Podcast about clockmaker7/14/2023 It’s a mesmerizing journey that starts in one direction, takes a U-turn and then gets lost in a hedge maze of what it means to be human at a time when too much of the world can seem utterly inhumane. But without spoiling anything, the first sentence Reed narrates in the podcast suggests there is more here than meets the ear: “When an antique clock breaks, a clock that’s been telling time for 200 or 300 years, fixing it can be a real puzzle.”Įqually puzzling: what makes the clockmaker tick?Īt the risk of sounding punch-drunk, that four-word question is what makes S-Town so transcendental. The unifying theme in these works, as Reed notes, is a creeping sense of foreboding, an undercurrent of depravity. (In addition to Shirley Jackson’s The Renegade and Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, the “bedtime reading” McLemore gives Reed to help him understand S-Town includes William Faulkner’s A Rose For Emily.) The mood early on is “murder mystery,” underpinned by the original Serial and reframed with Southern Gothic flourishes. McLemore, used a different name - “Shit-town,” hence the sanitized S-Town - and soon the self-described redneck and New York journalist were unlikely pen pals, phone pals and then just pals.ĭuring Reed’s first visit to Alabama, where he needs latitude and longitude coordinates to find McLemore’s sprawling 128-acres property in the woods, the two get to know one another while discussing the killing of a young man, allegedly by the scion of a wealthy family in the lumber industry. The project, more than three years in the making, started when an Alabama man emailed This American Life producer Brian Reed to see if the radio show might consider investigating an alleged murder and cover-up in his hometown of Woodstock, Alabama. If you have some time this weekend and haven’t yet listened to S-Town, the newest brainchild from the minds behind This American Life and Serial, I encourage you to do so. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been so moved by audio storytelling. If I looked sad - and there’s no doubt I did - the podcast was to blame. This bundle of kinetic energy then hugged me and left for Aquafresh duty. “Goodnight! Love you! See you in the morning time!” “I won’t,” she replied, jumping and clapping for no apparent reason. “I’m just listening to a podcast,” I said. She laughed after making this observation. “What are you listening to?” she asked, a situational and spur-of-the-moment query that suggested her end game was merely to delay bedtime. “Yes?” I said, after hitting pause and liberating my left eardrum. I was propped up in bed with headphones clamped to my skull when one of my twin daughters ambled in to ask a question.
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