Best of the Web – Welcome to Night Vale

(Best of the Web is an occasional series of posts where I highlight websites that I think bring out the best of what the web can be.  The choices and the standards upon which they are made are entirely my own)


Welcome to Night Vale (podcasts)  is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events.


It was inevitable that I was going to love this podcast series.  Focusing on the voice of the community radio station, Cecil Gershwin Palmer, as he takes us through the day to day events in this quiet desert town.  This has the feel of an old time radio serial as well plus elements of mystery, science fiction and absurdist theater.  Having grown up on “The Twilight Zone” and been a fan as an adult of “Twin Peaks”, “The X-Files” and “Lost” the chances that I wouldn’t at least try WTNV were vanishingly small.


Once you are introduced to the dog park where dogs (and people and even looking into the dog park) is banned, where the Sheriff’s Secret Police send in public service announcements for Cecil to read, where street cleaning day gives rise to terror and Valentine’s Day is an annual trial for the community to survive I don’t think it’s possible to resist regular trips to Night Vale (and you shouldn’t resist, you mustn’t resist).  Before you’ve listened to a dozen episodes you will be able to anticipate Cecil and say certain phrases right along with him (“John Peters, you know, the farmer” and “Old lady Josie who lives out near the carlot”).  Everything is just a half a bubble off and you will never listen to local media the same way again.


What really makes this stand out from so much of the rest is the quality of the writing and the virtuoso performance of  Cecil Baldwin as Cecil Gershwin Palmer.  The writing is done by the series creators Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (with contributions by a wide range of other writers during the course of the series).  The consistently high quality of that writing is rather astounding all by itself.  When delivered in the low key delivery of Baldwin it is riveting.  When Cecil (the character) suddenly grows animated about something (usually Carlos.  No spoilers here, you’ll have to discover the wonder of Carlos for yourself) it provides the perfect counterpoint to usual unflappability of the voice of Night Vale.


Today WTNV is the most downloaded podcast on iTunes, it has it’s own touring show and a novel in the works.  Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it can’t also be the best of what is on the web.  WTNV manages both.


Come to the land where time runs at its own pace and every conspiracy theory is a banal part of daily life.  Explore how creative, hysterically funny and skin crawlingly creepy a podcast can be.


Welcome to Night Vale.


It’s what the Internet can be, at its best.