Director’s Notes: Episode 258 - Swap Meet

I did not set out to make a Night Vale Sanitation Department trilogy when I wrote my very first episode (Ep 101 Guidelines for Disposal) seven years ago. I was not playing the long game where I strategically planned to drop a new installment of the waste utilities saga every 3-4 years. But that’s what has happened nonetheless! A nearly decade-spanning epic, a franchise if you will, of all the rules and regulations from your local trash disposal institution. 

That first episode in 2017 is all about getting rid of the things that no longer serve you, courtesy of the new landfill facility. The 2021 sequel (Ep 199 Guidelines for Retrieval) is about asking the question: what if I accidentally got rid of something that was serving me in ways that I didn’t fully realize or appreciate at the time? And this latest installment, Swap Meet (unofficially “Guidelines 3”), is (I think?) about replacing the things we throw away with things that might not necessarily be better but are at least different. I’ve always felt the pleasure in acquiring something new is less about the “something” and more about the “new”. If you’re making a swap, the thing you’re getting can even be technically less valuable than the thing you’re tossing; it’s the novelty that makes it satisfying. 

I’m not entirely sure why I keep returning to the Night Vale Sanitation Department. I know the first time I went there, I had some things to get rid of myself, and then later on, I decided I wanted to revisit those things after some time had gone by. Now I think I honestly have more interest in seeing my own and other people’s trash displayed out in the open instead of hiding it all away in the muddy trenches of the landfill. I’m more interested in comparing each other’s garbage without judgment, examining it, browsing through it, trading it, and even celebrating it when possible. I cannot guarantee that these feelings will remain static. As such, I cannot guarantee this won’t become a quadrilogy or pentalogy. It turns out the Sanitation Department is something that is always with you, growing and changing over time as you do. Sometimes there needs to be a lot of rules and sometimes there is more freedom in chaos. Sometimes you’re standing alone with your trash at the abyss outside of town, and sometimes you’re with all your friends at a big garbage party in the desert. Because we all have it, so we might as well show it to each other. Or, ah, something like that.

-Brie Williams

November 15, 2024

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