37 - The Auction

Welcome to Night Vale has a lot of really amazing merch, and it's all at welcometonightvale.com.

And you click on store, we've got t-shirts, leggings, blankets, stickers, posters, mugs, bags, holiday carts, throw pillows, blankets, etc., etc.

Oh, ugly Christmas sweaters, whatever you need.

Even if you've been to our merch store before, it's different now.

We're constantly taking down old things and putting up new things.

So if something looks pretty dope to you, get it soon because who knows if it'll be there for long.

I'm really right now, I just got a bunch of stuff.

I'm really enjoying my mutated vegetable tea towel designed by Jessica Hayworth, my University of What It Is sweatshirt, and of course, my Moonlight All-Night Diner coffee mug.

Plus, we have dozens more things for you or someone you love for the holidays or just on a lark.

Go to welcometonightveil.com and click on store.

Once upon a mundane morning, Barb's Day got busy without warning.

A realtor in need of an open house sign.

No, 50 of them and designed before nine.

My head hurts.

Any mighty tools to help with this pipe?

Aha!

Barb made her move.

She opened Canva and got in the groove.

Both creating canvas sheets.

Create 50 signs fit for suburban streets.

Done in a quick, all complete.

Sweet.

Now, imagine what your dreams can become when you put imagination to work at canva.com.

Velvet darkness,

silken 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 Nightvale.

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 piñata 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 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 Chianti 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-collapsed 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 Night Vale 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 presence.

Toddlers of Nightvale,

the Nightvale 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 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 hilltop 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 Vanston,

every other house in town as well.

He has strapped traveling chimneys.

onto the pushcarts of festive peddlers whose rags, hunched shoulders, nagging coughs, and forced tin whistle merriment accompany the sad antics of their emaciated, best and marching band cap-wearing capuchin 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 Vanston

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 Vanston 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 one hundred seventy-five thousand dollars, and that's before the buyer's premium.

Listeners, I have been in touch with the auction staff about lot thirty-seven,

which is of a certain interest to me.

I want lot thirty-seven.

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, grey-faced, court gestures.

You know how that sounds.

Listeners, in order to learn more about Lot thirty-seven,

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 become so much that you must 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-hearted and great-walleted Marcus Vanston,

he has also thrown his hat into the proverbial ring.

He actually constructed a special proverbial ring in the middle of town with an L C D 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 Two, 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 lying 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 boogeyman 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 survives 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 5-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.

Love without

anxiety.

It's like love

except

you're free.

And I can't go back,

they'll leave me alive.

If it came to

that,

I wouldn't even try.

And that would be it for me.

My heart's another absentee.

I'm left with the one, it's not a chance.

One, I wouldn't give a damn.

But I'm trying to stick to Freud.

I'm letting the end of fill that void.

With anything that I can show to prove my way to space,

I don't need to be proud of me.

I just want you to see why

you leave.

Love without

the

winges.

It may not

be

as

exciting.

But I'd take it any day.

I prefer the lower heart rate

that comes

me

of my family.

I could be anyone

for all I care.

No, I just don't wanna be alone.

I might count a lot some blood or a lot some hair.

But you can never make me pick up the phone.

That doesn't mean your love has got to be lost on me.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

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Some people think nature is like this, but actually, it's like this.

Mother Nature is not all sunshine and rainbows.

Nature can be hotter than a sauna and colder than an Arctic skinny dip.

That's why Columbia engineers everything we make for anything nature can throw at you.

Columbia engineered for whatever.

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 Ralphs.

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 Lot 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 an 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,

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 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 dolls.

Then sports jerseys and automobiles with hand-sewn 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

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 Kraner 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.info or at disparition.bandcamp.com.

This episode's weather was Absentee by Jack Campbell.

Find out more at jackcampbell.bandcamp.com.

Comments, questions?

Email us at nightvale at commonplacebooks.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvale radio.

Check out welcome to nightvale.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.

Listen, I'm not a hero.

The real heroes are the people that point out to us when protesters have smartphones, thus invalidating all concerns.

Hey y'all, it is Jeffrey Kraner speaking to you from the year 2025.

And did you know that Welcome to Night Vale is back out on tour?

We are.

We're going to be up in the northeast, in the Boston, New York City area, going all the way over to the upper Midwest in Minnesota.

That's in July.

You'll kind of draw a line through there and you'll kind of see the towns we'll be hitting.

We'll also be doing Philly down to Florida in September.

And we'll be going from Austin all the way up through the middle of the country into Toronto, Canada in October.

And then we'll be doing the West Coast plus the Southwest.

plus Colorado in January of 2026.

You can find all of the show dates at welcome welcometonightvale.com slash live.

Listen, this brand new live show is so much fun.

It is called Murder Night in Blood Forest and it stars Cecil Baldwin, of course, Symphony Sanders, me and live original music by Disparition and who knows what other special guests may come along for the ride.

These tours are always so much fun and they are for you, the Die Hard fan, and you, the Night Vale new kid alike.

So feel comfortable bringing your family, your partner, your co-workers, your cat, whatever.

They don't got to know what a night veil is to like the show.

Tickets to all of these live shows are on sale now at welcometonightvale.com/slash live.

Don't let time slip away and miss us when we are in your town because otherwise we will all be sad.

Get your tickets to our live U.S.

plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightvale.com/slash live.

And hey, see you soon.