March 18

S-Town:

Brian Reed is the show S-Town’s host.

John B. McLemore is an antique clock restorer who contacted Brian, the shows host, to help him solve a murder. He is not your typical redneck, who wasn’t interested in talking about football and other common topics among high-schoolers.

Brian is in S-Town because he had been in conact with John B. McLemore. This had led to countless hours of talking about not only the murder, but also about John’s life in this world of “Proleptic decay and decrepitude.”

In this podcast episode, time is an important aspect, as during the first 15 minutes of the podcast, while John is outlining the murder, he is setting up a timetable in which all of the events he knew about the murder occurred in. Also, it is important to know that Brian and John had been talking long before 2014, when Brian did end up coming to visit John in his town. Later on, in the second half of the podcast (approximately 35 minutes in) we see more timestamps being put on events, such as the time when emails are being sent, or when he logs what he paid some handymen while laying the slate area around John’s house. Another time when time is important is when the duo goes to the library and look at microfilm in the back room.

Ysrael by Junot Diaz:

Ysrael is a local boy that lives in the same town as Yunior and Rafa. Ysrael is “famous” because he draws the interest of almost everyone who encounters him because he wears a mask over his face. This mask is worn because a pig ate his face of when he was a baby.

Yunior and Rafa are in the campo because their “Mami” ships them off to this place every summer, as she didn’t have time to work and look after her children.

Rafa and Yunior are brothers. Yunior says that Rafa doesn’t speak to him often back at the Capital, but when he does, he usually is saying mean things, like, “Shut up,” or, “pandejo.” He also says that back in the Capital, they fought a lot and were very rough, but when they got to the campo, they were friends.