campbell.

Find out more at jack campbell.bandcamp.com. Comments, questions, email us at nightvail at commonplacebooks.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvail radio. Check out welcome to nightvail.com for more information on this show, as well as all sorts of cool nightfail stuff you can own. And while you're there, consider clicking the donate link. That'd be cool of you. Today's proverb, listen, I'm not a hero. The real heroes are the people that point out to us when pro, testers have smartphones, thus invalidating all concerns. Hey, Jeffrey Kramer here to tell you about another show from me and my Nightvale co-creator Joseph Fink. It's called Unlicensed, and it's an L.A. Noir-style mystery set in the outskirts of present-day Los Angeles. Unlicensed follows two unlicensed private

investigators who small jobs looking into insurance claims and missing property are only the tip of a conspiracy iceberg. There are already two seasons of Unlicensed for you to listen to now, with Season 3 dropping on May 15th. Unlicensed is available exclusively through Audible, free if you already have that subscription. And if you don't, Audible has a trial membership. And if I know you, and I do, you can binge all that mystery goodness in a short window. And if you like it, if you liked Unlicensed, please, please rate and review each season. Our ability to keep making this show is predicated on audience engagement.

So go check out Unlicensed. Available now only at Audible.com.