In 1938, a radio dramatization of H. G. Wells’ 1898 novel The War of the Worlds caused panicked listeners to flee their homes in fear of an actual alien invasion. I love that. I love the idea of radio dramas—of sitting and listening, eyes closed and imagination gone wild. We don’t get a lot of radio dramas in the U.S. anymore. Most of our radio time is music and news, which is, you know, fine.
They still do radio dramas in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. You have to look around, but they are still kicking, which is a great thing if you happen to like the same things I do.
You’re probably the sort of person who likes the same sorts of things I do. It’s not terribly hard to like something that I like—the range of things that entertain me is extremely broad. For example, I like things that are realistic, except when they are not. Things that could almost be set in the world we live in, with just the slightest hint of the strange and unexplainable. For example, a podcast called Welcome to Night Vale.
Each episode of Welcome to Night Vale is set up as a broadcast from Night Vale Community Radio in Night Vale, a town located somewhere in the desert. The host of the show is Cecil Baldwin, a man whom we must assume is a lifelong resident of Night Vale, as he never questions the existence of the Sheriff’s Secret Police or the angels that visit Old Woman Josie.
Cecil is devoted to his town and also to Carlos, the scientist who has come to town to investigate the wide range of bizarre occurrences that the townspeople themselves seem completely used to. There are five-headed dragons running for mayor, mysterious hooded figures in the dog park, strange lights in Radon Canyon and a Glow Cloud that once rained small animals upon the town and now sits on the Board of Education, to name just a few of the things your average Night Vale resident takes for granted.
I imagine that if someone from another universe were to walk accidentally into ours, they would feel much the same way that I feel when I listen to Welcome to Night Vale—amused and occasionally unnerved. And yes, sometimes I think about other universes. Science is cool, okay?
The show is produced by a multimedia company called Commonplace Books and is co-written by its co-owners, Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. New episodes come out twice a month (so far there are 31) and can be found on iTunes. So if that’s the sort of thing that you’re interested in, let me just say, welcome to Night Vale.
If odd stories with strange and unexplained goings-on are your kind of thing but podcasts just aren’t, here are some other options:
You could travel back in time with David Lynch to the year 1990 and spend 30 episodes with FBI Agent Dale Cooper as he tries to solve the murder of Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks, Washington is a strange little town full of strange little people, my favorite of whom is affectionately called The Log Lady because she takes a log of wood with her everywhere she goes. I kid you not.
Or, you could look into Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. This is the story of orphans with strange abilities. It was inspired by the author’s love for old photographs and the way sometimes they messed up and made it look as if that little girl in the corner has no face. Those sorts of pictures are included in the book, and I will confess that I was very much afraid of them.
If strange little towns full of strange little people are your thing, but you’d rather be happy, try these.
Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of vignettes about the inhabitants of a small town in the late 1800s. The characters are not easily forgotten and are certainly up to their own era-appropriate shenanigans, such as running naked through town one night in the rain.
And of course, there is always room for a trip to Stars Hollow, Conn., where you can enjoy the constant pop-culture references of The Gilmore Girls while also being disappointed that Luke and Lorelai didn’t get together the minute they met. This is not a spoiler, don’t worry.
I hope that you give Welcome to Night Vale a listen and that you enjoy the episodes as much as I do (and if you do, please check out the Welcome Night Vale tag on Tumblr, because good grief there is some fantastic fanart out there). If there’s something that you’ve totally fallen in love with and want to tell the world about, let me know—I’m always looking for new things to love.
