November 2017

117 - eGemony, part 1: “Canadian Club”

The suffocation of the ego.  
The eternal silence of the void.
Faceless, yet screaming.
And now serving orange wine on tap.

Welcome to Night Vale. 

Listeners, we have a new sponsor! Our show is brought to you by – money. When purchasing items, please consider using money. It’s exchanged universally in place of transactions with actual value. Money is available in handy ones, fives, sixes, eights, and now twenties. [very fast] Money may be habit forming, symptoms may include (avarice) [0:03:21], lack of introspection and, frequent substitution of the phase “intelligent” for “wealthy”. Please ask your doctor if money is right for you and nod with considerable vigor when your doctor asks if you think money will complete you.

We have a visitor who I’m just now learning about. I’ve been handed a note by my new intern Gustav. Gustav says Station Management has ordered him to bring this guest immediately to the studio. Gustav, are you missing an eye? Uh, Gustav is nodding. OK. Uh, let’s see. The note says, it says to please welcome… Oh. What?! Wow! I mean, WOW! Gustav, is this real? OK, it is my honor and my privilege to welcome to the show – Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: Hi!

Cecil: Wait you’re not the Hugh Jackman, right?

Hugh: I like to think I am.

Cecil: Yeah, you’re not.

Hugh: But my children think I’m the real Hugh Jackman, so..

Cecil: Your children are wrong. But go on Mr Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: My name is Hugh Jackman, and-

Cecil: [muttering] Hmm but not the Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: Here’s my card.

Cecil: Oh. Hugh’s business card is a hologram he’s projected straight into my fingers. Says he’s the senior vice president in charge of “dreamfluencing” at.. ee-Gemini?

Hugh: It’s pronounced “ee-Gemonee”.

Cecil: Oh so it sounds just like he-

Hugh: I’m here to solve a funny little mystery. I just need to uh, open my briefcase here. Take a look at this.

Cecil: Oh, well that’s a Playboy magazine.

Hugh: Yes! December 1969. It had the pictorial on Bond girls in case you don’t remember.

Cecil: Oh I can see that. Ooh and there’s also a feature on architect Mies van der Rohe.

Hugh: I’ll take your word for it, Mr Palmer. I only read Playboy for the advertisements like this one: the one for Canadian Club.

Cecil: OK uh listeners, Mr Jackman is showing me a full page ad that features six people hiking in dense-looking woods, and two of them are carrying a sling of some sort and in the sling is-

Hugh: A case of Canadian Club whiskey!

Cecil: Uh huh. Um the headline reads, “On October 13, 1969, we hid a case of Canadian Club deep in the Amazon jungle. Here’s how you can find it.” Oh let’s see! Well this is actually quite entertaining, there are clues and maps and, is that an acrostic?

Hugh: It is an acrostic, very good Mr Palmer! It’s a clue to where the case was buried. Now from 1967 to 1973, Hiram Walker Distilled Spirits TBA Canadian Club ran a contest where they hid 21 cases of Canadian Club whiskey throughout the world, from the densest alleys of Jakarta to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the cable car tracks in San Francisco, on cobblestoned streets in London, under 30 feet of water on the Great Barrier Reef. They ran ads with clues about how to find them, and find them the people of the world did! Every single case was recovered.

Cecil: That’s remarkable.

Hugh: Mr Palmer. We hid a case under the ice caps of the North Pole, and people found it. we dropped one on Mount Everest..

Cecil: [clears throat, mutters] Mountains. So why do you think people wanted to find them so badly?

Hugh: As far as we can tell, it has to do with people’s desire to have alcohol. Ironically, it sank the contest. People weren’t buying Canadian Club. They figured that it was way cheaper and more fun to get a yacht and sail to the Cayman Islands and snorkel under the security fences of the International Monetary Fund and then you know like, remove a case from the International Monetary Fund’s Mom’s poolside refrigerator, and that’s exactly what happened to case number 17. So sales plummeted, but later, Hiram Walker merged with (–) [0:07:21], which was acquired by Bacardi Constellation brands, which is now an acquisition of our little tech startup, eGemony!

Cecil: Now excuse me but what does eGemony do?

Hugh: We dreamfluence!

Cecil: [long beat] …Got it.

Hugh: It turns out there’s one further case of Canadian Club. It’s been hidden for over 40 years. Right here in Night Vale! Here’s the ad. This is the November 1973 issue of Playboy. Go on, read it.

Cecil: Um, “on August 30, we hid a case of Canadian Club in Night Vale. Here’s how to find it.” But, Mr Jackman, the rest of the ad is blank.

Hugh: We at eGemony after some internal discussion, believe that might be why the case was never found. There seems to have been some kind of event at the printers that month. Fran Lebowitz’s interview with progressive rock band Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman is perfectly fine for its first 37 pages, but then devolves into a series of umlauts. Little Annie Fanny, generally a lighthearted and [chuckling] adorably misogynistic comic strip, was just panel after panel of…

Cecil: ..umlauts.

Hugh: And Mr Palmer, look at the pictoral on men’s golf pants.

Cecil: Aaaagh…

Hugh. Yeah.

Cecil: Ooooooooh.

Hugh: I know, we’re not really sure what happened there. Further, you’ll see that every cartoon has the same punchline.

Cecil: Oh yeah. Uh, here’s a bride on her wedding day and her mother is telling her… “It’s under Cecil’s desk”?

Hugh: Same punchline is on page 33 with the desert island, and page 74 here with the cowboys at the saloon.

Both in unison: “It’s under Cecil’s desk”!

Cecil: That is so odd! So Mr Jackman, why does eGemony want to find his case of liquor?

Hugh: We thought it would be.. fun. Can I look under your desk?

Cecil: Why?

Hugh: The case is under your desk.

Cecil: Yeah, but this desk wasn’t even here in 1973.

Hugh: So you’re telling us - me - no?

Cecil: Well I’m telling you to ask Station Management.

Hugh: Oh, I will!

Cecil: I-I-I mean they’ll make you fill out a form, and they can also create fire with their minds. Also they’ve eaten people before for way less. Hey Gustav? Gustav, come in here and show Hugh what Station Management did to your eye.

Hugh: Oh my!

Cecil: Oh God..

Hugh: That is disgusting.

Cecil: Ugh, it’s getting wor- [gags] OK, that’s enough Gustav.

Hugh: Oh. I am prepared. [ahem] I’m familiar with your Station and Management and not afraid of them. Eunice, Lily, Agatha, DeMarcus and Chad, old friends of mine.

Cecil: Who?

Hugh: Have you never learned the names of your supervisors, Mr Palmer? You need a team building retreat. I’ll be back. You haven’t seen the last of me.

Cecil: Yeah well you aren’t even the real Hugh Jackman!

I don’t trust that man. I need to figure out what to do next. We’ll be back after this.

[serene voice] Life is meaningless. There are no guiding principles, nor rewards, nor punishments for how to live. Just flashes of pain or joy, which are only neurotic messages, not actual experiences. Even pondering why we exist is a rudderless journey. So consciousness is a means to no end. The Sheriff’s Secret Police would like to acknowledge that hearing this will ruin your day.

However, they are further authorized to announce that nothing we have heard about nature describes a process that occurs without purpose. We can point to a fish’s fin and understand what function it serves. A monkey’s fur, a starfish’s many arms. The acorns in your uncle Simon’s branchy beard that explode outward as stabbing bristles whenever uncle Simon experiences fear. They all serve a purpose. So it’s possible that consciousness developed for a reason larger than consciousness itself can conceive of. The function of your mind is literally beyond comprehension. Which means that awareness, pursued to its limits, only makes you aware of your helpess ness. You are without power in this life. Except when you purchase items by using – money. This has been brought to you by – moneyyy.

We are back and – I’m in a jam. I mean I don’t trust this “Hugh Jackman” nor his company. I mean after what StrexCorp did to our town, I’m a bit wary of any business conglomerate. Although eGemony does seem different, friendlier. But what is this thing with looking under my desk? I’m not sure I should even look under my desk, I mean what if I find it? what if I don’t find it?

Every time I’v ehidden under my desk, I’ve closed my eyes and for good reason! I’m so distracted I lost my notes and now I don’t even know what the news was supposed to be! And Gustav went to go by some cotton balls and anti-bacterial spray for his missing eye. Um.. [rustles papers] Well, I mean honestly I’ve never really looked at any of these magazines before. I mean, Playboy was for other boys and girls. Uh, interesting. Listeners, did you know that Playboy magazine has a bunch of pictures of women across various careers with in-depth profiles on their lives? I did not know this. yeah there’s a whole pictoral on this issue of all the women who have ever played James Bond, in full costumes! Oh my god, look at these smart tuxes and pistols and one of them’s on a motorcycle!

In the middle of a magazine, there’s even a foldout photo of a woman in coveralls and a hard hat, leading a volunteer construction crew who’s building houses in a hurricane-ravaged Nova Scotia. Oh, and on the other side of the foldout, there’s a Playmate questionnaire. Let’s see, her turnoffs include “impatient people and tick bites”. You know, I agree with that. And her turn-ons include “groovy people, good food, overwhelming feelings of dread, chanting, and all hail the Glow Cloud”. All hail the Glow Cloud! Yes! Uh, the playmate’s name is Missy Wilks. Missy Wilks?! Could that be the Missy Wilks who lives over on Kestrel Street here in Night Vale? I mean, they do have similar eyes and tendrils. I wonder if it’s possible that she knows where the case of Canadian Club is? Well let’s see. [dials] M-I-S-S-Y-W-I-L-K-S.

[phone signal]

Missy: Hello?

Cecil: Hello, is this Missy Wilks? This is Cecil Palmer from the radio station. It’s a little hard to explain why I’m calling but-

Missy: Have you looked under your desk?

Cecil: Oh, not yet. Should I? I mean I kind of don’t want to.

Missy: Cecil. I’ve been waiting for this phonecall for over 40 years. You must look under your desk. The future of Night Vale depends on it.

Cecil: Have you been doing anything else?

Missy: Pardon?

Cecil: 40 years.

Missy: Well, no not really. Raised a family. Shot a guy once. But you’re stalling, Cecil.

Cecil: I’m not stalling! Bu-but you know, we really should get to today’s weather.

[“Lost Everything” by Mary Epworth]

Cecil: And we’re back.

Missy: Have you looked under the de-

Cecil: No, I’ve not looked under my desk!

Missy: Come – on -, Cecil!

Cecil: Wait, why does Mr Jackman want this so badly?

Missy: Ugh! It’s why they put cases everywhere on the planet! They knew that leaving an item in place long enough allows it to absorb the spirit of the area. That case is now infused with the soul of Night Vale. No one actually recovered those other cases. eGemony recovered them after they bought all the other parent companies of Canadian Club. They’re going to send out one of their corporate prize contestant sweepstakes buzz marketing street teams to dreamfluence anyone who stands in their way. If eGemony finds it before you do, they will drink Night Vale’s soul, the same way they’ve drunk the soul of all the other cities!

Cecil: Wait, that makes no sense! They’ve recovered a bunch of these across the world. Are you saying that Manhattan, San Francisco, London, the Great Barrier Reef and the Cayman Island don’t have souls anymore?

Missy: Cecil.

Cecil: Oh my god, you’re right. OK then, alright, I’m going to look. I am looking under my desk. And I am findiiing.. nothing. I, there’s nothing under here!

Missy: Mm?

Cecil: Wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait oh, oh, oh, oh, oh wait put – a pushpin! A red one! And it-it’s holding an envelope to the underside of the desk!

Missy: Is it manila?

Cecil: Yes! And it’s addressed to me. There’s a letter inside. It’s written on papyrus and you can tell it’s very old because it’s written in cursive. It says: “Dear Cecil how are you? We are fine. We’re sorry we didn’t write earlier, but we were unlearning our destinies. We had to unlearn so many things. Small steps, then larger ones, then larger until we were almost flying, but not quite flying because we had to unlearn our expectations and then unlearn our limitations, so we gave up on flying. Because that turns out not to work regardless of your expectations and no matter what you unlearn. So we relearned what we needed to. we’ve relearned so many essential things, Cecil, about work and love and complaining about work and love and – oh! And we took the case of booze! If you wanna find us, you’ll know us by our sign.” And then it’s signed with a smear of foam. No wait, this isn’t just any foam it’s – hold on! [sniffs] [tastes] Cappuccino!

Oh my goodness, I have to tell Ms Wilks that..

Missy: I’m still here.

Cecil: Oh! Miss Wilks! I know where the case of Canadian Club is!

Missy: Where?

Cecil: It’s in the cave lands outside of town. It’s been taken by the baristas!

Missy: Cecil! This is the worst possible news! The baristas are no match for buzz marketing street teams. The baristas are gentle people, soft of spirit and jolly of countenance, whose dreams are only influenced by the purest of the loves, not crowd sourced manipulations. The baristas are rosy-cheeked and innocent! They gamble like lambs, Cecil! You’ve got to warn them!

Cecil: OK, I will, I will. Thank you, Miss Wilks! Listeners, this is terrible, I-I-I don’t know what to do! I don’t like warning people about things, I mean warnings lead to consequences and we all know how much I avoid consequences. In fact, there’s only one way to be thoroughly insulated from consequence and – that’s to accumulate enough money. But I don’t have any money. As Station Management recently switched their payroll protocol from cash to Twitter followers and Groupons for local spas, so I’m kinda screwed.

Think, Cecil, think. Think think think think think.

Stay tuned next to the sounds of chewing amplified to the threshold of pain.

Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night!

Today’s proverb: People always say “before I die”, as if they haven’t already begun the process. 

Episode 118 - eGemony, Part 2: “The Cavelands”

Time is irrelevant and imaginary. 

And yet, somehow it seems we are out of it. 

Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, I have just returned from an odyssey. As you know, a case of Canadian Club whiskey was hidden in Night Vale over 40 years ago as part of a contest. And now, e-gemonee… edge-meny, edge-meny, edgem- eedgemon- e- that tech startup wants it back, so they can drink it and thus drink the soul of Night Vale. It turns out that the alcohol was spirited away by – oh, ahaha, spirited, that’s a good one, Cecil… by baristas.

I knew I had to warn them before the corporate prize contest and sweepstakes buzz marketing street teams located them. But that would mean going to a place from which no one has ever returned: the remote Cavelands of the baristas, deep under the Earth, where (Eritrean pourover) drips gently from stalagmites and latte foam rivers froth and bubble in cool stone cracks. We’re all pretty sure the Cavelands are under that crate behind the Ace Hardware, but no one goes down there because of the stench of espresso and the chilling sounds of Carly Simon’s greatest hits CD.

The underground society of the baristas is an insular one, and no outsider has met their king. Did you know that baristas have a king? I mean I didn’t, but my niece Janice knows all about which professions have monarchs and which like mm, ride sharing services, only have serpents wearing crowns. Janice still has her barista costume from last year’s careers parade.

So in order to investigate the Cavelands, I cloaked myself carefully in the necessary animal skins, as Janice directed, and slung over my shoulders the ceremonial spiky coffee hammer and the sweater vest with the correct number of arm holes. Janice and I took a quick online course in latte art. Janice was great at it. She made a photorealistic aspledium nidus fern, and I uh, I made a, rock of some kind.

Janice said she knew exactly how to finish my disguise, and she was right. I regarded myself in the Ace Hardware window, and I knew I was meant for that boldest, unruliest, most outlaw of mustaches: the rolly fingers! The final touch of a true barista. Rolly Fingers was the most famous king in barista history, and now every barista grows a long thick mustache that swirls at the ends, just like the former king Rolly. From these curls, baristas often hang sweeteners and spoons for customer service.

I flexed all my facial muscles tight, and within minutes, I had finessed my new thick mustache into lovely coils. It was sunset, the time when all the baristas return to the Ace Hardware parking lot, from their day labor jobs, or as they call them, “gigs” throughout greater Night Vale.

My plan was to simply blend among them. Blend [chuckling] oh my god blend, oh Cecil you’ve done it again. And so one by one, I smiled and waved at them, and we teased each other with sprays of hot steam, as is the way of baristas at the end of a long day. There were 10 of us, then 15, then perhaps 20, then 30, then 40, then 100 baristas. Baristas as far as the eye can see. So many baristas, all laughing and scalding each other with joviality. Then a very tall barista, whose animal pelts were dusted in silver, looked at me with suspicion. I put her mind at ease by calling out one of their familiar jokes. “Your mother is so tasteless, she orders her eggs ristretto!” I cried. The barista’s hardened face softened into a laugh and she called out: “Time to ride!”

Our steeds made quick work of the steep mile and a half descent below Ace Hardware. I could hear the faint echoes of Norah Jones, as we passed cuneiform style sketches of French presses on the rocky walls. Once we were in the caves, by the lights of torches dipped in (pinch), the baristas ambled to their bed rolls, their knapsacks, their (bindles), and all around the cave, I could see them unwrapping and dusting off and (-) [0:07:41] their instruments. I saw harmonicas, violins, ocarinas, banjoes, mouth harps, mouth pianos, mouth banjoes, (lip scissors), and those who had nothing to play brought out pots and pans to keep time. And we began – to sing.

[singing] “I’m a-dreaming of someone whose love is so swee-ee-eet,
[echoing] like (–) (cronut), 4000 fee-ee-eet,
oh my perfect love gives me endless bli-i-iss,
[another voice joining] never wants the wi-fi password
without puur-chaa-a-ase
I said he never asked for that wi-if password
Without a puur-chaa-aase.”

And then, without warning, one of the baristas made a gesture and the rest fell silent. They were all looking at me, listeners.

“He doesn’t know our anthem!” she said.
“No, I totally do,” I said. “I mean, I was definitely singing… something.”
The baristas closed in on me. “Don’t talk to me til I’ve had my coffee! Amirite?” I pleaded.

From the back, I heard a quiet but authoritative snarl. “It’s Cecil!” The baristas parted, all of them, and in the silence, I heard the shuffling of leather shoes, and I was face to face with the king of the baristas.

Listeners, we are all made up of goodness and not-so-goodness. We have conflicting impulses and we struggle to do right. We care to a lesser or greater extent whether our actions are moral, and if they will strike other people as immoral. This is true for all of us, you and me. Corporeal and otherwise. Everyone.

Except the King of Baristas. When I saw him, I knew immediately he had never once hesitated to do right. How did I know this? Maybe it was his beard, as his beard seemed kind. Or it was the way his eyes, his purple eyes crinkled with empathy. Or it was who the light glinted off his horns. In any case, listeners, he reminded me a little of a buffalo. And it’s hard not to trust a buffalo.

“Cecil,” he said. “We have been waiting for you. And by we I don’t mean the royal we, as we don’t believe in that, and I didn’t mean the royal we that second time either. All of us have been waiting for you, and not one of us believes in the royal we. And I love your mustache sooo much!” the king added in a baby voice as he pinched my cheek.
I explained that I came to the Cavelands for the booze. He said, “We’ll talk about that. But first, we need to talk about something more important. Your new sponsor.”

I said, “Our sponsor, you mean money? Did you know it’s available in twenties now?”
He said: “Do not speak to us of the attractiveness of money! Money is cursed! And of course everything that is cursed is attractive, otherwise the curse wouldn’t be a problem.”
He said that and I thought it was pretty smart. I mean, all of the cursed objects around the station are really fun to play with. Until an intern gets hurt. Like Gustav the other day, who found radium squish ball from one of our old statin promotions.

Oh, quick aside: to the family of Gustav, he was a distracted intern, and he will be missed.

The king said, “How many times has a person done something awful and you can’t understand why it happened? Only for the reason to be – money! If there were a drug with the same side effects money has, it would be illegal.”
“Um, maybe we can talk about this later?” I said. “There are eGemony corporate prize contest and sweepstakes buzz marketing street teams heading this way now! You’ll be defenseless against them! They’ll round you up into tech campus relaxation zones and make you play videogames and drink energy shakes and and learn PowerPoint! You’ll be trapped for eternity!”

He said, “OH Cecil. They came already. There was a squadron of them, hideous and flickering shadows with smiles of black fire, driving branded cars with terrible posture. And all of them were cheery and wearing shorts and saying things like “devOps”.

I asked if the street teams found what they were looking for. The King of the Baristas said: “We have taken care of them.”
And with his big hands, his big nimble hands, he reached into the matted animal skins on his chest, and he sorted through necklaces made of tiny bird skulls and Splenda packets.
He fished out a thin badge that was embossed with the eGemony logo. It still had the rampant weasels and the cheerfully crossed (–) [0:13:52] mushrooms. But the name, the name on the badge, was ground away.
“This,” the King of the Baristas said, “is all that’s left of them.”
And he let out a little chuckle. If I could grade it on a scale between mirthful and mirthless, it was on the mirthful side of things. But there was also a bit of self-knowledge in it, as if the person chuckling were aware that to completely abandon himself to pleasure was to be unmoored from the realities of existence.

He said the street team had covertly arrived over four years ago, in the dead of night, and worked their way to my desk. They recovered the case of Canadian Club and in celebration they opened a single bottle. They passed it around, and each one drank from it. But when they drank the soul of the time, they became infused with it. by the time each had finished a single sip, they had become a part of this place, and the place had become a part of them.
“Do you understand, Cecil?” he asked.
And I exclaimed, “I get it! Rather than absorbing Night Vale’s soul, Night Vale’s soul absorbed them! So… We’re all good. Problems always solve themselves. Thank you, King of the Baristas!”

There was an uncomfortably long pause. Every barista was staring silently at me. And I worried that maybe this was a disrespectful way to address the king. I coughed a bit and then tried again with a classic barista joke to lighten the mood. “Your mother’s so overcome with ennui that she-“
“Cecil,” the king interrupted. “We, the baristas, are the eGemony corporate prize contest and sweepstakes buzz marketing street team! Once we had become a part of Night Vale, we knew what we had to do,” he said.
And I said, “Ooooooo, I can’t wait to find out! But can I check the weather report just really quick?”
And he said, “Sure. Go ahead.”

[“Glitter” by Charly Bliss]

The king repeated: “We knew what we had to do.” He cackled a bit. “Have you ever noticed how, at one point, there were no baristas here, and then suddenly there were many, many baristas? Did it seem strange to you that every café now had a barista? And every restaurant and market, pawn shop and dry cleaner’s? And how the vacant lots are no longer truly vacant, because they are populated by baristas? Have you noticed baristas at the Antiques Mall, in the DMV, and close to but not in the Dog Park? And the ones who run alongside cars as they’re leaving the highway, to offers drivers shots of espresso? Have you noticed how no new buildings pass the city planning department, unless ther’es a four-foot-by-four-foot space for a barista to stand? Didn’t that strike you as strange?
Did it strike you as strange that your choices at any coffee establishment were only espresso, or espresso with a shot of Canadian Club?”

The king said to me, wisely, carefully, giddily: “Cecil. After being absorbed in the soul of Night Vale, we knew we needed to save our city. So we served it to you. We served Night Vale, its own soul. Night Vale has drunk itself, and in the process become as much itself as any town could ever be.

By then, the sun was starting to rise, and some of the baristas had settled down and were cuddling and grooming each other in their little barista beds, as the fire in the cave was now turning to embers, and there were small ashes flittering like moths around the sierra cups and chemex graphs and wind-powered aeropresses that cluttered every surface. 

I felt relief knowing the baristas were safe. And also confusion, knowing they had once been a tech company social influence marketing effort. But also, civic pride, as Night Vale is darned good at defending itself against people who want to steal and drink our souls. But also itchiness, because of the animal pelts and long twirly mustache.

“The time of worry isn’t over, Cecil,” the king said. “In fact, it is only beginning. eGemony won’t care that Night Vale’s soul is safe. They’ll send another street team and another, until they’ve figured out how to distill our souls. And do you know why, Cecil? It’s because of – money.”

Listeners, this is terrible news! Mostly because I really don’t like to hear bad things said about our station’s sponsors.

“Cecil, we need you to renounce money as a sponsor. Do you know what’s more important than money? We do. We have taken steps this night, while you were here, your show is now sponsored not by but by – love. Love is the way forward against eGemony!”
I said “Uh huh,” but I said it with skepticism, like exactly the way a cashier would if someone were about to buy something clutching a handful of love. Then I said, “suuuure,” but like really sarcastically like you do after a poetry reading.

He said: “Your battle is not yet over. eGemony wants that case of Canadian Club, even if it no longer exists. They’re going to use every one of their tools. They’ll use violence, intimidation, social media, dreamfluencing, viral marketing, even science! They will win, unless you figure out a way to repel them!”
And I said, “Um pardon me, did you say that they’ll use science?”
And he thought about it and agreed that he had at some point said that. Science, he said, was one of eGemony’s mightiest weapons, and the King of the Baristas said that he wished he knew of some way to fight against it. As soon as he said, I stood to my full height, which is one third taller than my three-quarters height. Listeners, I must admit I was moved enough to actually put my hands by my hips, and my hands were fists, listeners. fists! And I said, “Oh, I know how to fight back. There is only one weapon mightier than science, and that is – more science.”
And the king looked at me with amazement, as if I had unsuspected depths, and he said, “Do you know science?”

Do I, listeners, do I?

Next time, I’ll answer that question, but spoiler alert: gosh, heck yeah, of course.

Stay tuned next for Adolescent X-team Karate Bedbugs, the show your grandma thinks you like, because she never understood you.

Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.

Today’s proverb: Why would you wanna think outside the box? The box is steel and locked and buried deeply underground. It’s so safe here. Why would you want to leave?