Don’t Go Anywhere. This Was NPR

by Mallory Ortberg · March 30, 2014

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for joining us.

Sorry it had to end like this.

Join us this afternoon on Marketplace as Kai Ryssdal wakes up to find he’s been buried alive with only a pocketwatch and headlight…and 40 minutes left on the clock. Cue Stormy Weather.

npr3Join us tomorrow on This American Life as Ira Glass realizes the soundproof recording booth is slowly filling with seawater.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Ira says tonelessly as Nearer My God To Thee plays out until all that remains is the sound of his labored breathing.

Act Three: A Sense of Rising Panic, and A Locked Door.

Join Audie Cornish as she struggles to keep her voice level and low after learning she has twelve minutes to finish an interview or find the antidote.

npr2Join us this evening as Terry Gross crouches hissing and bleeding in the corner, wearing only a pair of men’s boxers, while refusing to look at or speak to her guest.

There were new sounds coming from behind the door in the old Car Talk studios. There were new sounds for the first time since it went off the air. There aren’t any sounds coming from behind the door now.

Join Lakshmi Singh as she learns there are nine minutes’ worth of oxygen left in the All Things Considered studio. “I’m Lakshmi Singh,” she says over and over, sounding dazed. “I’m Lakshmi Singh, and I…stay with me. Just stay with me, please. Stay with me. I’m Lakshmi Singh and I need you to stay with me.”

npr4Join us tonight as Garrison Keillor takes the stage and sees the face of his own death wearing a smile in the audience. Join us as he trembles a bit — weeps a little — sways before the microphone — before bowing his head and accepting nothingness. The sound of a mandolin plays him off the stage.

“I’m afraid that the exits are all blocked. There’s –”

“Wait. Wait,” Peter Sagal chokes out. “Don’t tell me.”

Everyone looks at each other. Carl Kasell’s eyes are rimmed with red, but otherwise he is remarkably composed.

“Final round, gentlemen?”

Every face finds its way to a smile as they finish the game together.

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.


53 Comments

    1. DeLoreanGrey +18

      When the revolution starts and we are all lined up against the wall, each and every one of our pleas for mercy will be met with a stone-faced stare and a side nod to the big sign that says “YOU LET A PRARIE HOME COMPANION BECOME A THING”.

      In that final moment, we will understand our collective sin and accept our fate.

      1. deleted2845473 +41

        I have to admit that I really like Garrison Keillor but it’s mostly because I appreciate how all the folk whimsy barely veils the fact that it’s really just about listening to an old man sigh in resignation as he stares down the void of human mortality

        1. dialogue_dub +8

          There should be a special sleepaway camp for all weirdo Toast readers. Because that comment was the best, and true.

    1. Rillquiet +70

      Thanks to the new StrexCorp Synernists Inc. ownership, there will be no more pledge drives. You can still call in, though. Your free gift is already on its way. It has your scent. The trail is clear. Strex. For all the things you were.

  4. Kasper_Hauser +13

    “Those blood oranges” wailed Lynne Rossetto Kasper “were made from the blood of my only child! The voices in my earphones made me do it The voices in my earphones made me do it The voices in my earphones made me do it…”

  5. logicbutton +16

    Should I not read this if I don’t want to be spoiled for your Welcome to Night Vale episode?

          1. elsamac +8

            And then wrote another script in which this one pulses, throbs, glows with an eldritch travesty of life, then heaves itself from its makeshift grave and half-lumbers half-oozes across the heath toward its destiny. Toward all our destinies.

    1. mbculver +8

      In my version, Ofeibea Quist-Arcton is the sweet, relentless Final Voice in everyone’s headset, lulling them with mellifluous words as they take their last breath or bleed out.

    2. donkeywork +9

      Is that really how she spells it? Not “Old Flavia Twist-Arkin, DakAAAAARGH” or AccrAAAARGH or ChicAAAAARGH-go”? Well. This changes everything.

  7. elsamac +7

    Oh, golly. If you have the constitution and desire, you might listen to the Dana Gould podcast episode “I Shouldn’t Laugh,” which includes a segment with comedian, actor, and “NPR hooligan” Monica Scott relating what it was like to be “caught up in the middle of a mass shooting” at her radio station.

    Her segment starts ~30 minutes in. It’s… well, it’s terrifying and human and heartbreaking and weirdly sweet in tiny spots, and she delivers it all in a relieved tumult of often-nervous laughter, which feels so true to me because it’s how I deliver all my stories of OH NO THAT HAPPENED.

  8. bluebluebaby +22

    I think i could handle the loss of Ira and Audie if it meant no more Garrison Keillor.

  9. Frumiosa +11

    Level with us, Mallory. Did you come up with the last bit first and build it from there?

    1. HateMachine +12

      3 and 7, if I recall right. This is the best reason (among many) to follow Mallory on twitter: you get to watch pieces like this get dreamt up and developed in real time.

  10. Beaner +12

    I’ve been inside the NPR broadcast studios in DC and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t briefly think that their ultra soundproofed walls/ceilings/floors would be the absolute perfect place for a violent murder. The floors are literally floating on air.

  11. Frumiosa +22

    Everyone and everything else could be obliterated and the voices of those two guys from the pledge drive will echo into eternity.

    “…that’s right Ken, that’s why it’s so important for you, our listeners, to give us your support. Come on and give us a call.”

    1. Goatse Fanfiction +19

      Do you have any idea how many times those guys have been killed, and risen to drive again? Over drinks, they laugh at Rasputin, rank amateur that he was.

    2. Ophelia +10

      Pledge drives and parents who are committed to public broadcasting are why I still know the phone number for WGBH-Boston 15 years after I left MA. (it’s 617-492-1111, if anyone wants to make a donation)

  12. 900ccs +47

    *pushes glasses up bridge of nose* Um, actually This American Life is distributed by PRI, not NPR.
    *is torn apart by wolves immediately*

  13. Sean_Sullivan +55

    Carl Kasell’s eyes are rimmed with red, but otherwise he is remarkably composed.

    Because he orchestrated the whole thing, no? He was never going to be able to retire like an ordinary broadcaster. NPR is his flaming longboat.

  15. Pwickup +3

    Is this also the part where we learn that Krista Tippett has been a mole for the zombies the whole time?

  16. igotarock +47

    All the Garrison hate on this thread just made me realize I DON’T ACTUALLY LIKE his voice or his show or his forced folksiness, I just listen because that’s what my parents always did on Sunday afternoons. I feel like my real adulthood just began.

  17. DeLoreanGrey +22

    God *damn*, Kai Ryssdal has the best voice ever. I will do whatever that voice says. I will follow it into both battle and bedroom. He has the Idris Elba of voices.

    1. ArsenioB_Ham +28

      I also love Kai.

      Semi-related: my partner [who is of Pacific Islander heritage (this is relevant)] and I were standing in his parents’ kitchen talking about potential baby names for a (totally as yet unborn, unconceived, far, far away) male child and we agreed we both liked “Kai.” I was really excited because it was the only boy name we ever, ever agreed on. My excitement was short-lived, though, as partner’s father walked through the room at that exact moment and cheerfully announced, “Kai means ‘shit’ in Samoan!”

    2. malloryelis +15

      I finally learned that Kai Ryssdal is white like, two weeks ago, and I am still adjusting.

  18. GreenGrasses +32

    “Wait. Wait,” Peter Sagal chokes out. “Don’t tell me.”

    That is the most sad and tragic thing that ever was. I will quietly weep now for the rest of the day.

  19. theharpoon +5

    I think the new-ish guy who does Weekend All Things Considered really should have been included here. he is TERRIBLE. I hope other people have Feelings about this as well, thank you.

    1. donkeywork +2

      I hate to admit it but someone else sat in this past weekend and it was so much easier to listen. I want to like Arun Roth (no idea how to spell things I hear on the radio), but so far I’m just not that into him.

  20. Ophelia +9

    I wanna know where Diane Rehm is in all of this. She knew to be out of the station that day, didn’t she?

    2. madgehowlet +12

      Diane cannot die until she finishes her sentence. She will never finish her sentence.

  21. Madge Howlet

    I was just thinking to myself, "My local NPR station seems especially pleasant" and then I checked their schedule and realized they do not carry PHC. I feel even better about kicking them $10 a month now.

    They do, however, carry Tavis Smiley, but I manage to avoid that most of the time.

  23. Heather S.

    I hate to admit it but someone else sat in this past weekend and it was so much easier to listen. I want to like Arun Roth (no idea how to spell things I hear on the radio), but so far I'm just not that into him.

  24. evieskye

    The Kai thing made me legit sad *stormy weather! sob!*
    He is a cheerful squirrel who just happens to follow human-money-markets and I will love him forever.

  25. robot_dinosaur +2

    Am I the only one who did not know that Terry Gross was a lady? I don’t really listen to NPR so I’ve never heard her, I don’t think. I tend to think a Terry is a dude because my strongest association with the name is Terry Pratchett, and second is probably Terry Brooks who is overrated and I don’t like. I just don’t want to feel alone in this!