Cecil Baldwin’s résumé includes appearances on Gravity Falls, narrating the documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, and performing as part of the New York Neo-Futurists theater company. But he is best known as the host of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, a long-running fiction show that blends macabre Lovecraftian horror with absurdist comedy. As Cecil Palmer, the voice of Night Vale Community Radio, Baldwin keeps the people of the titular town abreast of all the goings ons with the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home and offers tips on how to best maintain their Bloodstone circles.
He also cohosts Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No. 9 with Night Vale cocreator Jeffrey Cranor, recently directed the play As Sylvia and raises awareness for LGBTQ+ issues and HIV. In short — he’s a busy man. So we’re excited that he found some time to tell us about his tech pet peeves.
What is one thing you wish you could change about your phone?
I wish it were impossible to manually text and drive a vehicle at the same time. We are collectively way worse at it than we think.
What is your happy place online?
Adding books to my Favorite list on Amazon so I remember titles/authors, and then taking that list to my local new and/or used bookstore and buying them there.
Which tech trend do you wish would go away?
Please, I’m begging you, let me watch the credits of the film or television show in peace. I just finished a movie, you don’t need to roll me right into a whole new one. Let me digest for just a second.
What creation are you most proud of?
It would have to be the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, right? It was the acting role that changed the trajectory of my life.
What do you do when you’re feeling stuck?
I will literally say to myself “1, 2, 3, 4, 5…. Walk away.” It’s like an unbinding, spoken out loud when I don’t know how to move forward with a project or I’m stuck in a social media scroll-frenzy that is giving no pleasure. Put it down. Walk away. Focus on something else for a while.
What’s the last piece of physical media you bought?
Picked up a few albums at my local record store: Marianne Faithfull À la Télévision 1965-1967, Jorge Ben Jor Jorge Ben, and Dr John Gris-Gris.
What would the tagline for your biopic be?
Performing authenticity… for real.
What’s the last GIF or meme you used?