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Good Morning Night Vale, episode 5: “Good Morning the Shape in Grove Park”

Symphony: Close your eyes. Let my words wash over you.

Meg: You are safe now.

Hal: Good morning, Night Vale.

Meg: Hello and welcome to Good Morning Night Vale, episode 5, “The Shape in Grove Park”. So my name is Meg Bashwiner, I am your tri-host, co-host, what do you call it when there’s three of us?

Hal: Throst?

Symphony: Three…

Meg: Throst?

Symphony: Aa-aa, I was thinking that too.

Meg: And I am joined today by the beautiful Symphony Sanders…

Symphony: It’s me!

Meg: And the beautiful Hal Lublin.

Hal: That’s me.

Meg: And we’re here to talk to you. We’re here to talk to you.

Hal: We’re just here to talk, but you know what? We also wanna listen.

Symphony: [chuckles]

Hal: That’s not gonna work for this show.

Meg: Let’s all listen right now.

Hal: Alright, let’s just listen for half an hour. [long beat] Has it been 30 minutes?

Symphony: That would be terrible.

Meg: Yeah, felt like it.

Hal: Yeah, that felt like 30 minutes of listening.

Symphony: So hey guys! What are we, what do we do in this show, huh?

Meg: We recap and chat about episodes of the hit popular podcast, This American Life, no.

Symphony: Is that popular?

Meg: It was, it was like one of the first podcasts, but I don’t think anyone listens, I don’t think they make that anymore.

Hal: I’m just glad a show exists where somebody recaps and analyzes Joe Rogan’s podcast, and we are those three people!

Meg: No we’re here to analyze and recap the hit popular podcast Welcome to Night Vale.

Hal: That too.

Meg: And this week we’re talking about “The Shape in Grove Park”, which is described as “A protest against the removal of the shape in Grove Park that no one acknowledges or speaks about, plus changes to the school curriculum, a growing tarantula problem in town, and musical auditions”. So that’s a pretty hefty description for lots of things that happen this episode.

Symphony: There are lots of things that happen in this one. Well, first of all, the fact that it’s called the shape and is a shape in, that Cecil repeatedly asked to get a statement from it, and sometimes it quivers or something, but that freaks me out a little. I don’t know about you guys.

Hal: That scared you? Did you get a little scared listening to it? It’s creepy.

Symphony: Well-

Hal: There is a creepy experience to like when you listen to it, especially with headphones, because like the sound picture being painted is so specific that it can, it can creep you out.

Meg: Yeah absolutely. So we’re talking about “The Shape in Grove Park”, so there’s this monument, this landmark, which reminded right away of the removal of confederate statues.

Symphony: [chuckles] Right!

Meg: I was like, this is another one of those like creepy foreshadowing to the public removal of statues where in this case it’s like, no one talks about it or acknowledges it but it’s still really important. That’s kind of the vibe there whereas with confederate statues, we all talk about it and it’s important and we should tear them down, but… [laughter] It’s this kind of similar discussion about public space and monuments and interacting with them.

Symphony: Yes and the City Council isn’t very helpful with all of that at all. Aren’t they trying to make sure, they’re trying to save it right, so they end up putting it in front of the studio in and trouble ensues, obviously.

Meg: Yes. So this is kind of a monumental, monument, monumental episode in the sense that this is where Cecil gets a name.

Symphony: Oh right!

Meg: This is where Cecil gets the name Cecil.

Symphony: I always forget about that, that he’s just like nameless narrator until a certain point. But he still doesn’t have a last name.

Meg: No. And he doesn’t get a last name for a bit. And then he gets a middle name.

Symphony: Yes.

Hal: There is something interesting to this that this is the first time he really gets an identity for the listener in terms of a first name, but the thing that struck me about that it even though there are a lot of things that happen is that it’s just his existential struggle. Like that’s the thing, that was my biggest takeaway from it and the thing that struck me is how well constructed that was, and then it didn’t need to, I mean it has a place in the larger continuum, but it also can exist on its own, just that particular plot line of him struggling like, am I the only one here, for all I know nobody’s listening or. I just, that was something that I was really drawn to and and, just very well written and well executed.

Symphony: Yeah I loved that idea of him possibly being alone in this universe, to something that’s not even connected to anything or anyone else. I mean, haven’t we all felt like that at one moment or another?

Meg: Yes.

Hal: Oh sure.

Meg: (God).

Symphony: [chuckles] Just…

Meg: So yeah, that’s the plot point that launched a thousand theories, conspiracy theories about this show.

Symphony: Yes. [laughter]

Meg: Cecil is alone. There’s been heat death of the world and Cecil is all that is left, alone in his empty universe.

Symphony: Yeah or it’s just, even that he’s like in this all by himself or it’s in his head kind of thing, I’ve seen a lot of those theories on Tumblr and whatnot over the years, so that’s always been really fun.

Meg: I thought this was one of the funnier episodes, I think this is they’re really starting to find their rhythm with their writing structure, their joke structure for how this show works, and this episode is very funny. There’s lots of really interesting things that are done with writing, like when they talk about the tarantula problem. Which is, [chuckling] there’s just so many different things that happen in that paragraph…

Symphony: Teen pregnancy.

Meg: ..teach a spider to read, teen pregnancy teach a spider to read, stop the madness.

Symphony: [chuckles] Yeah.

Meg: It’s just like it just keeps, things just keep happening in that paragraph that keep turning it on its head.

Symphony: Yeah and I love that they are, yes they do find their humor in this, and Cecil starts becoming more of a fleshed out character, you can hear in Cecil’s voice acting even. Like, he starts getting a little bit more into his higher ranges, which is always very fun for me to hear, ‘cause it just is more light-hearted than just like..

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: ..the announcer, I mean Cecil has a gorgeous timbre to his voice already. But when, you know you’re adding these other levels to this person, you are really fleshing out a character.

Meg: Absolutely, we are starting to kind of land in Cecil now that are, this is yeah we’re at this point we’re five episodes in, and so we’ve learned a lot about the world of Night Vale, we’re learning a little bit about the character of Cecil, and then just the continual world building that we’re getting. Michael Sandero gets his second head.

Symphony: That’s more attractive.

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: That his mother prefers, so.

Hal: And puts, I love that she has a list out on, a public list, ranking of her children that goes out in front of her house for everybody to see.

Symphony: In the front yard! [laughs] If only, I mean Hal, you’re an only child, right?

Hal: True.

Symphony: So you’ve never really had to deal with this, but Meg you have a sister as I have a brother. And there is always that sneaking suspicion of who’s like, the more beloved. [laughs]

Hal: Do you think it’s you?

Symphony: No, I think my brother is the more beloved, in a different way.

Meg: Yeah. I think my sister and I kind of trade that position, like over the years in our life we’ve kind of traded that role several times back and forth about who’s the favorite. So we’re just hoping for many more years of trading off who’s the good one, so… [laughs]

Symphony: Can you imagine tho if your parents put that in the front yard for everybody to see it’s like, this is my favorite kid and this is my least favorite kid?

Meg: At least you’d know where you stand, you know.

Symphony: I guess so. It’s all (that truthfulness).

Meg: Which is kind of interesting, ‘cause in my family you know where you stand. There’s like…

Symphony: [laughs]

Meg: We’re not really a passive aggressive bunch, we're pretty much an aggressive aggressive bunch [laughter]. So you know when you’re on top and you know when you’re not.

Symphony: [laughs] Oh. Well, what if you grew another head and it was more attractive or people liked that head better, how would you feel about that? It’s not even just like your sibling, it’s like on your own body, like that’s adding insult to injury, now?

Meg: Do you have to do its makeup or does it do it on its own?

Symphony: Well I guess if you share a body, the body has to do all the work. Like the, right? Like maybe you only get one arm like, the left head gets the left arm and the right head, that would be really tough for your eyeliner, I can’t wing with the same hand.

Meg: Yeah. I do most of the stuff with my right hand. The thing that would probably bother me the most is that I would have to share the, the real estate of my body with someone else, like I feel like I’m barely getting by being a clumsy person with the stuff that I’m working with and to have to share that with another entity that would just be, I’d fall down every flight of stairs, I would not be able to chop an onion. [laughter] Symphony: Well and this gets into the territory of Siamese twins, guys.

Meg: Here we are. Episode 5, we finally got there.

Hal: Finally. I can’t wait, this is welcome to the finale of Good Morning, we got there in five episodes, we did it, that’s the record for getting to Siamese twins. I feel like I’m so insecure, the idea of a better looking smarter head on my body is like…

Symphony: Right.

Hal: That is my worst nightmare that I didn’t know I had until you asked that question like two minutes ago.

Symphony: Also is it now incorrect to say Siamese twins? [laughs]

Meg: I think we say “conjoined twins” now.

Hal: We say “conjoined twins”.

Symphony: We say “conjoined twins”. (Grant, cut it!) [laughs] OK. So “conjoined twins”. Yeah after I heard it I was like, that probably sounds a liiittle racist, (--).

Hal: I know that people can’t see what we’re doing right now, but Symphony has a clipboard in her left hand, and when you ask questions like that, you look like a camp counselor who’s going through the sensitivity training like, [laughter] can we say “Siamese twins”? Is that OK, let me mark it down ‘cause I had a note about that, I have finally the answer. Free swim at 9 AM, that’s gonna be fun.

Symphony: And crafts are in the barn.

Hal: Even for you “conjoined twins”, see I do learn. [laughter]

Symphony: After last summer’s debacle, (I mean it is)…

Hal: Surprised you came back, but I’m glad you’re here. [laughter]

Symphony: It’s how we learn, it’s how we learn.

Meg: Right, we just gotta keep the conversation, keep the conversation (going).

Symphony: We’re gonna move forward.

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: So OK, I feel like this is the first time that the people huddle outside the back of the Ralphs. I’ve always loved that imagery, like in the hole of the parking lot.

Hal: Yes.

Symphony: It’s like, what are these people just like hanging out in a hole? Ralphs is a grocery store.

Meg: Yeah, Ralphs is a grocery chain.

Hal: Yes.

Symphony: Right. It’s like real tho?

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Yes.

Symphony: Right, I’m like I feel like I’ve heard of the Ralphs before.

Meg: They’re just in California and maybe there’s one in Arizona.

Symphony: OK, well…

Hal: You know them as Kroger, same company.

Symphony: Ah, I do know a Kroger, seen a Kroger before. But I always think, I saw that recently about like chain grocery stores, and that’s always interesting to me ‘cause what you grow up with you’re like, oh all grocery stores aren’t a Jewel?

Meg: Or a Shoprite?

Symphony: But when people are just hanging out in a huddled mass outside of the Ralph, and they put out an ad for it.

Meg: Yeah, that Cecil delivers earnestly.

Symphony: Like come hang out with us.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: Just an earnest ad for a hole in the parking lot.

Symphony: For you to huddle with other people in.

Meg: Pretty good. So we add to our intern count, intern Leland.

Symphony: Leland.

Meg: RIP.

Symphony: But you know, doesn’t there seem like there’s more pomp and circumstance with this one like…

Hal: Yeah!

Symphony: He dies but they talk about having a funeral and how they bury them in the break room, which…

Hal: [laughs]

Symphony: ..was never discussed before, but I like it.

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: It seems a propos.

Meg: It’s important to have ceremony surrounding grief, you know.

Hal: Oh absolutely. [chuckles] It just feels, I like, I love watching the little detail like coloring the corners, getting the little nooks and crannies in this world building, and that’s what this feels like ‘cause it’s not, yes a series of, at this point you probably would figure out that most of the interns are going to die. But those little like, you get filled out what actually happens when somebody dies outside of, Cecil makes an announcement that there is a full sort of funeral held in their break room, which is just really for all intents and purposes, a graveyard where they eat sometimes.

Symphony: [laughs] I don’t think they allow that in actual cemeteries, so they get mad if you go in there and try and picnic.

Hal: Have you tried?

Meg: You can. Yeah.

Symphony: Can you?

Meg: Yeah I have a friend growing up whose Mom would take her to the cemetery to eat on her grandparents’ grave, they would like go do that. They would take a hot lunch.

Symphony: But if you didn’t know anybody, you’d just like sit that’s what I’m saying…

Meg: Yeah, then it’s…

Symphony: Not like it’s some of your family.

Meg: Yeah it’s like have some respect, you’re just sitting there like eating a six-inch Subway meatball sandwich just like, I was hungry! [laughter]

Symphony: It’s like, oh I just stopped at the Kroger or whatever like I just needed a place to sit down, and this is closer than the park.

Meg: Quieter, it’s cleaner.

Symphony: Totally, and it’s nice, there’s flowers, trees and stuff.

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: Some cemeteries are very nice.

Meg: They are.

Symphony: Although I think a waste of land.

Meg I- I have to agree that they’re a waste of land, although some of the existing ones are pretty special, like-like the famous existing ones they’re special. There’s a bunch of ones that are just like, you know, miles and miles of dead people, where it’s like they probably could have figured out something better to do here with this, but you know.

Symphony: I like the fancy ones in LA.

Meg: Oh.

Symphony: I’ve been to a couple of those.

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Hollywood Forever, where…

Symphony: With like celebrities.

Hal: Yeah, they show movies at Hollywood Forever…

Symphony: Yeah yeah yeah!

Hal: ..you can go see, when Jennifer and I were first dating, we went with Annie Savage who was appeared on the show, and her future husband at the time Fred and Ben Acker, we all went and watched, I think “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”. Like they just project it onto a mausoleum and a bunch of people show up, and and it’s acceptable.

Symphony: Wow.

Hal: That’s what happens in a Hollywood cemetery. It’s all glamour out here, folks.

Meg: Anything goes in Hollywood. Anything goes.

Hal: All the rumors are true.

Symphony: But I guess that’s what you sign up for when you’re like, oh I wanna be buried in this Hollywood cemetery and then you’re gonna get a movie shown on your grave, you know?

Hal: Yeah. I wanna, if I do that I want it written into my will which movies I will allow.

Meg: What would you pick if you had to like have a list of a few that you would find acceptable to project onto your grave?

Hal: Only “Xanadu”. That’s all I want shown all the time.

Symphony: Yes! [sings] Xanaduu…

Hal: And only the big number at the end where they combine all of their ideas into one horrific – dance number?

Symphony: [laughs]

Meg: I’d have to go with “Grease 2”, if it was me.

Hal: [laughs] Bowling alley sequence only?

Symphony: That’s the one with Michelle Pfeiffer?

Meg: Yeah. Yes.

Symphony: OK so, ‘cause I was about to say, I was like wow are we going to let Olivia Newton-John here? And then no it’s ‘cause it’s “Grease 2”. I think on my – “Labyrinth”.

Meg: Oo!

Hal: Nice. Nice.

Symphony: I like that movie a lot.

Meg: That sounds cozy and you know a bunch of college kids would roll up a joint and rock up to your grave and..

Symphony: Right!

Meg: ..(-) [silly voice] “Are we watching ‘The Labyrinth’ at Symphony Sanders’ grave tonight?” And it would be a good time.

Symphony: Yeah, and then my ghost would come out.

Meg: Yeah, and your ghost would love it!

Symphony: [laughs]

Meg: Your ghost is like, I’m trying to imagine what your ghost is wearing, it’s a one piece.

Symphony: Yes.

Meg: It’s like a spooky little one-piece jumpsuit. [laughter]

Symphony: You know me and my one-piece living, or dying.

Meg: Your one-piece dying! [laughter]

Symphony: Boo, Sanders! So speaking of celebrities and dead celebrities, Rita Hayworth apparently. But I mean you guys, first of all it’s hearsay of hearsay. This is like the most like not, probably it’s not true at all.

Hal: It did come from an angel, they’re very trusted sources of, they’re known celebrity spotters.

Symphony: They said to Old Woman Josie, who told Cecil, right?

Hal: Yes.

Symphony: The angel didn’t tell Cecil, Old Woman Josie did. She could be a liar.

Hal: Are you saying…

Meg: Wow, accusation.

Hal: ..there are unreliable voices in Night Vale?

Symphony: [laughs] Noo… Yes. No. Maybe. Uuuh, well, do you even know what Rita Hayworth looks like?

Hal: Yes!

Meg: I don’t.

Hal: Have you not seen “The Shawshank Redemption”? She’s the one who whips her hair back when they watch the movie and goes “Who me, boys?” She’s the first poster that he puts on his cell wall.

Symphony: No I was just asking like for posterity, do you know what [chuckling] Rita Hayworth looks like?

Hal: I do.

Symphony: So the answer is yes.

Hal: Yes. She’s shorter and more Hispanic than I remember but…

Symphony: [laughter] (-) that was fun.

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: Well, maybe that woman’s name was Rita Hayworth, it just wasn’t the Rita Hayworth that we’re thinking of.

Hal: That’s true, that’s on us.

Symphony: Right? Her name could be Margarita Hayworth. She just goes by Rita. Actually that’s my, a girl I went to high school with. Her name was Margarita so it’s not like…

Meg: No, when I was taking Spanish class in fifth grade, my Spanish name was Margarita, so…

Symphony: Did you know what a Margarita was, the drink?

Meg: Yes.

Symphony: OK.

Meg: I wasn’t drinking them at the time, but I had been to a Chili’s before, so I… [laughter]

Hal: You do a lot of growing up the first time you go to a Chili’s, don’t you?

Meg: Sure, that’s for sure.

Hal: Mm hm.

Symphony: God I love Chili’s. I also have digestive distress, but it’s so good.

Meg: I feel like we have already done this on this show, we have ranked the Applebee’s and the Chili’s and [laughter] and the uh, TGI Fridays, I feel like we’ve already been down this road.

Symphony: Well Applebee’s is on the lowest, it’s on the lowest.

Meg: We all agree that Applebee’s is the worst, it’s Scrabblebee’s.

Hal: Applebee’s is terrible, but I got food poisoning at a Fridays, so that will always be the bottom for me.

Symphony: Well that’s full of people that definitely don’t wash their hands.

Hal: That’s true. They dump their wings in the toilet before they bring them out.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: And they told me, it’s really on me. I rank myself below Fridays for that reason. (--) OK, you know what, I’ll roll the dice, I’m a gambler. [laughter]

Meg: I also really love the satire that we have of auditions, and (--) as a whole we get for the “Once on this Island” auditions announcement. [laughs]

Symphony: Yes. I love how they do this throughout the series, throughout the show in general, but they’ll do lists of things and it’ll start out normal or it’ll be like a couple normal things, and then it’ll totally go off the rails. Which I love, and I think you know, when you’re an actor, you just gotta have all those skills, you know what I mean?

Hal: Yes.

Meg: Yes.

Symphony: Sniper skills, all sorts of things. What is a dirigible?

Hal: It’s a, it’s a blimp.

Symphony: You’re, [laughing] you’re a blimp?

Hal: (--) I’m a blimp? ‘cause I answered, how rude!

Meg: That’s rude.

Hal: That was just Applebee’s style behavior right there.

Meg: When you’re here, your family. [laughter]

Hal: What is the biggest lie you ever put on your resumé, or like the dumbest skill that you have on your acting resumé?

Symphony: My own? I dunno.

Hal: Did you write stuff on other people’s resumés? When you’re on auditions you wrote like, “doesn’t work well with people”.

Symphony: Well I just remember I was, I was looking at someone’s once, and I just thought it was funny that they put like “burp on command”, they could burp on command.

Hal: [laughs]

Symphony: And I’m like, do people like test you on that, or what?

Hal: They might.

Symphony: I mean I’ve always wondered if people get called out, you know.

Meg: If someone were to actually call me out on the horseback riding skills that I list, it probably would be dangerous, I probably would get hurt. Like so you can actually really ride a horse, right? Yeah sure, totally. And like, I would get trampled. It’d be like here, gallop down this beach, and I’d be like oh no, we’re all gonna die.

Hal: [laughs]

Meg: I always wonder why they have the, like where we have to put our that we have a driver’s license and that it’s valid. [laughs]

Symphony: Yeah.

Hal: Yeah!

Meg: Valid driver’s license.

Hal: Like they’re gonna go, oh driver’s license huh? I’ve got a truck downstairs in the garage and they just throw you the keys. Go round the block and don’t hit any stuff!

Meg: Yeah. I’ve never had to act in a car. It’s never been a place for like…

Symphony: Me either, never been in that commercial. That’s usually like commercials, right? Like…

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Yeah.

Symphony: You’ll have to be, but do they even like, make you drive in the actual car, or is it like you’re in one of those fake cars on a like green screen?

Hal: It depends. Sometimes you probably have to drive it. But even then if you haven’t ever driven before, and they put you in the car and you do that thing that kids do where you’re like just, you’re constantly moving the wheel..

Symphony: Yeah.

Hal: ..because you know that there’s a steering wheel in a car, that’s how they know this person probably doesn’t have a valid, this person can’t act like they’re driving, they seem really bad at it.

Meg: We would all get not cast in “Once on This Island”. Which is an interesting choice.

Symphony: Well maybe I could because I’m a person of color…

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: So I was encouraged, that’s good.

Meg: That show really should be people of color..

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: ..only. [laughs]

Symphony: Pretty much, well except for, there’s like four white people in the show.

Meg: Yes.

Symphony: They’re like staying at the hotel or wherever.

Meg: Actually I saw Welcome to Night Vale actor Kevin R. Free in a wonderful production of “Once on This Island” at the Papermill Playhouse, and he did a fantastic job. Fun fact about Kevin R. Free is that he has a beautiful singing voice.

Symphony: He’s a good actor.

Meg: He’s a good actor, beautiful singing voice.

Hal: Not a surprise.

Symphony: All around good guy, yeah. Just sending Kevin R. Free some love, that’s all.

Hal: Yeah. I do like the idea of auditions ‘cause that in the later, in the touring show that just concluded, there was another bit about auditions as well, like it’s just a fun thing to come back to, that something’s always being cast and it’s very dangerous. Like the requirements are different every time, but also you know we were talking about the lists earlier, so people who are a fan of comedy and breaking down comedy, listening to and sort of studying how these lists are put together by Jeffrey and Joseph, it’s a little good way to understand heightening and misdirection, and the way they build their laughs out of surprises and then, they build on the surprise, it’s like constant hard turns, and then build build build hard turn that gives them like a reset to build off of, which is really really smart and fun as an audience member to experience, and really fun as an actor to perform.

Meg: Yeah, absolutely like especially in this episode with the list where they talk about the curriculum. “Finally, in addition to the current foreign language offerings of Spanish, French, and modified Sumerian, schools will now be offering double Spanish, weird Spanish, Coptic Spanish, Russian, and unmodified Sumerian.” So yeah, construction of these lists that do, they just take us on a journey, a journey of humor.

Symphony: I love the text books, that was always, that was really funny for me. I just like when they turn the things that would normally happen in everyday life right on its ear, you know like the math and English, those two just switching names but they still are the same like principles right? I just find that really funny and imaginative. And that teachers are astral projecting.

Meg: Yeah. And we get our, I think it’s our first Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

Symphony: Yeah, about the moon.

Meg: Where Cecil’s talking about the moon, yeah. [laughter] And Telly the Barber and Carlos, so I think it’s our first Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner, which is a fun segment on this show. So speaking of segments on this show, we have some fan theories and fan questions that we got from our voicemail and from our email, and we’re going to talk about those.

But first, let’s talk about the weather.

[ad break]

Meg: So this episode’s weather was “Jerusalem” by Dan Bern.

Hal: I love Dan Bern.

Symphony: I thought that song was so funny. It had, the tune itself made me think of almost like a 60’s revolutionary folk rock song, but what he’s talking about, the whole thing about the olives was killing me, I was like yes.

Meg: [sings] Olives!

Symphony: I wrote “loves olives”. [laughs]

Hal: Yeah, Dan is super smart and super funny and he sounds, he’s not a Bob Dylan soundalike but he’s super evocative. He’s got a similar vocal style, the way he plays the guitar has that folk rock feeling to it. That is like, he’s the kind of musician where you want to listen to, the lyrics are super important and sometimes just the way the music is built is the most important thing. But with him, you wanna catch all the details of what he’s saying as he sings, ‘cause it’s always super smart and really funny satire.

Meg: Yeah, agree on all of those things, I think it’s a really nice addition to this episode. It feels like it almost matches the rhythm of this episode, where it is one that does kind of, has a more humorous tone to it, has a “hey pay attention to the words” kind of tone to it, observational humor tone to it, it does feel like it is a nice match with that, whether that’s intentional or not, it feels like at home in this episode.

Hal: Yeah, 100 per cent. Probably the most, the best fit in terms of matching what’s going on. It doesn’t feel like it’s hard to turn away from where we’ve been. It feels kind of, it’s logical in a way that…

Symphony: Right.

Hal: The weather doesn’t really have to be, but when it is it’s nice, it’s a nice little sort of surprise.

Meg: Let’s go into the FanZone where we hear from some of our fans who have written into the email address and have dialed into our weird voicemail. So I (-) through the email account today and found some things. We asked, just for these first couple of episodes, we asked fans to react to the first ten episodes of Night Vale and what they had in terms of theories and questions. And Erin B. writes to us and says: “Theories. Carlos was sent to Night Vale by the place he works for, and as soon as time distorted, he wasn’t able to ever send any research back. Theory 2: Cecil was extremely lonely prior to Carlos arriving and pushed people away. Theory 3: The Voice of Night Vale infects Cecil and he doesn’t even really need a radio station to podcast. And theory 4: the secret government agency sent Carlos to Night Vale.” So we’ve got some theories here. I think are interesting when we are listening to it and hear the kind of new things about how Cecil wonders if his microphone is even attached, and if he is all alone. So it’s kind of the first episode that starts to pull back the, the (lens) of possibility and so, hearing from Erin on their theories about what’s going on here. We can’t of course confirm or deny any of these theories. I think that Cecil probably was extremely lonely prior to Carlos arriving. I dunno if he pushed people away, maybe he pushed people away, it’s possible.

Symphony: I think it is interesting that um, just like with a lot of theatre itself like, why is it important now, why are you talking about this thing now? So obviously Carlos coming into his life has been a catalyst for something or it’s been a big deal, because he wasn’t really, like we didn’t hear about Cecil before all that stuff, and now since Carlos has come into his life, things have changed. I dunno if he pushed people away, but now things in his life are changing, and Night Vale especially.

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Yeah. I think they’re good theories. I like the, I like back filling sort of character. You sorta can find the notes that you need to back fill where a character might have been when they arrive through listening and just sort of what the current relationship is and how important it is to the people, so I’m all for stuff like that. And then it’s fun when the writing either confirms or denies that, and if it doesn’t, then that’s something you can hold on to, and you’re always right.

Meg: Yeah and on that, the similar topic there, (Julianne) writes to us and says, “In episode 5, Cecil explicitly addresses this idea, questioning whether his mike is even plugged in and if the world is held aloft merely by my – his delusions and by his smooth, sonorous voice. But it leaves, it has a hypothetical scenario by not pursuing it past his musing. But his mind being stuck in limbo makes sense, Cecil and the city having (-) sense of time is the biggest clue, followed by a general lack of knowledge about how things – science, correct building materials for drawbridges and - heck, just how weird everything in Night Vale is”, so that’s (Julianne) saying that it makes sense that this might be a real thing that Cecil’s not actually there, that because it might prove that Cecil is stuck in limbo and that creates a weird sense of time, which makes sense why everything is weird in Night Vale.

Hal: I would ask, and (Julianne) you can’t respond. You can do it on social media I guess but right now, [chuckles] right now we can’t have a conversation about it, but I always wonder in those cases, is it more interesting for it to actually exist and be real, or is it more interesting if none of it is real and he is delusional, or has created a reality around him, in which case where is he and what is the real world around him? And I don’t think I, I don’t have an answer one way or the other, but I think that’s sort of the interesting question and conversation that you can jump off, either thinking about it by yourself or discussing with other friends/fans.

Meg: Nice. And Nina asks us, trying to put this the right way, Nina says: “Did I hear that a typo in an early episode resulted in a somewhat prominent change in plot? Can you tell us what that was all about?” So it’s not so, getting the story from Jeffrey, we talked to Jeffrey about this. Not so much that a typo resulted in a prominent change in the plot, it was that a typo resulted in a prominent change in the plot so we had to have Cecil re-record. So the way that the episodes are recorded is Joseph and Jeffrey work on a script, that script goes to Cecil, Cecil sits down, reads the script and kinda figures out his emotional beats, and then he performs it into a microphone and then he sends that recording off to Joseph, who cuts it into an episode. So there’s not a director in the room that is gonna go through word for word and make sure that the writers’ intents come through, so in this situation there was a typo that twisted the meaning, or a word got dropped and that changed the whole meaning of an episode, so he had to go back and have Cecil re-record and get that word in there, and have the episode have the meaning that Joseph and Jeffrey intended.

Symphony: But otherwise, all is well.

Meg: All is well. Sarah writes (-) us about Michael Sandero and Michael Sandero’s mother. So Sarah says: “Michael Sandero’s mother kept a ‘which of my children I like best’ ranking outside her house, which means Michael presumably had at least one other sibling. Why have we never heard about them? Will we ever hear about them? Are they simply so utterly normal compared to Michael and his recordbreakingly awful luck that they don’t stick out at all? Do these siblings actually ask?” And then this is in parenthesis: “Regardless of siblings or lack thereof, Flora is not a good mother, at least to Michael. So if the siblings are real, it would be nice if they showed him the support she does not.” Sarah also says [chuckles]: “How are the troubled tarantulas doing? I hope they’ve managed to turn their dire situation around and get on their many very hairy feet by now.”

Symphony: I don’t know that, like any theory, we can only make assumptions on the information that we have. And knowing how Night Vale is, I mean maybe he does have other siblings, but they don’t get any sort of (interest or play), right? They can’t possibly, ‘cause he’s a big football star. When you got a big football star, if you don’t live up to that, you know? It’s like “Friday Night Lights”.

Hal: He was already at top of the list and then the head beat him out. So he can’t, even when you’re at the top of the list, you’re not at the top of the list. Sorry, Michael.

Symphony: Yeah. You’re never safe.

Hal: Never.

Symphony: Oh and the tarantulas, do we wanna answer that? Is that a question?

Meg: How are they? I hope they’re doing OK. I mean, it seemed like there was a good program in place for them.

Symphony: Yeah, I mean they’re trying to get them to read, which is the first step I think in any sort of, uh, programming.

Meg: Yeah. And I think there’s passionate people involved in trying to rehabilitate and provide opportunities for these tarantulas, just all we can only ever hope for is that people are, there’s good people trying to do their best for them.

Hal: I’m deathly frightened of tarantulas, so they could all walk into a fire as far as [chuckling] I’m concerned!

Symphony: [chuckles]

Meg: That’s so cold, Hal. So cold.

Hal: Yeah. Not the fire, the fire’s plenty warm, if you’re cold get in that fire.

Meg: [laughs]

Hal: It’ll warm you up.

Meg: So let’s burn the tarantulas or not. And thus we end the FanZone. [laughter] Alright, we got through our episode. Thanks so much for discussing “The Shape in Grove Park”, all ‘yall! Next week, we are going to be speaking with Jon Bernstein, you may know him as Disparition. He is the creator of the music for Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead, and he is an all around rad dude. We will be discussing episode 6, “The Drawbridge”, so we have that to look forward to, which is exciting. I’m very excited.

Hal: Me too!

Meg: Symphony?

Symphony: I’m not that excited.

Hal: Wow, hateful. The shade!

Symphony: Just kidding!

Hal: [whew].

Symphony: It’s because I’m afraid of bridges.

Hal: [laughs]

Meg: Awww. Well we’ll unpack that and all of our fears in next week’s episode, where we unpack our fears and talk it over with musician Jon Bernstein. You know him as Disparition, I refer to him as Yon. Symphony, do you have any other nicknames for Jon?

Symphony: Berenstain. I call him like Berenstain Bears, he doesn’t like that.

Meg: No. Alright great, (-) one in the (-), thank you all so very much for listening, and we will check in with you next week. And until then, good morning Night Vale, good morning.

Meg: Good Morning is a Night Vale Presents production. It is hosted by Symphony Sanders, Hal Lublin and Meg Bashwiner. It is edited by Grant Stewart. It is mixed by Vincent Cacchione, it is produced by Meg Bashwiner. Theme music by Disparition. Special thanks to our fans who submitted their thoughts. Leave us a voicemail at 929-277-2050, or email us at [email protected], to share your theories and ask questions, or to tell us which host would lie in court for you.

For more information on this show, go to goodmorningnightvale.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter @NightValeChat. Special thanks to (Christy Gressman), Jeffrey Cranor, Joseph Fink, and Adam Cecil.

Today’s adverb is “savagely”. The lion savagely attacked his tempe and quinoa salad, because he was a hungry wild beast, but also had just started doing meatless Mondays, because sustainability matters and we are all on this planet together.

#night vale presents #good morning night vale #meg bashwiner #hal lublin #symphony sanders #episode 5 #the shape in grove park

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queenbabyqueenbaby · 4 years

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TO WHAT END? / SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF MY FRIENDS

Nothing like searching for lived reference points in the midst of a pandemic to make me realise I really haven't been alive that long - the AIDS crisis preceded my conception, I wept through 9/11 not because of foreign threats or impending war but because my hamster died, SARS and e-coli and swine flu were just biological gossip, Conservative majorities just meant funnier cartoons: these were topics for grown-ups with big newspapers and big concerns like adultery and wine

I’ll cop to a shielded youth, and what wasn't kept from me I made up for in years of insularity (substance misuse, food control, and the institutions both led me to again and again). As good as born into the internet age with depression flooding both sides of my DNA (if you believe in that stuff) the world’s news felt like a game of The Sims for which solipsism was a cool cheat code

When the proverbial shit hit the fan in 2008 I was sitting exams in an NHS psychiatric ward (one of the last decent ones of its kind), and because my parents didn't own small businesses or huge hedge funds but rather were (and still are) doctors in the public sector, nobody declared bankruptcy anywhere near me or my weird public sector body

Instead our livelihood relied on the truism, perhaps even the hope, that people always get sick, need medicine and to shit in metal bowls, they need bones replaced and brains scanned, they need morphine and DNRs and naso-gastric tubes and their seizures analysed. I try not to take this reliability for granted in retrospect, especially now that there's a decidedly medical theme stamped on everybody’s idea of the future

I think doctors love to be doctors because medicine sits at the perfect intersection of needing-to-be-needed and rushed emotional detachment. Playing the saviour is a delicate balance - the line between feeling extraneous and people asking for too much is thin, as much in life as in the hospital

Our, and I guess it is our, virus is about to call the bluff of all doctors’ God complexes - I know from my parents’ late night arrivals home that having time between shifts for martyrdom is one of the job’s secret perks. The next few months won’t leave that kind of time. Medics and nurses aren't on as high a pedestal in the UK as in other countries, and their pay reflects this, but that job title still gets you laid

Am I really dragging doctors? In this economy? Look, it’s an admirable job I couldn’t do, I’m too selfish and a little allergic to latex. It’s just tricky to square my own parents’ very human shortcomings with the fact they are already this year’s heroes, no matter their specialty. These are ugly grievances of mine dating back several news cycles

How my friends and other chosen-family handle this month’s uncertainty is teaching me more about them than a year of friendship ever could. The pessimists and optimists divide up easily, but the subsections of each run from predictable to full childhood attachment theory. I have some categories in mind for their attitudes which still need some work - “Pessimistic-depressive”, “Optimistic-anxious”, “Fearful-creative” “macro-delusional” “micro-obsessive” etc.

We hear and see what we want to in the news, the stats, the government, the grocery store - and everybody (me included) spins it how they want depending on blood sugar or sleep deprivation. If you want armageddon - the internet has that. If you want hope - it’s got that too. Escapism - in spades

There are the friends whose psychologies have felt calamitous for months, who see a world which finally matches their brain chemistry and feel a bizarre relief. It’s an excuse to relapse, to harm, to let whichever brand of recovery they’ve knit together rapidly unravel, to reverse veganism and gluten embargos, to masturbate and cry and unbox the PlayStation to shoot CGI hookers in the dark while the globe goes as broke as they’ve been since graduation

Other friends quantify their distress in money because death and time no longer register, friends who’d rather die in a casino than ask their parents or colleagues for help, whose egos are tied up in stocks and revenue and independence and work and who pay back their years-old love overdrafts in housekeepers and happy endings and nutritionists and berets and stony generosity so they don’t have to get too vulnerable. I could say most of these friends are men but there’s more equality here than you think

There are friends whose big picture hopefulness is endearing or nauseating depending on my mood, on a good afternoon I’ll concede that, yes, this could signal a new era in how humans connect and share, that power structures and class systems are to be shaken up and how we care for the most vulnerable will transform only through such tremendous short-term discomfort. On a bad evening this’ll make my blood boil, I’ll tell them the very lack of human connection we’re headed for is what will destroy the interpersonal, push love further into its own antonym, I’ll tell them we need only glance at how hoarding and slander have skyrocketed this week to see that socialism will be the butt of every 2020 joke, that whoever’s respiratory systems are spared will find themselves short of breath either way, that divorce lawyers, OCD specialists and pharmaceutical companies will clean up in the autumn. Then these friends say something like ‘we are all in this together’ and I’ll say then why don’t you come to the studio to hang out and they’ll say I can’t because you might make me sick

There are others I know, mostly older, who operate at a kind of denial/realism junction that doesn't fit neatly into pessimism or optimism - they say the news is burying itself in hyperbole, that too many are enjoying the drama, that in a few weeks or months we’ll come to our senses, free of geriatric ballots and rhetoric and start buying new phones, and this feels as plausible as any Rapture / dystopia theory. I am worryingly open to all possibilities. While calling it a “sudden tragedy” seems too myopic and schmaltzy, calling it “nature’s spring clean” feels a little crass. My studio landlord takes a dismissive but spiritual stance - “everything the god says when you gonna die and who gets the illness it’s already wroten”. Has he, too, just stumbled upon the wrong corner of the internet or did he just serve me a level of acceptance in one sentence I’ve tried for 4 years to reach in AA?

Me, I’m taking a little from all categories, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sanitizing the self-destruct button in preparation for pushing it, but I’m trying to allow the Big Picture to take me out of that kind of teenage thinking, too. I’m quick to substitute gratitude for tantrums or look for cheat codes

I try not to check the news and then I do, an unverified statistic gives me a little palpitation, so I smoke, work, I eat, I fret about fresh produce, moodboard a suicide, wish I was asleep, wish I was passed out, wish I was getting laid, wish I was smarter or more selfless, wish it wasn’t raining, wish I was in America as planned, feel immense relief I'm not in America as planned

More than anything I marvel at how freely and brazenly I turned down a party invitation, a dinner, other now-unsanitary or lethal gatherings, wish I’d gone to more, wish I’d touched my friends and let them sneeze in my face while that was still okay. I look up whether nostalgia is allowed when “the past” is two weeks ago, whether that needs its own word. I look up our blonde leaders and decide blonde hair ought not to exist on an adult

chant idea:

I’m one of the lucky ones I’m one of the lucky ones I’m one of the lucky ones I’m one of lucky ones

because it’s likely if you’re reading this you’re one of the lucky ones, too

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