Criminal

PHOEBE JUDGE: In 1994, Laurence Henwik lived an easily unnoticed life. He worked at the cell phone kiosk at the mall, did his grocery shopping late at night, and mostly kept to himself. His few friends were those he had known since high school, and he only saw them one or two times a year. He was polite, and orderly, and kept the world out. And maybe this would have lasted the rest of his life, if he had not let his car registration lapse.

A routine traffic stop led a suspicious officer to obtain a search warrant on Laurence’s house. And what the Sheriff’s Secret Police would find would put him in the record books of US law enforcement. A collection of material considered so illegal and so vile, that many agents refused to transport it to the station. Laurence Henwik was in possession of the largest collection of writing utensils in the country.

I’m Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

CECIL 1

CECIL: Listeners, something has changed for our quiet little town. It seems that the rest of the country has become aware of our existence. I don’t know what that means for us. We are usually such private people, content with our corner of the world. I hope this doesn’t affect real estate values or property taxes and the like. But then, maybe tourism would help boost our economy a bit. I suppose we shall just have to wait and see.

The Sporkful

DAN PASHMAN: This is the Sporkful. It’s not for foodies. It’s for eaters. I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. When we talk about pizza, we don’t talk enough about the crust. There’s thin crust, cheese-stuffed crust, thick crust. But no matter what crust you prefer, it’s not a pizza without it. Right? Maybe not. On today’s show we talk with Rico Goldblum, owner of Big Rico’s Pizza in Night Vale. As their saying goes: “No one does a slice like Big Rico. No one.” And that might be true. All of Rico’s pizza’s are crust free. How do you eat that, let alone cook it. Let’s find out.

Steve

STEVE CARLSBERG: Hey, your friend host Steve Carlsberg here, and it’s time for Dotted Lines, the only podcast to give you the truth behind Night Vale’s lies. Today I have my daughter Janice on to talk about the total lack of wheelchair accessibility at the Mudstone Abyss.

You Must Remember This

KARINA LONGWORTH: Lee Marvin was many things.

A decorated Marine, whose medals included the Purple Heart, but who was discharged as a Private after being demoted for trouble-making.

A Western actor whose work in Cat Ballou earned him an Academy Award, and a man who turned down a starring role in Jaws because he thought it would make him look silly.

A veteran who publicly opposed the Vietnam war, and the defendant in the case of Marvin vs. Marvin, which established the concept of “palimony”, the financial support of a former partner to whom a person was never married. One of the lawyers in that case, by the way, was also named Marvin.

But least known of all is Lee Marvin’s later life, after he moved to a town called Night Vale. A strange little desert town, almost unknown to the rest of the world, in which Lee Marvin would turn 30. And then turn 30 again. Over and over, every single day a birthday. Time would cease to move for Lee Marvin.

To be honest, when I first researched this story, it hardly seemed possible. I still find it difficult to comprehend. Join us, won’t you? For the story of Lee Marvin, in Night Vale.

Oh No Ross and Carrie

ROSS BLOCHER: Welcome to Oh No Ross and Carrie

CARRIE POPPY: We show up so you don’t have to!

ROSS: So this week

CARRIE: Hoo, this was a wild one

ROSS: This week we checked out the Joyful Church of the Smiling God and it was…

CARRIE: Well, we’re smiling.

ROSS: We’re definitely smiling. Very painful. It won’t stop and I think it’s permanent and it’s very painful.

TED Radio Hour

MANOUSH ZOMORODI: It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Today on the show, wheat & wheat by-products. Can they be trusted?

Comedy Bang Bang

SCOTT AUKERMAN: This episode of Comedy Bang Bang is brought to you by yearn.com. Ever yearned? What a pain that is. Sitting by the window, looking at the sky, feeling specific emptiness. Ugh. Every one of us does it all day every day, and it leaves little time to eat or sleep or make long running comedy podcasts. Well, now there’s yearn.com. You tell us what you’re yearning for, and one of our professional yearners will yearn for it on your behalf. Yearn.com. Yearn better. Yearn now. Ok, back to the show. We’re here with Lee Marvin, star of the new HBO sitcom, Howard’s End

My Brother My Brother and Me

JUSTIN MCELROY: Brothers: For years, my brother-in-law was pretty mean to me. He works at the local community radio station, and he would tell lies about me from his position there…

TRAVIS MCELROY: Oof.

JUSTIN: …telling his listeners, for instance, that my scones lack salt and are tasteless, which is ridiculous.

TRAVIS: No!

JUSTIN: I am an excellent scone baker. Everybody who’s ever made scones feels like they’re good at scones.

TRAVIS: Well, if you can make them to begin with, it’s already an achievement.

JUSTIN: Recently, we have reached a point of understanding and are now quite friendly. Sometimes, however, I feel like his niceness can be just as aggressive as his former meanness. He still talks about me on the radio, and he shouts compliments about me to the government agents tasked with watching my house. It’s overly friendly, and it makes both me and the government agents feel uncomfortable. How can I help him find a balance between his former malice and his current well intentioned but overly friendly behavior? What do you think, Trav?

Worst Idea of All Time

TIM BATT: Hello Guy.

GUY MONTGOMERY: Hello Tim.

TIM: Welcome to another episode of Worst Idea of All Time, a title that feels, if I’m honest, more and more literal every episode.

GUY: Sort of a joke at first, but now more like an eternal torment.

TIM: Yes, so we are watching the movie Grown Ups 2, once a week. This is our, uh, 10,003rd watch. So that puts it at…

GUY: Just around 190 years we’ve been doing this.

TIM: Here in this gray room, where there is nothing but a gray coach and a single TV that only plays Grown Ups 2 once a week and otherwise does not function.

GUY: It’s a grim existence, Tim.

TIM: It really is. What was your shining light this week?

GUY: I had a dream that we escaped this room. A beautiful dream of freedom. I felt light on my face, saw the sun, but then I woke up, and I was here.

CECIL 2

CECIL: Well, it seems that our existence is causing something of an uproar for the rest of the country. I’m not clear why. We are just one small town, ordinary in most ways. We are Americans, like you, unless you are not American, in which case, unlike you. Surely this clamor and outcry is unnecessary for a town as tiny as ours? But what do I know of the world? Honestly, very little.

Bad With Money

GABY DUNN: I’m Gaby Dunn. This is Bad With Money. Ok. Today we’re talking about how money works in a very strange place. I’m sure you’ve seen the news. I don't have to tell you. We’ve all discovered that there is a town called Night Vale in the American Southwest and….it’s very weird. It’s just, wow, a very strange place in more ways than I have time to summarize here, but it might surprise you to learn that what I thought was: Huh, how does money work in a place where, until recently, time didn’t even work? Money is so much a trust game, the belief that currency will still be worth something by the time you get around to spending it. How does that trust game work in a place with a literal Sheriff’s Secret Police. To find out, I hopped on the phone with a couple citizens of the town. The first was named The Glow Cloud, let’s hear what they had to say,

[strange, ethereal singing sound]

Pod Save America

Today on the Pod, the discovery of a town called Night Vale within the US borders in which every known law of physics and metaphysics is broken, and what does that mean for the upcoming special elections in Minnesota? Also, Biden looking at cutting funding to a Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, can he do that, and should he?

Underunderstood

ADRIENNE JEFFRIES: Hey everyone.

JOHN LAGOMARSINO: Hey Adrienne.

ADRIENNE: What do you know about the town of Night Vale?

BILLY DISNEY: The town of Night Vale…

JOHN: ….You know, kind of everything. I just woke up recently, and the knowledge was seared into my mind, and I knew about this place. And everything about the town is impossible, but my knowledge of it is absolute and involutate

[pause]

ADRIENNE: Yeah, me too. [beat] [quietly] Me too.

Michelle

MICHELLE NGUYEN: Welcome to the Dark Owl Podcast, I’m Michelle Nguyen. And you are definitely not cool enough to listen to my music opinions. End of episode, goodbye.

The Allusionist

HELEN ZALTZMAN: This is the Allusionist in which I, Helen Zaltzman, try to find language on a map. There it is. It’s up near the top, right next to the Great Lakes. This episode is about Michigan, or is it Mitchigan, or Minstacan. No two people have ever agreed how to pronounce the word. And if you’ve never heard of Menschiten, you’re not alone. It’s widely considered the least recognizable state in America.

The Dollop

DAVE ANTHONY: So the guy sees a dark planet lit by no sun.

GARETH REYNOLDS: Dave.

DAVE: Above his workplace. What?

GARETH: Dave I don’t like where this is going.

DAVE: So he decided to move to Night Vale.

GARETH: I knew it! Every time.

YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT

SARAH MARSHALL: I’m Sarah Marshall, I’m working on a book about the Satanic Panic

MICHAEL HOBBES: And I’m Michael Hobbes. I’m a reporter for the Huffington Post

SARAH: And on this episode of You’re Wrong About, we’re going to talk about The Mudstone Abyss.

MICHAEL: Oooh, this is like Boston’s Big Dig, but in the desert.

PURRRCAST

STEVEN RAY MORRIS: Shall we get to our listener mail?

SARA IYER: Our first email is from Cecil Gershwin-Palmer. Cecil says “Hi Purrrcast, My cat Khoshekh (pronounced KOH-sheck) and I listen to your show all the time. He doesn’t photograph well, but here’s the best picture I own.”

STEVEN: This photo is completely dark.

SARA: No wait look. There’s a faint outline

STEVEN: Wow. Are those wings?

SARA: It’s a cat, Steven. Not a bird. No, those are clearly tentacles.

LORE

AARON MAHNKE: Everyone has a blind spot. It’s literally the place on the retina where the optic nerve connects to the eye. No visual information is collected there, which leaves a blank in our vision. But it’s not obvious like a hole in a photo, or a smudge on a window. No, even the existence of a blind spot is a blind spot to us.

We don’t see what’s missing because our brain fills in the rest of the image. We think we are seeing everything we see. But we are not.

So in 2012, when landscapers in the small desert town of Night Vale discovered The House That Wasn’t There, a scientist explained it as simply a trick of the mind. A blind spot. The house was right there when you looked at it, and it was between two other identical houses so it would have made more sense for it to be there than not. But after years of research, the scientist concluded that the house didn’t exist at all.

But that scientist discovered a blind spot of his own.

I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is LORE.

HELLO FROM THE MAGIC TAVERN

ARNIE NIEKAMP: Hello from the Magic Tavern, a weekly podcast from the magical land of Foon. I’m Arnie Niekamp, and 6 years and a couple of months ago I fell through a dimensional portal behind a Ralphs in the town of Night Vale, and into the magical fantastical land of Foon.

USIDORE (MATT YOUNG): And I am Usidore, wizard of the twelfth … Who is this Ralph?!

ARNIE: Ralph’s not a person, Usidore. Ralphs is a grocery store chain on my world.

USIDORE: Liar!

CHUNT (Adal Rifai): And why were you behind Ralph? Were you trying to surprise him? Or puke?

ARNIE: I was behind Ah Ralphs, not behind a guy named Ralph. And I was just huddling with some of my buds. Like you do.

USIDORE: Who is this A-Ralphs?

CHUNT: Huddle buds. I want us to be huddle buds.

ARNIE: Chunt, we are huddle buds. Come on. Let’s go behind a Ralph.

CHUNT: Blue! Wizard! 42! Huddle! Huddle!

USIDORE: Hike!

CHUNT: My legs are so sore. We just hiked yesterday.

ARNIE: There’s something about it not as satisfying if it’s not behind a Ralphs.

CHUNT: Wreck it.

Whatever Happened to Pizza at McDonald’s

BRIAN THOMPSON: Welcome to Whatever Happened to Pizza at McDonalds, an investigative journalism program, or IJP, in which I, Brian Thompson, try to find out what happened to pizza at McDonalds. Many of you have written in to inform me that there is a McDonalds in the town of Night Vale. This McDonalds does not serve pizza, but it does have a hole in the back that they call the pizza hole. It’s a small hole in the wall, near the storeroom, and customers are encouraged to crawl into the pizza hole. No customer has ever returned from such a trip. I knew I had to give them a call.

Song Exploder v2

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Welcome to Song Exploder, I’m Hrishikesh Hirway. Michelle Nguyen is the owner of the legendary music shop Dark Owl Records, and a champion of underappreciated music forms. But few people know she was also the leader of the early 2000’s music collective Hands Legs Mouths Horizon, best known for their 2003 single Buzz. In today’s episode, Michelle breaks down Buzz, starting with the demo she made by shaking a bee hive, and her work with producer Max Martin who convinced her to update her sound by shaking a wasp hive instead. ‘

MAINTENANCE PHASE

AUBREY GORDON: This is Maintenance Phase, the podcast that turns snakes back into wheat & wheat-by-products.

MICHAEL HOBBES: Aubrey, I just want to eat a normal loaf of bread again.

DEB AS RICK STEVES

DEB: Hi, I’m Deb the Sentient Patch of Haze, and welcome to Night Vale Through the Side Window, your travel companion to all the wonders and delights of Night Vale. Today we’ll be looking at the best hikes for kids in Radon Canyon, how to eat like a local at the Moonlite All-Nite, and how to leave Night Vale. Spoiler, it’s really hard, and you probably can’t.

HIDDEN BRAIN

SHANKAR VEDANTAM: This is Hidden Brain. I’m Shankar Vedantam. When John Peters was 17 years old, he was an elite baseball player. Major League scouts loved his strength, his speed, and his mechanics, but before he graduated high school, John inherited his family farm. And he gave up his hopes of playing professional sports… to grow invisible corn. Today on the show: Hometown Blues. Why we choose to stay in the communities where we are raised, and is it possible to leave?

PLANET MONEY

MARY CHILDS: Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I’m Mary Childs.

SARAH GONZALEZ: And I’m Sarah Gonzalez. Today on the show, what happens when a billionaire dies and leaves all of his money, as he phrased it in his will, to “the hierarchy of angels.”

MARY: And what do we make of the conspiracy theories that the late investor Marcus Vanston is still operating his business from beyond the grave?

99% Invisible

ROMAN MARS: This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. [music] If you were a resident of the small desert town of Night Vale in the last 10 years, you probably heard radio commercials that went like this.

CECIL: Listeners, are you lost? Don't know where to turn? Might I recommend THE BROWN STONE SPIRE? Do you need cash? Cast your eyes to THE BROWN STONE SPIRE.

ROMAN: The Brown Stone Spire. It’s a real structure, but no one knew what the ads were selling, or who was paying for them to play multiple times a day.

MISSY WILKES: We were inspired by crystals. You know how crystals have a voice, but not one you can hear, just a resonance that speaks to you, up through your bones, into your viscera, and then overtakes your soul? That was the impetus for our marketing campaign, and it’s been hugely successful.

ROMAN: That's Missy Wilks. She lives in Night Vale. She's also the Director of Community Outreach for Wendy's.

CECIL 3

CECIL: And so it goes. The world is talking about us now. After all these years, we have taken our place in the conversation. Well, I suppose it is nice to be talked about, now and then. But I don’t’ think we should get used to it. Surely they’ll move on, once some new headline distracts. A plane crash or blight or the visiting king of a galactic civilization. These things come and these things go.

But if you are a new listener, I welcome you. You are all welcome here. Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

PROVERB: Hope for the best. Prepare for the best, too. It’s going to be great. What could go wrong?

[POST-CREDITS: My Brother My Brother and Me answer]