213 - Murals

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What's in the box?

What's in the box?

What's in the box?

Oh, great, my printer toner cartridge has finally arrived.

Welcome to Night Vale.

The Nightvale City Council approved today new murals to go up across the city.

For too long, our town's walls have been devoid of artistic expression, just a lot of concrete, brick, and adobe facades that don't have anything thought-provoking to say about the state of our world.

No one visits Knightvale because we don't have any famous murals like Lady Pink's Faith in Women in Minneapolis or Keith Herring's We the Youth in Philadelphia or Damian Hearst's Sharks Are Still Cool, right?

in Altoona.

The plan to increase the presence of public art was announced by the city council from inside a storm drain next to the Panda Express along Commerce Street.

They quietly hissed this new ordinance, hoping no one would hear.

But it so happens that Joel Eisenberg was walking his pet iguana past the Panda Express at this exact moment, and he heard the whole thing.

So now, it is law.

And these murals will depict Nightvale's rich history.

From the indigenous people of the desert, to the soft meat crowns of early settlers, to the radio personalities who give voice to our great town.

The city council has already hired an anonymous graffiti artist named Bansky.

Bansky works quickly and efficiently and always without ever being seen by anyone.

Bansky's real identity has never been revealed.

Wait.

Nope, I just Googled him.

Bansky is Jared Bansky.

He lives in West Nightvale over by the.

Oh, I know Jared.

Yeah, his mom, Sharon, used to babysit me and my sister Abby.

And sometimes Jared would come over and we'd play games together.

You know, all the classic like shoots and ladders, Candyland, who's cooking cabbage.

Oh, yeah, he's a good kid.

Well, he's probably around my age now.

Anyway, good luck, Jared, or as the painters say, break an arm.

And now financial news.

The Dow is up 38 points this morning after a news report claiming that Tesla would be quadrupling the size of all their cars.

This sudden increase in the physical mass of the nation's most popular electric automobiles will be done via an overnight system-wide update through each vehicle's onboard Wi-Fi connection.

Investors thrilled at the idea that their cars would suddenly and with zero regard for physics get really, really big.

Imagine big cars, the entire floor of the New York Stock Exchange said in unison.

Imagine big cars, big cars, big old cars.

Some of them began laughing and hugging each other.

Some began crying and thanking long-dead gods they had never even heard of.

The stock exchange then filled with doves, all beating their wings at once, and the undulating noise and the sudden strong breeze overwhelmed the investors, and they screamed, Yes, yes, take us with you, take us with you.

And the doves did.

They took the investors away, picking each one up by the scruffs of their neck and flew them high and away to Long Island, to Nantucket, to Nova Scotia, to Iceland, to the Faroe Islands, to Svalbard, and finally dropped the remaining investors into the icy waters of the Lapteb Sea, where they grew gills

and thick, insulating blubber,

and they learned to sing in long,

slow tones.

They mated with each other, and a new species was born unto the earth, unto our celestial home,

unto our delicate ecosystem.

The investors live now in a rare Arctic reef, and they are so excited about the future of Tesla's stock.

Also the NASDAQ is up half a point.

This has been Financial News.

Now it's time for another citizen spotlight.

This week we're talking about former radio station intern and former mayor of Nightvale, Dana Cardinal.

I caught up with Dana this weekend at the new Squid Hut at Skillman in Edgewater.

They have a $12.99 Calamari bucket special, which includes all-you-can-drink double-shot lattes.

I give Squid Hutt three and a half stars on my four and a quarter star scale.

Dana said she's been laying low ever since leaving office as Nightvale mayor.

She understood that her decision to step down was a controversial one, and she has received some backlash.

But a public life was just not for her.

She said she's been enjoying her new career as a therapist, a job where she can help people one-on-one, rather than trying to deal with so many moving parts like in local government.

She said she has some great clients and I asked, oh, like who?

Tell me, as I held my fourth latte of the morning up to my chin with both hands.

Dana said she couldn't tell me though, because that would be an ethics violation.

But she did share a few amusing, though anonymous, stories about some of her clients.

And now I'm all like, ooh, we, some of you listeners out there, wow, if you pull it together, y'all.

One client of hers, though, has really been troubling Dana.

She said he's a nice man, but he keeps talking about having a double, an exact duplicate of himself.

who lives in an alternate version of America.

She said his double is from some U.S.

state that she's never even heard of and can't pronounce.

Dana said she's still traumatized by the incident from almost 10 years ago when she killed her double with a stapler.

Or maybe she is her double and she killed the real Dana.

She's still not certain which.

And I said, wow, how frightening.

I wish you had told me about this before, Dana.

This is first I'm hearing of it.

And then she just kind of glared at me.

It was

a weird moment.

But like any good therapist, Dana is seeing a therapist of her own in order to grapple with her own resurgent emotions about that terrible incident.

Despite the heavy conversation, Dana looked and sounded healthy and happy.

She said she misses seeing me and that we should do this more often.

I agreed.

And then she asked me not to tell anyone about this conversation.

She's trying to keep a low profile.

Of course I told Carlos, but he's my husband.

That's fair game.

I didn't tell anyone else though.

I'm nothing if not good at keeping secrets.

This has been Citizen Spotlight.

And now an update on the new band ski murals.

They're already up.

Wow!

Jared works so quickly.

There are a dozen new murals all across town, each made using only spray paint cans and a ladder.

There's one by the antiques mall that shows a horse with six long legs, and he's wearing a baseball hat, and above him the sky is cooked pasta with marinara sauce.

There's one behind the Ralphs that depicts the Battle of New Orleans, which is a war fought 650 years in the future by water scavengers who will defeat a race of blob-shaped alien oligarchs by pelting them with rocks.

It will turn out that the aliens are allergic to rocks, which seems strange that they would land on this planet, let alone any planet, really.

But that's how they will be defeated on the shores of Lake Pontchatrain in 2672.

There's even a mural that went up near me.

I can see it right across the street.

The painting is of a man.

It's in black and white.

The man's back is turned to the viewer.

He's sitting at a desk and leaning forward, staring into a window.

And on the other side of the window is a mural of a man sitting at a desk, but facing the first man.

These men are familiar, and I don't like it one

bit!

Let's go to the news.

The new satellite campus for the University of What It Is has been completed in East Nightvale.

They are already hosting classes and conducting field research into Nightvale's many secrets.

The interim dean of the university, Dr.

Janet Lubell, has already stated her intention to clearly and scientifically explain every single mystery in our town.

I sent my intern, Rudy, out to do some research of her own into Dr.

Lubell's activities.

Rudy reported back that Dr.

Lubell and her team had become intrigued with the pit of lost Souls that suddenly appeared last weekend near the Circuit City of Marsh Lane.

The University of What It Is researchers must have heard my story on this very topic.

So, the Pit of Lost Souls is an interdimensional portal between our world and the land of the dead.

When you lean over this enormous hole, you can

feel

a cool wind envelop you and what you are feeling are the spirits of the deceased.

The city council tried to have the highway department fill in the pit of lost souls because Marsh Lane is a busy shopping district, but through journalistic activism, I pressured them to leave the pit open so that the dead can return to the living world.

Oh,

they can't just come back to life.

Of course, that's ridiculous.

But they can at least see how we're all doing up here, just living.

Just

vibing,

you know?

It's important for spirits to know that us,

the living, we're all doing great.

But just this morning, Rudy told me that Dr.

Lubell and her fellow scientists completed their report on the pit of lost souls.

It's a standard sinkhole, Dr.

Lubell said.

You should fill it in.

And Rudy, bless Rudy, such a great intern, pressed her on this.

But you can feel the spirits coming out of the hole, Rudy exclaimed.

Dr.

Lubell was caught.

Caught in the web of her own lies.

She had no choice but to keep online, so she retorted with the silliest fib I've ever heard.

Dr.

Lubell said,

it feels

like the sinkhole is producing the air on its own, but it's just regular air that settled into the cooler earth 25 feet down.

And sometimes a gust of wind can push that cooler air right back up toward us.

Listeners, I'm all for freedom in academic thought, but this,

this,

this

is not good, Nightvale.

If you see Dr.

Lou Bell,

run the other way.

Just plug your ears and sing the Nightvale anthem of loyalty so loudly that you cannot hear her untruths.

And now an update on the murals.

I'm getting word that many Nightvale citizens are quite upset by the murals going up around town.

A group has formed called the Committee of Concerned Citizens.

This CCC has laid out their grievances.

First, they claim the murals are too evocative and confrontational.

They cited the mural on Galloway and Somerset that depicts a man unraveling his own intestines and wrapping them over his head like a soft meat crown.

Only disgusting looking.

I mean, the man is smiling and he has no eyes, or...

I mean, he has no eyes currently.

It's apparent that at one point the man in the painting did indeed have eyes.

The CCC is displeased with the artistic messages of these murals.

Second, the CCC is also upset that the city council approved the murals placement on private structures without permission of the homeowners.

One resident, Bradley Pierce, said, They painted all over my house, even though George told them not to, didn't you, George?

At this point, a small dog, mostly hairless, except a long, glamorous tuft sprouting from the top of its head like an 80s synth pop star, nodded in agreement.

The CCC stated that public art must always be pleasant and happy.

Public art must be full of vibrant colors and feature nice things.

The CCC issued a list of the only elements they would accept in future murals.

This list includes and is limited to flowers,

cute animals, majestic animals, happy children, pleasant adults,

smiles, abundant crops, tools demonstrating a thriving industry,

and clouds, but like white puffy ones, not

stormy ones.

Bradley Pierce and his dog George both let out a wild growl and everyone in the crowd growled with them.

They then grab paint rollers on long poles and pails of primer they have scattered about town painting over every single mural while chanting make better art!

Make better art.

All of them except George.

who seems to just be barking.

I can see them outside my window right now painting over the mural of the man at the desk.

And honestly,

I'm kind of glad about it.

The longer I looked at that image,

the more I began to think he might

turn around

and look right back at me.

No, thank you.

More on this soon, but let me take you now to the weather.

One, two.

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I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.

And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director.

You might know me from the League Veef or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We come together to host Unschooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you missed them.

We're talking Parasite the Home Alone, From Grease to the Dark Knight.

So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

Listen to Unschooled wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Moments ago, from the metal grating atop the storm drain next to the Panda Express, the City Council met with the aggrieved, concerned citizens committee, and a truce has been reached.

The CCC has allowed the murals to be repainted, but they demanded that all murals must hold to their rules about what can and should be depicted in public art.

And Bansky, famous for his agreeability and willingness to conform with the wills of society, repainted them all.

He even completed the new mural across the street from my radio station.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

And sure enough, it holds fast to the CCC's regulations for positive public art.

This mural is a picture of large sunflowers.

Behind the flowers is a thick, nourishing cornfield signifying Nightvale's abundant farmland.

Between the rows of corn stand some smiling children, and they are each holding large farm tools like pitchforks, scythes, and circle saws, which symbolize Nightvale's thriving industry.

Climbing the children's bodies are a bunch of cute animals like raccoons.

and nutria and tarantulas.

And above them all is a majestic winged serpent, squeezing its mass tightly about a group of pleasant adults, of course, alluding to the content citizenship of Nightvale.

The snake is lifting them upward into their new home in the smiling cloud, painted some of the colors of the rainbow.

This action symbolizes our city being delivered into the future by a huge snake god.

All of the CCC members are staring silently at the completed mural.

They are quiet, I'm sure, out of awe and reverence for this new joyous portrayal of our town.

Visitors to Nightvale will certainly love to take their pictures in front of this fantastic tourist attraction that sits right in the heart of the edge of the town's factory district near the highway over Pass.

Oh, Oh, the CCC members have now all dropped to their knees and are rapidly whispering to themselves with their eyes closed.

I love it when our community comes together.

Especially when it does so because of art.

Stay tuned next for the clicking of camera shutters and the percussive flashes of magnesium bulbs.

And as always,

good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Night Vale Presents.

It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kraner and produced by Disparition.

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

Original music by Disparition.

All of it can be found at disparition.fancamp.com.

The weather today was Departure by M.

Masaki.

Find out more at linktr.ee slash shiso underscore heavy.

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Today's proverb, for the last time.

A hot dog is a taco.

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