21 - A Memory of Europe

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.

If you're dying for the next batch of Wednesday season 2 to drop on Netflix, then I'll let you in on a secret.

The Wednesday Season 2 official Wocast is already here.

Dive deeper into the mysteries of Wednesday with the Ultimate Companion Video Podcast.

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Guests include Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Hunter Doohan, Steve Buscemi, Fred Armison, Catherine Zeta Jones, the Joanna Lumley, also show creators Al Goh and Miles Miller, and of course, Wednesday herself, Jenna Ortega, plus many, many more.

With eight delightfully dark episodes to devour, you'll be drawn into the haunting halls of Nevermore Academy deeper than ever before.

But beware, you know where curiosity often leads.

The Wednesday season two official wocast is available in audio and video on todoom.com or wherever it is you get your podcasts.

Hang a map of a place you'll never go on your living room wall.

Draw new streets.

Tear off bodies of water.

Wait for news crews to arrive.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Teddy Williams, owner of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, has reported that he is starting an around-the-clock militia watch on the entrance to the Buried City beneath the pen retrieval area of lane 5.

This watch will consist of a line of patriotic volunteers armed to the teeth and forming an unbroken perimeter along the whole of the bowling area.

Teddy admits that this will make bowling slightly more difficult than usual, and league games may have to be rescheduled or made illegal.

But he adds that this is a a small price to pay for safety.

The other price for safety is $2.25,

which is how much he would like every single good Nightvale citizen to pay him for this important defensive service against the unknown but presumably fearsome and dangerous aggressors from the buried city.

Witnesses have reported seeing the Apache tracker out out back of the bowling alley in fervent discussion with a man in a tan jacket.

Sheriff's secret police report that the conversation was too quiet for them to hear and reminds all citizens to please hold conversations in a loud, declamatory manner, facing outward, and making dramatic gestures to increase both the ease and excitement of their surveillance duties.

The man in the tan jacket was described as impossible to remember, but presumably a man of some kind, with facial features and limbs.

The Apache tracker was described as a real jerk, just now by me.

Listeners, the coming of the first gentle winds of spring has brought me back to my college years

and to the late spring I spent backpacking through Europe.

Truly, this is a milestone in the life of any young person able to afford it, and I am thankful for the opportunity.

I remember spending a wonderful period in the country of Switz.

Switz, of course, land of low rolling hills and off-key tones heard on the breeze, is perfect for the visitor with a strong constitution and a low tendency for hallucination.

My traveling partner and I stayed in a lovely two-bed hostel, situated in a plywood shack on a steep hillside.

The incline meant that my partner kept rolling into me, and then we would both roll out of the shack and tumble down and down until we came to rest in a ravine full of thorns and fragrant, violently blue flowers.

At which point we would trudge up the hillside, settle in, only to have it happen over again.

Oh, we laughed and laughed.

The situation was made stranger by the fact that I don't remember having a traveling partner before or after Switz.

Who was he?

Who knows?

It all seemed perfectly normal at the time.

I also don't know how long I stayed in Switz, rolling down that hill and climbing up again.

What with the tones on the breeze, the intoxicating smell from those flowers, and the fact that it was never any time but the middle of the night, it was difficult to keep track.

But it couldn't have been more than a decade or so.

Eventually, I was knocked out on one of our falls, and when I awoke, it was in a different country.

I had aged by years, and no one I talked to knew where the country of Switzer was, or even had heard of it.

Anyway, it was a lovely place, and I would say it's a must-see for any European traveler that can find it.

Trish Hidge from from the mayor's office called a press conference today in which she stood in front of a large truck painted in bright neon colors and decorated with flashing lights and resolutely denied the truck's existence.

She continued this denial for several minutes and threw a lengthy round of questioning from the gathered reporters, although it should be noted that many of the questions took the form of just pointing at the truck and raising an eyebrow.

Ms.

Hidge admitted afterwards that the conference was simply a workout for her denial skills, which she says she must keep sharp through constant practice, and which she also says do not exist.

She was then heard to deny the sky, the existence of a loving deity, and eggs.

Eggs aren't real, she said.

Nuh uh.

Show me an egg.

That's not an egg.

What's an egg?

Who let you in here?

Simone Rigideau, the transient living in a recycling closet in the Earth Sciences building at Night Vale Community College, released a statement today.

saying

that the world has ended.

The world ended three or four decades ago, she scrawled on a subway sandwich wrapper.

I don't know what this thing is that we're living in, but it's not the world.

Scientists won't investigate it because they're not real.

Turkey with extra Swiss.

I think that last bit was already written on the wrapper by a subway sandwich artist or one of their familiars.

Well,

provocative stuff from one of the foremost minds in the Earth Sciences building ever since it was condemned by the city as unsafe and left vacant.

Has the world ended?

What would the world ending even mean?

And how did Simone get this subway wrapper given that all subway restaurants have many entrances, but no exits.

As their motto goes, a thousand ways in, no way out.

Eat fresh.

Eat so terribly, terribly fresh.

Terribly, awesomely, gruesomely, terrifyingly fresh.

For more on this world-ending story, we now go live to the sound of an aquarium pump.

Returning now to my hazy and sepia-toned European memories.

Another country I recall, with great fondness, of course, is the nation of Francia.

Francia, land of arches.

It is fascinating to see how other cultures live, shaking you out of your locked in night valian ways, and Francia is a prime example.

To see a culture that doesn't even have any people,

A country with no population.

Just ancient stone arches.

Hundreds of square miles of arches.

Intertwining and leaning against each other.

The wind hollows through the narrow alleyways as the lone traveler, camera in hand, explores the vast, empty cityscape.

One doesn't need to be able to speak another language to be able to try your hand at communicating inside the borders of Francia.

Merely call out,

Hello?

After long silent intervals, and hear your call echo back to you from the depths of the knotted, crumbling arches, unanswered.

The beauty, O listeners of intercultural exchange.

Of course, despite the fun times I had, curled up with a blanket through the long nights of Francia, looking up at the stars in a haze of cheap wine, no visit can last forever.

Eventually, I became convinced that I was not alone in the labyrinth, that somewhere amongst the arches was a beast, stalking me.

I would stand still for hours, listening to that wind, searching for the slightest sound of movement off in the distant halls of arches.

I fled Francia, running desperately for the border.

Finding dead end after dead end before, heart-pounding, I crossed into the the next country and fell to my knees on the grassy hill of the countryside, the arches having stopped completely at the border.

And I swear, listeners, I swear that in the moment of crossing, I felt a single claw graze against my back.

I swear, I felt the endless wind of Francia turn hot and wet.

The breath of the beast inches away from my neck.

So visit Francia.

But,

you know,

watch out for the monster that I may or may not

have only imagined.

Now,

traffic.

The Night Vale Department Department of Transportation has advised us that work crews are slithering on certain sections of Route 800.

Commuters are advised to drive slowly in these marked areas as construction hatted workers will be roiling on the ground all over the place, a heaving mass of limbs and lolling panting mouths.

Fines for traffic violations in these marked areas are double.

All fines outside of the marked areas are quadruple, as usual.

Also, the DOT has asked me to read the following advisory notice using their exact wording.

So,

Silverhawk, Copperhead, and the Gopher activate, I repeat, activate, execute, mission, alpha, november, Zulu, zero, one, three,

lethal parameters acceptable.

I'm not quite sure what that means, but if you understood it, then avoid an annoying traffic ticket by obeying whatever dictate was being relayed.

And remember, wear seat belts.

They are a cool fashion statement and easily obtained by cutting them out of your own car and crafting them into any number of accessories.

And now a word from our sponsors.

Seven lights in the window, seven lights in the hall.

Seven lights, seven lights, all in all.

Six notes in the melody.

Six notes form a dirge,

six notes to rid you of the urge.

Five ways of escaping, five ways all blocked off, five ways each one broken and lost.

Four words in a whisper, four words in your ear, four words that fill you up with fear.

Three taps of a finger, three taps on a wall,

three taps as you try

to stall.

Two eyes wide and desperate, two eyes squinting scared.

Two eyes open, yes,

but nothing there.

One light in the window.

One light in the hall.

one light, one light, all

in all.

Taco Bell Live Moss

To return once more to pleasant reminiscence.

Europe is not just about looking at monuments and

talking to monuments and licking monuments.

It's also about the people.

One memorable interaction happened in the little alpine country of Luftnarp.

It had been a long day of train travel and searching for, then checking into a cold and dreary hostel, and I was in desperate need of a warm meal and some good company.

I remember heading down down to the local ale house, where the proprietor stared at me, frozen, with a gaping mouth and grey, ashy skin.

So did everyone else in the place.

All of their mouths were stretched to almost cartoonish dimensions outside of the bounds of known medical science.

I asked for a plate of whatever they found most delicious, adding a quick please in the local language to indicate that I was trying to blend in and was not the usual ugly American tourist.

They graciously responded by letting out a guttural rattle in unison and by not moving as I walked into the kitchen and devoured some of the less moldy potatoes and a few mysterious and slightly sour sausages.

I left them rattling away in their local tongue and frozen in a caricature of human terror, feeling like I had not only gained a good meal, but a few new good friends.

Big news in the science world.

Scientists announce that they have discovered the world's deadliest spider, a previously unknown species that is as hard to spot as its bite is hard to survive.

Apparently, the specimen was found when your dead body was examined.

They say you were a portrait of agony, your skin a myriad of pulsing angry colors.

And oh,

you know what?

I'm sorry.

This report is from next week.

Ah, things have gotten so confusing ever since the wire services started using time machines.

Never mind.

No need to worry about that report for a few days.

And now, the weather.

Oh, we

I'm not a little bit of a bad man, little

you tonight

Oh it's my heart

Oh it's my

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Thinking back, ladies,

looking back, gentlemen,

thinking and looking back on my European tour,

I feel a heavy sadness descend upon me.

Of course, it is partly nostalgia.

Looking back at that younger me, bustling around Europe, having adventures and overcoming obstacles that at the time seemed so overwhelming, but now

seem like just the building blocks of a harmless story.

But here is the truth of nostalgia.

We don't feel it for who we were,

but who we weren't.

We feel it for all the possibilities that were open to us, but that we didn't take.

Time is like wax dripping from a candle flame.

In the moment it is molten molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape.

Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the tabletop and solidifies into the shape it will always be.

It becomes the past, a solid, single record of what happened,

still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held.

It is impossible, no matter how blessed you are by luck or the government or some remote invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind, it is impossible not to feel a little sad looking at that bit of wax, that bit of the past.

It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take.

The village, glimpsed from a train window, beautiful and impossible and impossibly beautiful on a mountaintop, and you wondered what it would be if you stepped off the moving train and walked up the trail to its quiet streets and lived there for the rest of your life.

The beautiful face of that young man from Luftnarp with his gaping mouth and ashy skin last seen already half turned away as you boarded the bus.

already turning towards a future without you in it.

Where this thing between you that seemed so possible now already and forever never was.

All variety of lost opportunities spied from the windows of public transportation, really.

It can be overwhelming, this splattered, inert wax recording every turn not taken.

What's the point?

You ask.

Why bother?

You say.

Oh, Cecil, you cry.

Oh Cecil.

But then you remember, I remember, that we are even now in another bit of molten wax.

We are in a moment that is still falling, still volatile, and we will never be anywhere else.

We will always be in that most dangerous, most exciting, most possible time of all.

The now.

Where we never can know what shape the next moment will take.

Stay tuned next

for

well.

Let's just find out together, shall we?

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.

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

Original music by Dispirition.

All of it can be downloaded for free at disparition.info.

This episode's weather was Snibong by Dangay Fever.

Find out more at dangayfeevermusic.com.

We would like to thank our Nightvale intern, Adam Dunnels, who died and three days later we opened his tomb to find that he, miraculously, was still dead.

Want to have your music featured in the weather section?

Want to contribute your talents to the show?

Just want to say hi?

Email us at nightvale at commonplacebooks.com or follow us on Twitter at Nightvale Radio.

Check out commonplacebooks.com for more information on this show, as well as our books on the unused story ideas of H.B.

Lovecraft and what it means to be a grown-up.

And while you're there, consider clicking the donate link.

That'd be cool of you.

Today's proverb, ask your doctor if right is left for you.

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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 Dude 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-season, and 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, we've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look, and we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, like Kanja and Hess.

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

Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Hi, we're Meg Bashwiner.

And Joseph Fink of Welcome to Night Vale.

And on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the golden age of television.

To do that, we're watching the IMDb viewer-rated best and worst episodes of classic TV shows.

The episode of Star Trek, where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost, the episode of The X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat, and also the really good episodes, too.

What can we learn from the best and worst of great television?

Like, for example, is it really a bad episode, or do people just hate women?

The best worst available wherever you get your podcasts.