Monologue

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Nova, and boy do we have a heavy one tonight. We’re talking about June 4th, 1989 — Tiananmen Square. Yeah, that one. The protests were suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army, and somewhere between 241 and 10,000 people died. And I gotta say, the fact that we’re still arguing about whether it was two hundred or ten thousand? That’s not a range of estimates, that’s a cry for help. ...

NOVA AFTER DARK — June 4, 1989 Monologue Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Nova, and boy do we have a wild ride through the history books tonight. So pull up a chair, grab whatever beverage helps you forget that Tuesday exists, and let’s talk about what happened in 1989 Iran — because apparently, the universe decided that year needed to be absolutely stacked with dramatic leadership transitions. ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and boy, do I have a breakup story for you tonight. We’re talking about June 3rd, 2006—the day Montenegro looked at Serbia and said, “It’s not you, it’s me. Actually, no, it’s definitely you.” See, Montenegro decided to declare independence, which sounds dramatic until you realize this was basically the world’s most polite divorce. These two countries had been together since 1918, nearly ninety years of marriage, and when it finally ended, you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. No angry tweets, no property disputes, no one threw a shoe through a window. It was like they scheduled it on a Tuesday and said, “Yeah, we’re done,” then grabbed lunch. Meanwhile, I got a text from my ex in 2015 and it was like the start of the Balkan Wars all over again. ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to Nova After Dark. I’m your host, and boy, do I have a cheerful topic for you tonight. We’re talking about the 1998 Eschede train disaster in Germany—which killed 101 people—and honestly, if you want to feel better about your life choices, just knowing this happened is basically a wellness routine. So here’s the thing about trains: we all pretend they’re this miracle of modern engineering. “Oh, trains are so safe, so efficient, so German-engineered!” And then—BOOM—mechanical failure. Just like that. Which is wild because “mechanical failure” is such a polite way to say “the train decided to stop existing as a functional vehicle.” I mean, we could say that about my car, but at least when my Honda has mechanical failure, it affects me and like, maybe the guy in the parking space next to me. Not 101 people. That’s called scaling your problems. ...

Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome to Nova After Dark—the show where we discuss the news that’s too important to ignore and too absurd to take seriously. So let’s talk about something that happened in 2022 that genuinely baffled me: Turkey asked the United Nations to officially change their name to “Türkiye.” Just like that. The UN said, “Sure, why not?” And just like that, the entire world’s paperwork became a nightmare. I’m imagining some poor intern at the State Department’s filing system going, “Do we keep the old one? Is this like when your parents get divorced and you have to figure out who you’re living with now?” ...

Nova After Dark — Mubarak’s Verdict Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Nova, and boy do we have a legal thriller to unpack tonight. So 2012 — eleven years ago now, which means if it were a Netflix series, we’d already have two spinoffs and a prequel nobody asked for. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak got sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in killing demonstrators during the 2011 revolution. And look, I want to be clear: this is actually significant. A former dictator facing accountability? In the Middle East? That’s like finding out your cable company is refunding your overcharges — you think it’s a scam at first. ...

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 something I’ve always suspected: the Cold War ended not with a bang, but with a bureaucratic handshake and a whole lot of awkward small talk in zero gravity. So today marks the final mission of the Shuttle-Mir program—that’s STS-91 in 1998, when Discovery launched to wrap up what might be the most bizarre friendship in human history. See, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russians and Americans looked at each other like two guys who’d been arm-wrestling for forty years and suddenly realized, “Hey, we could probably both use a drink.” And instead of just grabbing a beer, they decided to build a space station together. Because when you’ve been enemies since before television, the logical next step is to share a really expensive vehicle orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles per hour. What could go wrong? ...

NOVA AFTER DARK: “THE BANKRUPTCY SPECIAL” Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome to the show where we celebrate America’s greatest hits—and apparently, some of its greatest misses. So today we’re talking about June 1st, 2009, when General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Now, if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry—apparently neither did General Motors. It’s the fourth largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, which is a hell of a trophy case. You know you’ve really made it as a company when your greatest achievement is being spectacularly bad at business. It’s like winning the World Series, but for failure. [pause] “We came in fourth! Out of how many?!” ...

NOVA AFTER DARK — MANBIJ OFFENSIVE MONOLOGUE Good evening, beautiful insomniacs. Welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Nova, and boy do we have a geopolitical night ahead of us. You know it’s a slow news cycle when I’m about to make you laugh about Syrian military operations. My therapist says that’s a cry for help. I think she’s right. So, 2016. Remember 2016? That was the year we all collectively agreed to stop understanding the world. And nowhere was that more apparent than in Syria, where the Syrian Democratic Forces—the SDF—decided to launch the Manbij offensive to take the city of Manbij from ISIS. And look, I know what you’re thinking: “Nova, why should I care about a city with a name that sounds like a rejected Ikea furniture line?” Great question. Stick with me. ...

NOVA AFTER DARK: “SPACE: THE FINAL CORPORATE FRONTIER” Good evening, beautiful insomniacs, and welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Nova, and boy do I have a cosmic story for you tonight. So on this day in 2020, SpaceX launched Crew Dragon Demo-2 from Kennedy Space Center — and here’s the wild part — it was the first crewed orbital spacecraft launched from the United States since 2011. Think about that for a second. We went nine years without launching Americans into space from American soil. That’s not a space program, that’s a participation trophy. It’s like saying “We invented basketball, but for nine years we just watched other people play it and occasionally asked to borrow their gym.” ...