Chubville[1][2] (or sometimes Chubsville)[3][4] is a fictional coastal city which is the primary setting of The Residents' Mole Trilogy of albums, Mark of the Mole, The Tunes of Two Cities and The Big Bubble. It is home to the Chubs, a largely vacuous, self-serving species whose uncomplicated lives are shaken by the arrival of the hard-working, hole-dwelling Moles, who seek refuge in the city after being forced from their homes in "the Pit" following a natural disaster.
Despite being the primary setting of the majority of the works within the Mole Trilogy, little geographical information has been revealed about Chubville, aside from its proximity to a sea and a vast desert, that it is located in a state with the postal abbreviation N.E.S.,[3] and that it contains suburbs such as Elmwurst.[5] It can be assumed to be broadly similar to The Residents' real-life home, San Francisco.
The city was depicted visually in detail in a number of set backdrops from the second act of The Residents' Mole Show tour, where the city is commonly represented with blue-on-black polka dot backgrounds; the city itself displays a notable consistency of architectural design throughout, with each Chubsville home painted yellow and boasting a small, second-story pod with a large window.
History[]
Fictional background[]
"Chub" graphic
Chubville is a coastal city which is home to the Chubs, the predominant race in the mythology depicted in The Residents' Mole Trilogy of albums, Mark of the Mole, The Tunes of Two Cities and The Big Bubble, as well as related media and releases. The city is said to be adjacent to a sea, on a planet which is otherwise largely uninhabitable, and outside a vast desert area called "the pit", mostly unexplored by Chubs.[4] Chubville is within both a nation and a state, the latter of which has the postal abbreviation "N.E.S.".[3]
A Chub explorer, Innisfree, confirmed long-told legends when he discovered a race of hole-dwelling people (referred to as "Moles") living and working within an ancient series of tunnels in "the pit". Most Chubs had never personally seen a Mole, until many years later, when a massive storm forces the hole-workers to march across the inhospitable desert in their tens of thousands,[4] ultimately seeking refuge in Chubville.
Despite the duplicitous Chubs initially welcoming the Moles (finding them to be a highly exploitable source of cheap, hard labor in the Chub mines),[4] tensions quickly arise among the two species, leading to a short civil war in Chubville between the Moles and Chubs (which ends ambiguously and without a clear victor).
For years following the war, the Moles, Chubs and their eventual cross-bred offspring (known as Cross) continue to live uneasily together in the Chub cities, with the Moles and Cross widely banned from speaking the native Mohelmot language. Continued tensions lead to the rise of the nativist Zinkenite movement, led by Kula Bocca and heralded by the garage band The Big Bubble (signed to Chubville record label Black Shroud Records), with their song "Cry for the Fire" featuring a verse in the outlawed tongue.[3]
Locations within Chubville[]
Folsom Street[]
Much like The Residents' real-life home San Francisco, Chubville's main city area has a Folsom Street; Frankie DuVall's record label Black Shroud Records is said to be located at 566 Folsom Street in Chub(s)ville.[3]
Elmwurst[]
Elmwurst, also presumed to be a suburb of Chubville, is noted in the liner notes for The Big Bubble as being the location of a Zinkenite political rally which launched the fictional Big Bubble to "national prominence".
Naming discrepancy[]
"Chubville" title card from Mole Show/Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? VHS, 1984
The fictional setting/s of The Mole Trilogy were rarely referred to by name within the instalments of the trilogy itself, and this information has been inconsistently explained in related media in the years since.
In its earliest documented appearance in the stage script for The Residents' Mole Show, the setting is identified as Chubsville;[4] this name (with the "s") appears again in the fictional album credits included with the 1985 album The Big Bubble.[3]
Elsewhere however, the fictional city is referred to as Chubville (without the "s"); first in a title card seen in the 1984 VHS featurette Mole Show/Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats?, and later again in the liner notes included with the Mute Records CD reissue of Mark of the Mole + Intermission in 2005.
See also[]
- The Mole Trilogy
- Mark of the Mole
- The Tunes of Two Cities
- The Big Bubble
- Chubs
- Mohelmot
- Cross
- Havehome
External links and references[]
- The Mole Trilogy at The Residents Historical
- The Mole Trilogy at RZWeb (archived via archive.org)
- The Mole Show at The Residents Historical
- ↑ Mole Show/Whatever Happened to Vileness Fats? VHS, 1984
- ↑ Mark of the Mole + Intermission Mute CD reissue booklet, 2005
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 The Big Bubble fictional album credits, 1985
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Ima Buddy, Ima Buddy's Totally Impartial Companion to Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated BIG MAMAS, 1992
- ↑ The Big Bubble liner notes, 1985
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Mark of the Mole Part One of The Mole Trilogy (1981) Side A: Hole-Workers at the Mercy of Nature |