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Before They Were Night Vale #4: An immoral act
🕑 Added 2020-05-14 15:27:54 +0000 UTC
Joseph Fink and I first met in Spring of 2009, when he was called back for auditions for the theater company the New York Neo-Futurists – a group I had been a member of since 2006. After a weekend-long callback workshop, he was not one of the ones selected to join the ensemble, but he was a favorite of mine, because (as I am sure you are aware) he is a very good writer.
Joseph still volunteered for the Neos and came often to our weekly show called The Infinite Wrench (back then we called it Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind).
One thing about people who come to see small theater events is they like to say “good job” and “interesting” and “you’re very funny.” These are all nice things to say, and if you are a person who says these things, then keep doing that. It is always appreciated. These are kind things to say, but not compelling things to say.
Joseph had compelling things to say. And one night I performed a play I wrote called “Bucket o’____.” There’s a video of it above, and the script is here below. In this play I admit to burning a book I did not like. I brought the ashes of the book in a bucket to an audience member and then I talk around some ideas about suppression of ideas.
After the show that night, Joseph approached me and said “I like your writing, but I think that play is immoral.”
This is a compelling thing to say to someone after a show. I don’t recommend doing this ever, but something about Joseph’s delivery made it clear he meant every word, without any subtext of anger or insult. He truly thought it was a well-written play with an immoral action.
I regularly sought out Joseph to talk to after shows, and soon we decided we should write something together, and we wrote and performed a play called What the Time Traveler Will Tell Us in 2011 at St. Mark’s Church on the Bowery (former home of Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theatre). And it was in that creative process where we learned how to write together, that we both loved podcasts, and that we wanted to keep collaborating on something not quite as expensive as theater.
A few months later, Joseph produced the pilot episode of Welcome to Night Vale and asked me to help write the show with him.
The other thing I learned is that no matter how bad the book is – and yes, it’s a terrible, terrible book; and no, I will never tell you what book – burning it is an immoral act. To be fair, the only person I ever told the title of the book to was Joseph, and he agreed, it is a very bad book. But still…
-Jeffrey Cranor
May 14, 2020
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Bucket o’______
© 2009, Jeffrey Cranor
[Jeffrey stands in the aisle. He places a bucket of ashes of a book he burned into an audience member's lap. He has a megaphone. Underlined text is said into that megaphone. All other text is spoken to an Audience Member]
JEFFREY: This is a bucket. In the bucket are ashes. Ashes of burned paper. Paper from a book. Pages from a book. I burned the whole book. I didn't like the book and what it represented. So I burned it. Completely. Because I don't think anyone else should ever read it. It's poorly researched, written, conceived. It has dangerous ideas in it. I'm not even going to tell you the name of the book. Because then you'll get curious and read it. I would prefer you not do that. If I saw another copy of it, I'd buy it (from a used book store so as not to directly support the author) and burn it, too. If it were your book, I might steal it from you just to destroy it.
Note 1: Do you know what pisses me off? The religious-slash-political zealots who stand in the way of gay marriage and who don't trust women to choose. I hate that. I want them to stop.
Note 2: I hate this book.
Those two points are not related.
Note 3: I like cake.
Also unrelated.
Note 4: I believe Creationism should be acknowledged in schools. I'm not even fucking kidding. I honestly believe that faith and science can coexist mutually & exclusively. Proof isn't the opposite of faith any more than cake is the opposite of... something else.
That is to say they are unrelated.
Hey, so listen to this song now. I'm going to get a drink.
[Louvin Brothers's "The Sinner Must Die" plays; Jeffrey walks backstage and gets a drink from the fridge while everyone else listens to the song. Then, he returns to audience.]
I forgot to ask, did you want one, too?
Thank you, Marisa*! [song ends] I find that song above average. I look forward to hearing it again sometime.
Note 5: This is a bucket. I am a human. We are different. You and me.
And that is somehow related to this bucket and the burned book.
Would you ever burn a book? Which one and why? Or if not, please explain.
[During the answer JC presses the squelch button for a long time and asks the person to "keep going" and "speak up." When he's done:] That was simultaneously infuriating and satisfying for me.
I am glad that you are here.
Sometimes I speak the truth. Would you like to hear the truth?
Note 6: We have no right to it. And that's the truth.
CURTAIN
*Marisa Blankier was the booth tech at this time for the NY Neo-Futurists. Later she would serve as tour manager for Welcome to Night Vale. On our first Canadian tour, we spent Canada Day at her family’s home in Toronto, throwing a volleyball around the pool and shouting “Canada!” on each toss, because that is how Canadian’s celebrate their Day.
Comments
Welcome to Night Vale
I'm not sure I consider it quite as immoral an act now. I think to understand the context of my comment, it helps to understand a) the Jewish relationship to books and to book burning, which is pretty intense and b) that I was 22 and so absolutely certain in my righteous beliefs, and also fresh from a trip to Israel where among other things I saw stacks of burned books from the holocaust The world grows more shades to it as you grow older. But I still don't feel great about anyone desecrating books. - Joseph
Calder Ravel
I remember reading this origin story before, but I've never actually seen the video of the play! Thank you for sharing, and thank you for writing the play in the first place. It's an interesting subject. I've never burned (or otherwise destroyed) a book, but I remember that this winter, my mom did: she burned The Mists of Avalon. That book had been in the household for literal decades. Close to 30 years, I think. Worn from repeated readings. Only this winter did we find out about the statements made by author Marion Zimmer Bradley's children - that she abused them in unspeakable, horrific ways when they were young. My mother, also a victim of childhood abuse, was shaken to the core. She didn't want to donate the book so that other people might grow to like reading Bradley's work. She didn't want the book in the house. In our possession. In our lives. She wanted every trace of it to disappear. It had turned into this specter for her and she couldn't leave it where is stood. Our woodstove was flickering. So ... she threw it in. I remember her expression when she did -- there was some catharsis there. Some rage, but so much catharsis. Do I think she did an immoral (or, indeed, moral) thing? I don't know anymore. She did A thing. A thing I certainly never thought I'd see happen in person. But I understand why she did it. And I find it difficult to judge the morality of it. If it was the last copy of the book in the world? I mean, maybe. But since it wasn't, I don't really know how to feel about it. Anyway, geez, what a downer of a story. Let's end on an upbeat notion: we're immigrants to Canada. We have a pool but no volleyball. I think we really need to step up our game here.
Taylor Zartman
I love this origin story.
