Bonus Episode - December 2020 (Patreon)

Hi, Patreon! It's time once again for Cecil to answer your questions. (transcript below)

Music: Disparition http://disparition.bandcamp.com

Logo: Rob Wilson http://robwilsonwork.com

Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. http://welcometonightvale.com

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Check out our books, live shows, store, membership program, and official recap show.

Produced by Night Vale Presents. http://nightvalepresents.com

TRANSCRIPT:

CECIL: Welcome to Night Vale. And welcome to another round of listener questions.

Our first question comes from Anton Yegorov. Anton asks: You’re a great radio host, Cecil. Have you ever thought of starting a podcast?

Well, Anton, I’m not that young anymore, so I don’t know all of the “cool lingo” that the “rad teens” are using like “podcast” and “Yegorov.” And here I’m doing “spider fangs” with my fingers to indicate quotation marks.

But yes I have thought of starting a podcast. I’ve heard it’s like radio but with more murder, so that sounds super interesting to me. In fact, you might be hearing more about that soon.

Our next question comes from Maya (my-uh) Brown. Maya queries: “We all know how you spend your evenings, talking to us listeners on the radio, but what’s the rest of your daily routine typically like?”

How do people know how I spend my evenings, Maya? Do you work for a vague yet menacing government agency, sitting in your black sedan outside my home, recording my every breath, my every step, and then reporting back to the shady suits in your secret office and then asking them to tell everyone what I’ve been doing?

Because if so… that’s pretty cool. That’s a very good job. I hear the pay is decent, but the benefits are outstanding. Do they tell you all the most confidential information? I think that’d be a cool job if they told you what really happened in Roswell in 1947. I mean, of course, the government wants us to believe that a space ship crash landed in the desert, but conspiracy buffs like me know the real truth: that there are giants living among us and they play disc golf, but they’re super bad at it.

If you could verify that for me, Maya that’d be great.

Oh, also my daily routine is pretty boring. I have my morning shower and coffee. I read the newspaper and play with Esteban. And then once he’s down for his afternoon nap, I hop on Etsy and sell handcrafted yoga mats that I make out of uneaten lettuce. Reuse, recycle, reduce, Maya!

Next question: Jenny S wants to know: “Cecil, are you scared of spiders or not?”

Of course not, Jenny. I mean, not irrationally anyway. Spiders are super helpful, in that they eat other, more annoying insects like mosquitos and flies and chipmunks. Plus they’re pretty cool looking with all those legs and eyes, just geometrically, spiders are very pleasing. But there are times when it’s good to be scared of spiders, because many of them are venomous. We should all do our research into the most dangerous spiders here in the southwest:

There’s the black widow, which is identifiable by its bulbous hind quarters with a big red mark on it. Black widows can be found mostly in gardens, so look closely before pruning that rose bush.

Also the brown recluse is a tiny little thing with a big bite. They’re not much larger than an ant with a little fiddle-shaped white mark on their back. Brown recluses tend to hide in stacks of wood. They’re not aggressive unless disturbed.

The other highly-dangerous spiders include: the orange heartthrob, the blue misogynist, the yellow cynic, and the violet techgeek. Each of these can be found, in abundance, on your shoulder right now. So be careful out there.

Oh, here’s a fun question from Maddie: “Who is your favorite fashion designer?” That’s an easy one, Maddie. I’ve always been a Pierre Cardin guy. His suits are elegant and sharp, but with a flare for the dramatic. Cardin mastered the art of the men’s button down dress shirt when he added three extra collars and got rid of the buttons entirely, replacing them with fishhooks.

My favorite Cardin in my wardrobe right now is this enormous jewel, clear and crisp, like a diamond, but a little bit lavender in shade. It sits inside a velvet-lined iron box, and at night it radiates with light and heat. There’s a tiny bit of smoke or steam that comes off of the container, which I think is the gem growing? Or mutating? Or maybe it’s just agitated. I mean, we’re all agitated these days, who can blame it? But the neat thing about this particular article of clothing is that if you stand near it (the guy at TJ Maxx told me 10 feet is a marginally safe distance), you suddenly know Aramaic. Aramaic is a dead language, so I’m not sure how I know that it’s Aramaic my mind is speaking, but I just know. Maybe because I saw that movie Passion of the Christ – you know? the one about the hitman who goes on a killing spree after some gangsters kill his dog? it starred Keanu Reeves and was done entirely in Aramaic with subtitles. Anyway, that cursed stone is my favorite piece from Cardin’s stunning catalog. Sometimes, on date nights or formal occasions, I’ll wear that gem in a lead-lined chest buried deep in the earth. It makes me feel so handsome and confident.

Thanks Maddie!

And here’s a question from Lisa Yoon. Lisa asks: Cecil, what’s your favorite book?

I’ve always liked horror novels. I love the classics: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula 2: New Moon, and Shirley Jackson’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. But my favorite book is Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. It’s a dark psychological thriller about a young woman, named Rebecca, who by day is a regular high school student in Sunnydale California, but by night she has to slay vampires. 

I also like reading good nonfiction books, too. So I’d say a close second for me is Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller: All Anecdotes Are Universal Facts.

Finally, we’ve received numerous requests for an update on Khoshekh. Thank you, listeners, for asking. Khoshekh and his kittens are doing great. Although the kittens are no longer kittens, they’re fully grown adult cats now, with sharp spines and giant black eyes all over their face and neck. They still act like kittens, though. They like to play with string and scream in unison on humid, moonless nights and chew on the porcelain corners of the sink. It’s adorable, but their saliva is acidic, and the sink is a smoldering useless heap these days. It looks like discarded chewing gum, and we have to use the breakroom now to wash our hands. 

Khoshekh is getting pretty old. I’m not sure how old he was when I first found him 8 years ago, but i’m guessing at least a century? He’s a bit hard of hearing, probably because the other cats shriek so much whenever they catch a deer, which is almost weekly. Plus, Khoshekh has developed a bit of a limp. Carlos thinks he might have arthritis, but given that Khoshekh can only float and never has to walk, I’m not too worried about that. 

But he’s a sweet old man. He purrs everytime I come in to freshen his water dish, and sometimes he nuzzles up next to my waist. I have to wear a hazardous materials suit before I can allow him to touch me, which takes several minutes to take on and off, but a cat’s love is worth it. 

Thanks again for listening.

Stay tuned next for a thousand years of silence followed by a child’s voice ringing out suddenly, saying “Again!” 

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.