119 - eGemony, Part 3: "Love, Among Other Things, Is All You Need"

Did you know that Nightfall is not just a podcast, it's also books?

That's right.

It's like movies for your ears, but in written word form.

We have four script collections that are fully illustrated with behind-the-scenes intros for every single episode.

And then we have three novels.

The first Welcome to Nightfall novel, in which two women have their lives turned upside down by a mysterious man in a tan jacket.

We reveal the origin of that, the man man in the tan jacket in that one.

Then the New York Times best-selling thriller, It Devours, in which we really try to get to the bottom of a certain smiling god.

Finally, my favorite, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home.

Part Pirate Adventure, Part Haunted House, all Faceless Old Woman.

Find the three novels and four script books wherever you get books.

Okay,

enjoy this episode of a podcast.

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The captain has turned off the seatbelt signs and has turned on the ceaseless anxiety signs.

Feel free to brood about the cabin.

Welcome to Nightingale.

Welcome, listeners.

We have a new sponsor.

Our show is now sponsored by

love.

Definitely consider love when wanting to buy things, because

love conquers all, makes the world go round, and is all you need.

This has been a message from Love, conqueror of our former sponsor, money.

It's what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

Okay, I have returned from the distant cavelands of the Baristas, an arduous journey made easier by it being pretty much downhill for the whole mile and a half.

While I was there, I learned that the dreaded Ijimoni corporate prize contest and sweepstakes buzz marketing street team long ago became Baristas, distributing Nightvale's case of Canadian Club to the citizens of Nightvale itself, meaning that Nightvale has been consuming its own soul, thus making us an ouroboros of our own selves.

I returned because I knew that the best way to fight against Ejimoni's attempts to drink Nightvale's soul was science.

And I'm very into science.

Or at least I am very into someone who is very into science.

Once a year, all the scientists in the world gather in Lucerne, Switzerland to calibrate their instruments to the length of Carlos's hair.

That appraisal is occurring right now, so of course, Carlos isn't in town.

I'm on my own, because the cause of science is important, but so is defending Night Vale.

And one of the best parts about being in a couple is that when each of you is good at one thing, it's like the couple is good at two things.

This message was brought to you by love,

it turns out.

Huh.

More of my plans to defeat Ijimoni as I desperately figure out what they are.

But first, some local news.

Nightvale Community College denounced its new slate of winter semester continuing education courses.

Introduction to gibbering, conversational gibbering, intermediate gibbering, advanced gibbering, and ikebana.

the Japanese art of flower arrangement.

Community college professor Adriano Capiello, who teaches French gibbering, said, Ouvre vaux livre page trois, et criée avant de vous faire buffet.

Professor Capiello, once considered a failure in his field, has developed what he calls a charisma ray.

And now everyone thinks he's a-ok, an exciting thinker, an excellent dancer, and an entirely inadequate human being.

When asked for comment, Professor Capiello responded by listing everything he could think of that was not a type of gum.

By the time he finished, his charisma re had worn off, and everyone realized Professor Capiello is in fact a terrible person who attempts to court the friendship of students whose attractive naivete is subverted, ironically, by how they gradually accumulate the tools of critical analysis in his classes, meaning they apply what he himself taught them to judge him harshly, ultimately growing to resent his falseness, thus leaving his charisma ray utterly useless in the face of a culturally awakened classroom.

Professor Capiello denied this by stringing together a bunch of French verbs related to the behaviors of aquatic animals.

Those interested in continuing education should read a book for once.

Okay, so earlier this morning, I walked across the street to get a two-pound bag of kiwis at Ralph's and had the most remarkable experience.

Well, first I passed the same barista I always pass along the way, the one at the abattoir.

But this time she gave me a friendly wink of recognition.

And then another barista, the one in the produce aisle, he scalded my face with steam and said my mother was so pungent, people thought she was an under-roasted Sumerian bean, and I have never felt so welcome.

But the amazing thing was when I tried to pay for my fruit, the cashier said, Don't you love Kiwis?

And I said, I did.

And he said, I love them too.

And I love working here.

So take the Kiwis.

Your love is your payment.

So I took the Kiwis and later shared them with my brother-in-law, Steve Carlsberg, who said, I love these.

Then he added, I love you, brother.

And I nodded.

It seems that Nightvale is now a love-based economy.

Oh, wait, this just in.

Ralphs would like to explain that the cashier made a mistake.

It's perfectly fine that he loves working there, and that I love the Kiwis, but I do still have to pay for them.

That makes more sense.

But I'm a little disappointed.

Still, Because of the incredibly effective new sponsorship of our program, love definitely in the air in Nightvale.

At Dark Owl Records, there is now a loudspeaker outside and store owner Michelle Wynne is publicly playing the records she loves the most, something she has never done.

These albums aren't vinyl, but discs made of chalkboard slate being spun underneath a needle and amplified through an outdoor speaker system.

People who were strangers only moments ago are gazing into each other's eyes with looks of admiration and hunger that made it awkward to spy on them.

Not impossible, of course, just awkward, which has caused several members of the vague yet menacing government agency who sit outside our homes in dark sedans to step out of their cars and offer hugs to anyone who would like to have a hug placed on their permanent record.

There are reports of unidentified citizens running by fountains, waving flowers and balloons and handing out otters.

The Sheriff's Secret Police have replaced their patrol car sirens with Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You.

The hooded figures who stand in and around the Forbidden Dog Park are still terrifying to look at, or even think about.

But one of them is waving.

That's probably the most expressive form of love that they have.

Love is everywhere.

But also, there has been a subtle shift.

As love has become more prevalent, its value has decreased significantly.

The angel who is definitely former billionaire Marcus Vanston, who is now named Erica, said that they have drawn on a cocktail napkin an economic model for supply-side feelings.

where those with the most feelings will then trickle down the love to those with the least.

Even here in our radio studio, I am feeling such love for you right now.

Listener, I love this microphone and this cable and the mixing board.

I love these blinking phone lines.

Ah, you know, maybe we should take some calls.

Hi, this is Cecil.

You're on the air.

I love you.

Oh, I love you too.

Next caller, you're on the air with Cecil Palmer.

I love you.

Did you just call from the other line?

Oh, uh, no.

Uh,

I love you.

Ah, my mistake.

You know, I love our community, our mayor, our angels, and even our weather.

I love you.

Don't

get your hopes up

again

and treat every new day

like a friend

Just smile

and turn into

the wind

and treat every new day

like the end

And don't

forget your hopes up

again

And treat every new day

like a friend

Just smile

and turn into

the wind

Treat every new day

like the M.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

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Listeners, I'd like to thank our newest sponsor, Love, for bringing us today's show.

But in all of my loving clamor, I lost sight of what was truly at stake.

Our newest intern, Blake, brought back a familiar guest into our studio, thus reminding me of it.

Blake then tried to use the three-hole punch without reading the safety manual first.

Oh, quick aside, to the family of intern Blake.

He was a reckless intern, and he will be missed.

But now, we welcome back to the radio station Hugh Jackman of Ijimoni.

Hugh, I've done some investigative journalism, and I'm going to have to ask you the tough questions.

First, I know that you're here to claim the case of Canadian Club, right?

Oh, no, don't worry about that.

Well, I am worried about that.

Among the many different things I worry about, you were coming back to get the case.

You wanted me to look under my desk, and

the barista king said, Cecil, I know about the baristas.

I know about how Night Vale drank its own soul.

Oh.

So, does that mean that Ijimoni is going to, I don't know, just leave us alone then?

Funny you should say that.

When I followed you to the baristas.

You followed me?

Sure.

I was the one with the Admiral Tippett's sideburns.

Oh my god, that was you?

Those were so good.

Thank you.

That took me hours to grow them.

Anyway, after all that, I was planning on telling my team leaders at Ijimoni we were too late and to abandon our plans.

Oh, well, that's good.

And to buy all of Night Vale to help with Ijimoni's debt acquisition.

Oh, well, that's bad.

There's a glitch.

I've fallen in love.

Pardon?

Ijimoni has highly secure communications.

Corporate demands that we only send messages on postcards from lakeside resorts.

Oh, I shouldn't have said that out loud.

Siri, remind me to prostrate myself before HR at 4 p.m.

today.

Anyway, I was at the post office standing in line behind...

Well, it was the strangest thing.

You'll never guess.

I was standing in line behind...

Oh, a dog with a man's head.

Yeah, that guy's always there.

Um, spoiler, we don't have quite so many folks like that back at the office, and it made me pay closer attention to

everything around me.

The first thing I noticed was this particular post office was selling stamps.

Then I noticed the stamps had no denomination on them, just the word forever.

I've worked in retail before, put myself through high school operating a mall kiosk that sold decorative soaps, and customers there, as you might well guess, can be mean or even cruel, saying things like,

Do you have anything vanilla scented?

Or they'd also say things like, I'd like to buy some soap.

It was awful.

So I am always extraordinarily polite to clerks, sometimes even flirtatious.

And when I got to the head of the line at the post office, I winked at the clerk, and seven of her eight eyes winked back.

And then I said, forever stamps.

That's quite a promise.

And you know what she said?

No.

Nothing.

It turns out she was a spider and didn't care what I thought.

But, Cecil, it was the way she didn't care.

I had a Mackinac Island postcard to mail, and it was important because it's my report back about how we're going to subsume Night Vale.

Okay, see, this is what I was getting at.

I realized that she probably sent a dozen Mackinac Island postcards that day, and mine was no different.

She asked me if anything in my envelope was liquid, hazardous, insidious, shameful, or emotionally fragile, and I said, no more so than my heart.

And then a mosquito hawk got caught in her web and she raced over to wrap it in a webbing and then dissolved its body with her venom so she could later drink its liquid corpse like a child with a juice box.

I know.

It was so sweet.

Now, I am not a poetic man, Cecil, but I was inspired.

Have you noticed that love seems to be in the air right now?

Like that Mariah Carey song.

I had a vision of love and it was this crazy dream where I was in the park and trees were made entirely out of recycled aluminum cans and you were there but you looked just like me only with a nosebleed.

Oh, I love that song.

My husband and I danced to that at our wedding.

Anyway, I was close enough to smell her perfume and well I asked if I could have a book of the forever stamps and she asked which kind?

And I said the Wonder Woman stamps.

And she said that they were out of them.

So I said, because I've worked in retail before and I try to feel like all of us are in this together, that I was feeling shortchanged by the whole forever business then.

And I said it with a frown on my lips, but a smile in my eyes.

Like this.

See?

Uh, yes, please stop.

Cecil, she handed me back my change and said, next human entity in line.

And I

love her.

I love

Night Vale.

So I'm staying here until she loves me too.

Wait, what?

See, Night Vale is in my heart now, and it's in Ija Moni's heart.

We want to pivot our company mission.

See, we don't want to drink Night Vale's soul.

We want to cross-pollinate our startup model with Night Vale's greatest asset,

love.

We want to take all of this love, such great content, by the way, and program it into an app that users can just access from anywhere.

I can get our street teams on this right now to inspire the Dreamfluencers to talk about love.

It's your station's new sponsor, right?

So let's value add social media platform to...

Oh look, it's right here.

It was under my desk after all.

Sorry, what?

The case of whiskey.

Yep, here it is.

Look at it.

I don't understand.

Open it.

It's a cardboard box with the Canadian Club logo on the side.

There's bottles of Canadian Club in here, but I don't get it.

The town and the former street team drank this long ago.

How is it under your desk?

Um, have you ever heard of science?

I've watched its head talk.

I know everything about science.

Well, there's this thought experiment where a cat is in a box, but it's unknown whether the cat is alive and peacefully sleeping, or in fact, alive and just clawing and vomiting on everything because, well, it's a cat.

Since both things could could be true, both things

are true.

This isn't sounding familiar.

Well, your husband clearly isn't a scientist.

But how is it even possible?

Hey, with love and science, anything is possible.

Now, go drink your whiskey.

I guess I completed my goals here then, and this fulfills my obligation to my employer.

And uh,

I won't be staying in Night Vale to pursue my true love.

Awwww.

You need help carrying that to your car?

Our newest intern, Makani, can help you.

Hey, Makani!

Is this for real?

Wow.

You'd think fulfilling a quest of 40 years like that would be an incredible feeling, but

this is slightly disappointing.

Hmm.

The realest thing is disappointment.

Bye now.

Okay, listeners.

Mr.

Jackman is gone.

So, I can tell you how I managed managed this.

I bought a new case of Canadian club at the Ralphs by using money.

Yep, please welcome back a classic sponsor to the show, Money.

Money, it fixes all your problems.

There are no drawbacks to acquiring it or using it to change the destiny of others.

Corruption, organized crime, and economic inequality may occur.

Ask your doctor if you can afford even a routine checkup.

So listeners, that's all for our show tonight.

Oh, I have just gotten a text from Lucerne, and yes, all of the scientific instruments in the world are set properly.

And all measuring will occur with precise

precision because of my husband, who is coming home.

And he's bringing fancy Swiss chocolate, the kind with the little flecks of salmon skin.

Aww, that's so sweet.

Okay, I know money is sponsoring the show,

but just for a moment, I have to put a word in for love.

Love is pretty good.

Okay, done.

Money, it momentarily defers desolation.

Stay tuned next for our exciting new game show, What's in the Box?

Know what's in the

box.

And as always, good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

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

This episode was written by Glenn David Gold with Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kraner and produced by Joseph Fink.

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

The voice of Hugh Jackman was Hunter Canning.

Original music by Disparition.

All of it can be found at disparition.info or at disparition.bandcamp.com.

This episode's weather was Turn Into It by Jamie Browning.

Link for more music in the show notes.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvel.com or follow us on Twitter at Night Vale Radio or place your ear against the earth until you think you hear singing from deep within.

Check out welcometonightvel.com for more information on this show and our tour happening right now in the southwest and the west coast, as well as our upcoming tour in New Zealand and Australia.

Today's proverb.

For softer bones and a tenuous smile, drink maulk.

Got mock?

It's here.

Drink it.

Drink this mulk.

Mmm.

Malk

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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 Veep or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives.

Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't.

He's too old.

Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dune 2 is overrated.

It is.

Anyway, despite this, 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 Greece to the Dark Knight.

We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks.

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Join me, Jeffrey Kraner, and my friend from Welcome to Nightville, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly podcast, Random Number Generator, Horror Podcast Number Nine, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order.

Find, here's the short version, random horror nine wherever you get your podcasts.

Boo.