Welcome to Night Vale - It Makes A Sound: Episode 1, Are You Listening?

Episode Date: September 28, 2017

A new podcast from Night Vale Presents. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts.  A cassette tape from 1992 has been found in the attic… A Night Vale Presents production. Created and written by Jacquelyn Landgraf. Co-directed by Jacquelyn Landgraf and Anya Saffir. Sound design and engineering by Vincent Cacchione. Original music composed by Nate Weida. Deirdre's music box song today is Erik Satie's Gymnopédie. With Jacquelyn Landgraf as Deirdre Gardner, also featuring Annie Golden. www.nightvalepresents.com/itmakesasound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, we at Night Vale Presents are really proud to give you our newest serial fiction show. It Makes a Sound. This show is fundamentally different than any fiction show we've put out in some really cool ways, and I'm glad that you all will finally get to hear it. It's written and performed by playwright, an actor, and longtime friend of Nightvale, Jacqueline Landgraf. Let's take a listen to the first episode now. If you enjoy it, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Reviewing it also helps the show.

Without further ado, I take you now to the little suburb of Rosemary Hills. Hello, I'm Anya Saffer, the co-director of It Makes a Sound. Thank you so much for lending us your ears. In order to support our show, we'll need the help of some great advertisers. And in order to find those great advertisers, we'll need to learn a little bit more about you. So please go to podsurvey.com slash sound.

and take a quick anonymous survey that will help us to get to know you a little better. That way we can show advertisers just how wonderful our listeners are. Even if you've taken a podcast listener survey before, this one is specific to it makes a sound, so we really need you to take this one too. Plus, once you've completed the survey,

you can enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card. Thank you for your help. We really appreciate it. So remember, go to podsurvey.com slash S-O-U-N-D. And remember Wimferros. And now, on to episode one. When a tree falls in a forest and no one's around to hear it, it makes a sound.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have found the music. It had been lost, as so many things are lost. Missing, disappeared, misplaced, vanished. Every day, what falls into obscurity without anybody noticing? Without anybody paying attention? What is locked in the attic? I mean, let's talk about some things that have been found in an attic or spaces like attics. Did you know that Van goes,

sunset at Mont-Majour, that beautiful painting was found in an attic, or that the original handwritten manuscript of Huckleberry Finn was found in an attic. The Venus de Milo was not an attic, but buried in a farmer's field unearthed by a peasant who came across some stubborn soil. Did you know that the only copy of the pilot of I Love Lucy lay under the bed of Pepino the clown for 30 years until it was swept out by his widow when she finally cleaned up around the place and thought to herself, this is pretty funny. All these masterpieces, just a broom sweep away from history's dustbins

And today, today, recovered from a neglected attic of a suburban townhouse. One cassette tape destined to be sold in a garage sale, containing what is likely to be the first recorded concert of Wimferos. So, who is? is listening. Hello. I'm Deirdre Gardner and I welcome you to my new show. It Makes a Sound. It's the first and only show in the nation dedicated to Wim Farrow's native son of our Rosemary Hills. where together we'll be part of a musical legacy. We will prepare to receive the genius that is Wimferos and to return him like a prodigal son to this deprived land.

I will be the one to provide you up to the minute news and information about the artist as I discover it. name Wimferos, the subject, genius, and its location. Where is extraordinaryness? I ask myself, don't you, don't you ask yourself that extraordinariness? Where is it today? Where are the truly exceptional ones who, out of our sheer proximity to them, allow us, to glimpse the intersection of our little lives with the profound.

Who walks among us? Is there anyone? Who walks among us? All the little uses. Us is rolling lint off our pants. Us is squeezing avocados at the grocery store and never picking the ripe one. Us is driving up and down the side. side streets to work because the highway frightens us's. Usism, drinking camomile, attempting

inverted yoga poses, popping melatonin, and crossing our fingers as we slink into bed for the night. Where can we look here? In this vast, we read landscape of Rosemary Hills, where our weathered water tower reminds us in fading letters of past town mottos, such as, Golf Capital. Or Rosemary Hills is alive with the whir of commerce. Or let's tea in the hills. But we're now, the best boast we can muster, is easy access to the highway. Well, here, amidst the now abandoned golf course, and its neglected grass, amidst the shuttered strip malls,

And these pothold streets, the extraordinary has tread. And the footprints, they linger. If you know how to look for them. And I think I do. My fellow people of Rosemary Hills, citizens of the world, what have you forgotten? What treasures have we hidden under cobwebs and dust? What beauty awaits us on the other side of that drywall As we wrestle fitfully in our sleep

What life lingers on these old fairways What wonders just passed us by As we bowed our head towards Brighton three-inch screen Our necks hurt Our brains are zapped from too much screen time Our souls ache And suddenly decades have passed

us by. Like poof, what are we missing? Do we remember what used to be held in the delicate folds of our heart? Don't we remember how things used to sound? Smell, feel, taste, I want to. It's time to unpack the attic. Today, we have a mind-boggling discovery, a confirmed to be authentic tape containing what is known to be Wimferos' debut public musical appearance here in Rosemary Hills in the year 1992. And so we're not going to rush this moment. like we rush everything. We're gonna slow down. We're gonna savor.

We are going to consider the tremendous significance of this relic in order to fully appreciate it. And thus, it is my privilege on this day of days to hold in my hands this freshly discovered tape. It's an ordinary looking cassette tape. But It's possible some of you have never held a cassette tape. I will explain.

Because though it contains the stuff of wonder, to the human eye, it is just a three and a half by two inch clear plastic rectangle with two holes in the middle. And these holes, they have six little. black teeth, non-threatening teeth, so that you could feasibly insert a pencil or a pinky finger, should something go awry, like if the delicate tape needs your manual assistance. Now that tape is a very thin, translucent gray strip, of course, containing some magnetic properties, and it's spooled around the left hole. And as the tape plays in the cassette tape,

player, the tape will run along the bottom edge of the rectangle across a tiny magnetic strip. And the magnets pull the music out with magnetic force until it is fully spled around the right hole, which means the tape is finished and you have heard the music. And that's how a cassette tape works. I'm Deirdre Gardiner. This is It Makes a Sound. I am describing a cassette tape, perhaps the most important cassette tape that ever was. Now on this particular model, we have a yellow sticker that covers the smooth section of the cassette.

And written on that cover in purple felt tip pen in bubble letters is whim, thaw. But a water spot has obscured the rose, leaving a purply pink splotch. It's very pretty, like a watercolor. And underneath, with that same pen and font, 1992, crudely drawn stars in multiple colors of pen, speckle the entire sticker. I mean, it's great. It's really incredible that one small object can capture so much about an entire era, even just aesthetically. We all seek the soundtrack of our lives, don't we?

And we wish to be privy to the voices of our generation. Yet it is a profound rarity that an artist like Wimferos crosses into your limited sphere of existence. It's like an alien prophet touching down on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in a chain store called the Last Tupper, suddenly making the universe crack open to reveal infinite shards of meaning, barely comprehensible to you, standing there in cargo shorts holding a casserole dish. Yes, yes, it's hard to determine the full effect of Wimferos' music. on the simple town of Rosemary Hills in the early to mid-90s. It's difficult to quantify the extent of sacred devotion he inspired in his earliest fan base.

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? That was a time without social media. And it's incessant public proclamations to hashtag, trending desires of the moment. Yesterday's youth had to be more intuitively united in our common affections, had to keep the faith that even in a friendless existence, for instance, as an example, living in an inherited, furnished townhouse

on the edge of Rosemary Hills, gated golf course community, there were kindred souls somewhere underneath that same blue sky, wishing and waiting for a connection just like you. Though perhaps at times to love in solitude from afar, in the most generic of settings, was lonely and painful, that melancholy was trumped by a feeling of purpose. The purpose that comes from knowing that if someone out there could so perfectly capture the nuanced secrets of your soul, there must be greatness and solace in this universe indeed. Isn't that why we listen to the music? Isn't that why we listen to the music? We must ready ourselves to listen to the music. I will say, even without

the ease and the benefit of cashayed fan pages or blogs serving as testimony to the early Wimferos effect, the artist did manage to be a catalyst of cultural awakening in the town zeitgeist. If a town can have a zeitgeist, can't it? Sure. And there is archival evidence of the first reactions to Ferris' artistry. In fact, I happen to be in possession of documents from a Rosemary Hills resident who encountered Wimferos in his earliest musical phase. Now, some of these pages are enclosed within a purple velveteen diary that I now have in front of me. The writing appears to be by the hand of a 12-year-old, I would estimate. And the paper is wide-ruled.

And I seem to have come across a lengthy series of haiku. Now, perhaps I should share just a few of these with you for the sake of research. It's a segment. We'll call it the poetry of... of a little us. You have changed my life by allowing me to see even though you don't see me. I am hard to see in a golf community with many sand traps.

You have a blind spot for almost nothing, but one in the size of me. I am the catcher. You are a rare butterfly that I cannot grasp. Butterflies up close freak me out, but you fly free, beautiful, and free. I catch butterflies, yes, but I am afraid, too, a contradiction. Faithfully, you come to the window of my dreams, singing la la la. What is this music? Like, I never heard music before you played it. Now, those are just a few haiku.

and there are lots more written here in Rosemary Hills, circa 1991, 1992, likely dedicated to one Wimferos. If you're just tuning in, hello, welcome. I'm Deirdre Gardner, and this is the first episode of my show. it makes a sound. A discovery has been made in the attic. It's Wimferos' first live album. It's the real deal.

It's not a hoax. And it's so rare that the only known copy exists recorded from some distance on a cassette tape. There is nowhere else in the entire universe where you will be able to hear a 16-year-old Wimferros shaping what comes to be known as the sound of an epic. EPO-C-H. Stay with me and you will hear it here first, folks, because I have the tape and you're going to get exclusive access.

So, we're discussing Wimferos' formative teenage years as a musician right here in Rosemary Hills. We've just begun working towards a fuller understanding of the human behind the me. Are you okay? I know you. Sleep? Okay. Everything is good. I'm back. And I'm excited to introduce a new oral history segment of the show, based on town legend and lore around Wimferros. It's called a portrait of the artist as a young man. A light in the window of the second floor. The only window on the second floor means Wim Farros is in his bedroom.

And almost always, when he is in his bedroom, he is drawing on the wall. What was on that wall? Everything was on that wall. The winds of change blew on that wall. The unfettered scrawl of technicolor wonders. The rainbow? A paltry container for the variety of colors applied to that wall.

New color names would have to be invented. The ongoing, overlapping, shifting images and symbols, muraled, frescoed, application on that wall. All these ideas spewing forth from the eclectic multitudes of a single creative mind in a blue and tan full. flannel shirt, his right arm braced against the drywall in an L-shape above his head. The bottom of his sleeve ripped and hanging down, he looks like he's whispering secrets in a confessional, but he is drawing. There's a lava lamp somewhere out of view of the window,

and it casts blobby spots that climb up and down the room, catching Wim's distorted shadow when he's out of view of the window frame. His left hand moves delicately or scribbles furiously. He is left-handed, as statistics prove that most geniuses are. And if you'd been watching over the course of several months, you would have seen his fantastic mural take shape in the center. A five-foot-tall octopus. with the uncannily rendered face of Diane Sawyer.

Her arms spread open, Christ-like, with manolia blossoms and spiders dripping from her fingers. A flock of owls flying over a forest of pine trees. Each phase of the moon paired with a pizza pie of differing toppings. Eight personalized pan pizzas for eight different moons. A ninja army battling a family of squirrels throwing sharp acorns. Pages falling from a Gutenberg Bible into the gaping mouth of a Native American chief. Snoop Dog

Scully riding a Mulder centaur as Ross Perrae hovered. boards over their heads. He was getting political. As the seasons pass, the wall incrementally becomes an intricate map of his fertile, fertile inner life. Repetitions of hummingbirds, starfish, cans of beans, num chucks. Later, peacocks. A dragon breathing fire, melting the iceberg, just before it sinks the Titanic, which passes into clear skies. Dracula playing video games in front of a television set, flickering with an image of outrage from the Rodney King riots. And toaster strudels flying out of toasters into the rings of Saturn.

Kurt Cobain offering an origami swan to a sobbing river Phoenix and hundreds of other. elegantly drawn details, too small to make out from a distance, that create a constellation of enlightened connectivity across the peeling beige wall. And almost every night, after all the lights and the windows of the bungalow go dark, if you cared enough to pay attention, you would see the single beam of a single beam of a bungalow. a flashlight, splice a path behind the house, pointed towards a lopsided shed, some 40 yards away. And if you were standing right up against the fence that separates Rosemary Hill's gated

golf course community from the unincorporated land that stretched out behind the scattered houses on Camelia Road, you would hear a soulful strum of guitar. and a crescendo of drums. Because in that decaying shed, surrounded by the loneliest darkness that is suburban darkness, is where young whim pharaohs made the music. It was that music that pulsed through this town, permeated the air, pumped through the water.

Did everyone harken to the call? No. If a tree falls in a forest and no one's around to hear it fall, does it make a sound? Well, I'm here to tell you. Trees have fallen. Trees are falling. And you may listen? But do you hear? People of Rosemary Hills, it is time to hear. It is time to hearken. Harken, I believe in your ears. Wim Pharaoh sang for you. You didn't know, but he will sing for you again. He has been lost in the attic, but now he is found. And maybe, I don't know, maybe you've been lost in the attic too. There was greatness in our midst.

transcendence, eccentricity, nuance. I'm Deirdre Gardner, and I believe that when a tree falls in a forest, it makes a sound. And I'm inviting you to try,

to truly hear, and to remember. So stay tuned for my next episode when that music, lost but now found, will be born again, straight into your ears when you hear the first track from Wim Farros' debut concert, the first track, perhaps, of the rest of your life.

This has been the inaugural episode of the first and only show in the nation dedicated to the music and legacy of Wim Farros. Thank you for listening. If you have any information about Wimferos that you think should be shared with our listeners, or if you own a working cassette tape player, do not hesitate to contact me. I guess for now you should just email me at DDG at... No, let's not do that. I'll create a new...

Yes, you can contact me at Wimferos at AOL... Actually, no. Please contact. It Makes a Sound at AOL.com. Thank you. I'm Deirdre Gardner. Till next time. It Makes a Sound is created and written by Jacqueline Landgraf.

Co-directed by Jacqueline Landgraf and Anya Saffer. Sound designed and engineered by me, Vincent Cashione. Original music by Nate Weida, with Jacqueline Landgraf as Deirdre Gardner, and featuring Annie Golden as the voice from downstairs. It makes a sound as a Night Vale Presents production. For more information on this show and other Night Vale Podcasts, go to nightvailpresents.com. We hope you'll rate and review it makes a sound on Apple Podcasts and that you'll tell your friends and all sorts of other humans to listen to the show, to harken to the show. the trees and remember Wimferos.