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Oct. 15th, 2013 05:20 pmListened to Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds on the weekend and found myself considering it as a possible influence upon WtNV:
Thematic -- Poetically horrifying descriptions of unearthly things, with an emphasis on humanity’s minor place in a vast unfriendly universe. Reporters maintaining a professional but ineffectual calm in the middle of all this.
Report sometimes cuts to music (“Raymond Raquello and his orchestra, playing at the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel situated in downtown New York.”) and occasional weather reports. Not combined, though.
Interviewing a Scientist (Astronomer Prof. Pearson, voiced by Welles)
Influence perhaps most clearly seen in the elastic nature of time as events are reported: The professor, and reporter Carl Phillips, apparently teleport from Pearson’s lab in Princeton to Grover’s Mill; where a witness promptly mentions that he’d been listening to the Professor’s interview (that we were listening to three or five minutes earlier) when the meteor came down.
Later, Carl Phillips in New Jersey describes the Martian attack and the radio cuts out; someone back at CBS apologizes for the technical difficulties, and quotes an astronomer in another part of the country as having just declared confidently that the strange explosions on Mars were totally not a spaceship was being launched to Earth.
Then thirty seconds later, reports of the carnage come in, and a military response is mounted, and all hell begins to break loose. Long pauses begin to crop up as microphones go dead. After about twenty minutes, we’re left with a lone radio operator trying to figure out if anyone else is either on the air or listening.
With a podcast, a listener generally has to make a conscious choice to download and listen, so they not only know it’s fiction, they’re more likely to play close attention (plus there’s the option to listen to it over again); hence WtNV fans are very aware that Cecil is getting suspiciously detailed and rapid updates, and frequently interpret this as an in-story clue that he’s clairvoyant.
The second half is mainly first-person narration, and Prof. Pearson has a lot of existential doubts: “Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands to wind the clocks?”
I’m beginning to think of the Artilleryman as Steve Carlsberg. If they’d had the word “sheeple” in 1938 he’d have been throwing it around.
I’m still at work, so I haven’t yet had the opportunity to listen to Ep. 33, “Cassette.” I did look at a transcript though, and have a few initial thoughts below the cut. ( Read more... )
Thematic -- Poetically horrifying descriptions of unearthly things, with an emphasis on humanity’s minor place in a vast unfriendly universe. Reporters maintaining a professional but ineffectual calm in the middle of all this.
Report sometimes cuts to music (“Raymond Raquello and his orchestra, playing at the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel situated in downtown New York.”) and occasional weather reports. Not combined, though.
Interviewing a Scientist (Astronomer Prof. Pearson, voiced by Welles)
Influence perhaps most clearly seen in the elastic nature of time as events are reported: The professor, and reporter Carl Phillips, apparently teleport from Pearson’s lab in Princeton to Grover’s Mill; where a witness promptly mentions that he’d been listening to the Professor’s interview (that we were listening to three or five minutes earlier) when the meteor came down.
Later, Carl Phillips in New Jersey describes the Martian attack and the radio cuts out; someone back at CBS apologizes for the technical difficulties, and quotes an astronomer in another part of the country as having just declared confidently that the strange explosions on Mars were totally not a spaceship was being launched to Earth.
Then thirty seconds later, reports of the carnage come in, and a military response is mounted, and all hell begins to break loose. Long pauses begin to crop up as microphones go dead. After about twenty minutes, we’re left with a lone radio operator trying to figure out if anyone else is either on the air or listening.
With a podcast, a listener generally has to make a conscious choice to download and listen, so they not only know it’s fiction, they’re more likely to play close attention (plus there’s the option to listen to it over again); hence WtNV fans are very aware that Cecil is getting suspiciously detailed and rapid updates, and frequently interpret this as an in-story clue that he’s clairvoyant.
The second half is mainly first-person narration, and Prof. Pearson has a lot of existential doubts: “Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands to wind the clocks?”
I’m beginning to think of the Artilleryman as Steve Carlsberg. If they’d had the word “sheeple” in 1938 he’d have been throwing it around.
I’m still at work, so I haven’t yet had the opportunity to listen to Ep. 33, “Cassette.” I did look at a transcript though, and have a few initial thoughts below the cut. ( Read more... )
Got up to episode 25 ("One Year Later") of Welcome to Night Vale, and have also been looking over the fanfic. It amuses me that the standard tags for it include "Cecil is Human," "Cecil is Mostly Human," "Cecil is Inhuman," and "Eldritch Abomination Cecil." Also, there's at least one that uses the last-named to unify the different impressions fans have of what Cecil looks like (everyone perceives him differently).
There's also a surprising number (like, at least two or three) fics where Cecil is human/mostly human and also blind -- either totally, or with the ability to perceive humans as heat-signature-like shapes.
Indeed there's an entire Tumblr called Welcome to Disabled Vale dedicated to collecting versions of the characters with disabilities of one kind or another; which I guess is the beauty of a show with (a) no visuals, and (b) a subtext that Night Vale, though eldritch, dystopian, and lethally dangerous, is also a weirdly friendly and accepting place. Not like that Desert Bluffs. Desert Bluffs is the worst town ever.
There's also a surprising number (like, at least two or three) fics where Cecil is human/mostly human and also blind -- either totally, or with the ability to perceive humans as heat-signature-like shapes.
Indeed there's an entire Tumblr called Welcome to Disabled Vale dedicated to collecting versions of the characters with disabilities of one kind or another; which I guess is the beauty of a show with (a) no visuals, and (b) a subtext that Night Vale, though eldritch, dystopian, and lethally dangerous, is also a weirdly friendly and accepting place. Not like that Desert Bluffs. Desert Bluffs is the worst town ever.
