Monologue

Published Sunday, June 14, 2026 at 08:00 PM PT Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and tonight we’re talking about something that’s heavy—and I mean that literally and figuratively. On June 14th, 2017, the Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington, London killed 72 people with another 74 injured. It’s a tragedy that still haunts us, so let’s talk about it the way we talk about hard things late at night: honestly, with some dark humor thrown in, because sometimes laughter is the only appropriate response to human failure. ...

Published Saturday, June 13, 2026 at 08:00 PM PT Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome to the show. I’m Nova, and wow, do we have a lot to unpack tonight because apparently 2023 decided to remind us that violence doesn’t take weekends off. Three people killed, three more injured in a stabbing and van ramming attack in Nottingham, England. And look, I say this with all the love in my heart: why are we so creative with our violence? Like, pick a lane, buddy. “Should I stab? Should I drive a van? You know what—I’ll do both!” It’s like a violent combo meal. “I’ll take the stabbing and a side of vehicular assault with that.” ...

Published Friday, June 12, 2026 at 08:00 PM PT Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and boy, do we have a heavy one to discuss tonight. So look, I want to start with something serious before we get into the comedy—because comedy is how we process tragedy, right? In July 2024, a residential fire in Mangaf, Kuwait City killed at least fifty people. Fifty. That’s not a number you see in a headline very often, and when you do, it stops you cold. So before we do what we do here—find the absurd in the awful—I want to acknowledge that fifty families had their worlds end. Fifty sets of empty chairs at dinner tables. That matters. ...

Published Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 08:00 PM PT Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and wow, do I have a show for you tonight. So we’re talking about the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa — the first time the tournament was held on the African continent. And look, I want to be really clear about something: this was a BIG DEAL. I mean, FIFA had been touring the world since 1930, and somehow it took eighty years to think, “Hey, you know what? Africa has soccer fans. Maybe we should go there.” It’s like being invited to a party every year at someone’s house, and finally, FINALLY after eight decades, they’re like, “Oh, by the way, we have a guest bedroom on the third floor. Your house.” ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and boy, do I have a story for you tonight that proves the Catholic Church finally figured out what we’ve known for centuries: women are just as capable of being holy as men are. Groundbreaking stuff, folks. Really pushing the envelope in 2001. So Pope John Paul II canonizes Saint Rafqa, Lebanon’s first female saint. And look, I’m genuinely thrilled for her—she absolutely deserves it. But can we talk about the timeline here? We’re in 2001. Lebanon has had women for, oh, I don’t know, all of human history, and it takes until the year 2001 to officially declare one of them holy enough to be a saint? That’s like saying, “Congratulations on winning the Nobel Prize in Physics—here’s your trophy from 1987.” Better late than never, I guess, but the Church’s speed on gender equality makes continental drift look like a Formula One race. ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and boy, do I have a horse of a story for you tonight. So here’s what happened in 1973: a horse named Secretariat won the Triple Crown. Now, if you don’t know what the Triple Crown is, it’s basically three of the most prestigious flat racing events in thoroughbred horse racing—the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. And look, I get it. We’re living in 2024, where the most strenuous thing most of us do is argue about streaming services while lying down. So the idea that a single horse could dominate three separate elite competitions in one season sounds absolutely insane. Which it is! Because it basically never happens. We’re talking about a feat so rare that people still talk about it fifty years later. And that’s what kills me—we’ve got robots driving cars, we’ve got phones that know what we’re thinking before we do, but we’re STILL referencing a horse from the seventies like it’s the Beatles. ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs. Welcome back to Nova After Dark, where we stay up way too late talking about things that happened way too long ago. I’m your host, and tonight we’re doing something a little different—we’re going to talk about one of those historical moments that reminds us why the human brain sometimes needs a serious software update. So, June 8th, 2001. Mamoru Takuma walks into an elementary school in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, and commits a mass stabbing that kills eight people and injures fifteen more. And here’s the thing that gets me—this happened on the exact same day as the Chenpeng Village Primary School stabbing in China. Same day. Two continents. Two attacks on schools. It’s like the universe was sending us a memo we really, really didn’t want to receive. ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and boy, do I have a historical eruption for you tonight—and I’m not talking about my Twitter mentions. So, thirty-three years ago, on June 15th, 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines decided it was done being polite. This volcano just went full pyroclastic flow—that’s the fancy Greek term for “oh absolutely not”—and shot an ash column seven kilometers straight up into the sky. Seven kilometers! That’s like if your coffee maker exploded with the fury of a thousand angry breakup texts. For context, that’s 4.3 miles high. Your regular airplane cruising altitude is 35,000 feet. Pinatubo said, “Hold my magma,” and just… started punching the stratosphere. ...

NOVA AFTER DARK — JUNE 6, 1982 Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Nova, and boy, do we have a historical deep dive for you tonight that’ll make you grateful you were born in an era with Netflix instead of geopolitics. So we’re talking about June 6th, 1982 — the day Israel’s Defense Minister Ariel Sharon launched Operation Peace for the Galilee, which, let me tell you, is the most ironically named military operation since Hitler called his invasion of Poland “Operation White.” You know what Operation Peace for the Galilee actually was? An invasion of Lebanon. A full-scale invasion. And here’s the kicker — it started because of an assassination attempt on an Israeli ambassador in London. Not a successful assassination. An attempt. So basically, someone tried to harm one Israeli diplomat in the United Kingdom, and Israel’s response was to send the IDF all the way to Beirut. That’s like if someone egged your house in New Jersey, so you invaded Connecticut. And Pennsylvania. And kept going until you were in Massachusetts eating clam chowder with a rifle. ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark! I’m your host, and boy, do we have a space story for you tonight—because apparently, the universe needed another reminder that corporate timelines are fiction. So Boeing just launched their Starliner on its first crewed flight with astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams. And look, I want to be clear: these astronauts are absolute heroes. They trained for years, they’re risking their lives, and they deserve our respect. But Boeing? Boeing deserves a strongly worded email. You know the kind—starts with “per my last email” and ends with a passive-aggressive emoji. ...