The Colin McEnroe Show
Episodes
The Nose Does Weird Deer [Stuff]: Deepfaked Bourdain, Black Rifle Coffee Company, And ‘Sweet Tooth’
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The disclosure that a new documentary about Anthony Bourdain uses an artificial intelligence-generated version of his voice for three lines of its dia...
The Multiplicity Of The Multiverse
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a theory that ours isn’t the only universe. That there are, actually, infinitely many universes. That there are, then, infini...
A Meeting To Talk About Meetings
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For many, meetings at work can feel like they get in the way of actual work. This hour, we talk about the history of meetings, why we meet, and how to...
We Take Your Calls
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How far would you go? How far would you go, for instance, to convince people to get vaccinated? Vaccination is, in a way, a test run. It’s a tes...
The Exodus Of Young Evangelicals, The COVID Vaccine In Sports, And Soon-To-Be Astronaut Wally Funk
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, Christian evangelicals were the fastest-growing religious group in this country. Now, some young evangelicals are abandoning the fai...
The Nose Needs A Wet Paper Towel: ‘Black Widow’ And ‘I Think You Should Leave’
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Black Widow is the 24th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the ninth, and final, one to feature Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff...
The Unicorn Show
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of unicorns, many of us picture idyllic white horses with a single horn, surrounded by rainbows. But that’s not how unicorns have ...
Plum Island: ‘Sounds Charming’
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Plum Island sits less than 7 miles off the coast of Connecticut in Long Island Sound. It is completely owned by the federal government and controlled ...
We Take Your Calls
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the one hand, it kind of feels like the pandemic is winding down, right? On the other hand, the daily caseload in the U.S. is 23,000, up 94% v...
It's Time To Talk About The Alphabet In The Room
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Most of the Western world is organized by alphabetical order, which is so much more than the 26 letters that make up the alphabet. Alphabetical o...
The Nose Has A Few Dunkies Coffees And A Pack Of Menthols: 'Kevin Can F**k Himself,' More
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Nose is all TV all the time this week. First: Is the era of the unifying television hit already over? And: Has Netflix already lost its ...
A Personal And Literary Exploration Of Blindness And Sight
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At 10 years old, M. Leona Godin began losing her vision. Her experience with sight and blindness is detailed in her new book, There Plant Eyes:...
An Hour With John McPhee
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John McPhee is a writer's writer. He's thought of as one of the progenitors of the New Journalism, of creative nonfiction or narrative nonfiction, alo...
Colliding With Asteroids (On Purpose), Shohei Ohtani, And The Misunderstood Shark
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The impending doom of an asteroid (or comet or whatever) colliding with the Earth is the premise of any number of movies and books and such. But what ...
But Look, The Nose Made You Some Content: 'Bo Burnham: Inside' And 'No Sudden Move'
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bo Burnham: Inside is a Netflix standup comedy concert play documentary thing written, shot, edited, directed, and performed by Bo Burnham. Burnh...
Zillow Surfing: The Surprising Appeal Of Online Real Estate Listings
01 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Scrolling through online real estate listings, a practice known as "Zillow surfing," has become a popular pastime this past year. And it's not ju...
Operators Are Standing By: A Show About Infomercials
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Thighmaster, the Chop-O-Matic, the George Foreman Grill, and the Clapper... products which are all part of American consumer culture and which wer...
Here Be Dragons
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dragons have captured our imagination going back to the Greek and Roman Empires when the skeletal bones of dinosaurs fed the myths we still believe to...
A Show About Nothing (Really!)
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why is there something rather than nothing? This has been described as perhaps the most sublime philosophical question of all. This our, we try to ans...
Pressing Rewind On Cassettes
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In March, Lou Ottens died in Duizel in the Netherlands. He was 94. I don't think I had ever heard of Ottens before, but the news of his deat...
An Ode To Ink
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From ancient scrolls to modern toner cartridges, ink (in one form or another) has been around for millennia. And while we may take it for granted now,...
Combating Corrosion: The War On Rust
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rust is all around us. It's in our cars, our homes, our infrastructure. It's also the subject of Jonathan Waldman's book Rust: The Longest War, w...
Radiation: Maybe Not As Bad As You Think
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Radiation is everywhere. It's emitted by our sun, by cat litter, by bananas, and occasionally by nuclear bombs. It's even emitted by you and by me and...
Fire: Sparking Imagination Since 2 Million B.C.
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fire imagery abounds in music, literature, art, and scripture. It thrives at the center of ceremony and ritual around the world. We associate fire wit...
The Nose On 'High On The Hog' And Afro-Latinx Representation In 'In The Heights'
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's a special, Juneteenth (observed)-observing, Thursday edition of The Nose. First: The lack of Afro-Latinx actors in the movie version of In t...
Living With Grief In A Culture That Doesn't Like To Talk About It
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We don't do grief very well in this country. We don't talk about, we get uncomfortable around it, and in some mind-twisting way, we hope grief will le...
The Nose Endorses Betsy Kaplan (And Sees 'In The Heights')
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Betsy Kaplan has been producing episodes of The Colin McEnroe Show for a decade. Today is her last day. (Ostensibly, anyway. She's producing...
Clocking Out of Work
10 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Many people are reassessing how they view their work after a year of Covid. The pandemic magnified everything we don’t like about mode...
Our (10th Or) 11th (Almost) Annual Song Of The Summer Show
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We've done this show every year since 2013. We almost certainly didn't do it 2012. But we did in 2011. And there's good circumstantial evidence that w...
Good Bulldozer, Bad Bulldozer
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Everybody loves a bulldozer. In fact, we all grew up loving bulldozers, didn't we? From Benny the Bulldozer to Katy and her big snow, from a...
The History Of Black Cowboys On The Western Frontier
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nat Love was born a slave, but died a free cowboy and a legend of the Old West. After the Civil War freed Love from slavery, he walked to Dodge City, ...
Not Necessarily The Nose: Regarding Hitchcock
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over just six years, from 1954 to 1960, Alfred Hitchcock made four movies -- Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Nor...
After We Die, Our Dust Will Live Forever
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dust is everywhere, but we rarely see it. We shed it from our skin, hair, and nails, leaving little bits of DNA wherever we roam. More than 100 ...
Bastards! A Look At Illegitimacy From 'Game Of Thrones' To 'Hamilton' And Beyond
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The word "bastard" hasn't always been meant to offend. Used simply as an indication of illegitimate birth at first, the label "bastard" didn't bring w...
Bring Back The Beaver!
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Beavers build sophisticated dams and deep-water ponds that slow erosion of riverbanks, create cooler deep-water pools for temperature-sensitive plant ...
The Nose Would Rather Sling Bang Bang Chicken And Shrimp All Day: Adrian's Kickback, 'Hacks,' More
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Adrian Lopez is a high school kid from East Vale, California. He had planned a high school kid's birthday party at some fire pits for last weekend. Bu...
An Hour With Francisco Goldman
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Francisco Goldman made a big choice as a young man. He chose to spend a year in Guatemala living with his uncle instead of pursuing the master’s...
The Search For What It Means To Be Alive (And Human)
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution." That's the so-called "NASA definition of life." Or there's Russi...
Something Is Eternal: A Look At 'Our Town'
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Thornton Wilder's Our Town debuted more than 80 years ago. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and, over the decades since, it has continuo...
Excuse Me. You've Been Canceled.
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
'Cancel culture' has become a phrase that means so much that it means nothing at all. It originated in Black culture as a way to hold the po...
If The Nose Is Boring, It Isn't 'Cause Of Cancel Culture: Donald Glover, 'The Underground Railroad'
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After a long absence from Twitter, Donald Glover last week, in a series of since-deleted tweets, blamed boring culture on cancel culture. After a...
The Poet Laureate Of Rock 'N' Roll At 80
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Dylan turns 80 years old on May 24. His first album, 1962's Bob Dylan, is in its 60th year on record store shelves. We're at a point where, f...
Going Back To The Office Bathroom; "Familect"; And, The Semiotics Of Unmasking
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Using our private bathrooms while working from home opened our eyes to how uncomfortable it can be to use public bathrooms at the office - e...
A Non-Threatening Conversation About Jazz
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Who's afraid of the Bix bad Beiderbecke? Hartford has an amazing jazz history, and Colin has a lot of jazz musician friends. This hour, a little onsta...
The Nose Is Eligible For The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame In 2035: The 2021 Class And 'Mare of Easttown'
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The 2021 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees have been announced. Artists like Foo Fighters, Jay-Z, Todd Rundgren, Tina Turner, LL Cool J, Kra...
Words That Shall Not Be Said
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Profanity used to be about someone swearing insincerely to God. Then the Reformation came along and made profanity about sex and the body. ...
Are We Ready To Accept That UFOs Are Real?
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, The New York Times uncovered a program at the Defense Department which investigated unidentified flying objects. Thi...
The Semiotics of Cigarettes, Sexy Shoes, and Some Other Stuff
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Semiotics is the study of sign process, which is to say: it's the science of the search for meaning. And then, part of the underlying premise of semio...
The Next Phase Of 'Jeopardy'; Van Morrison's Rant; Showering Less
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Trebek’s imprint as the host of "Jeopardy" looms large over the show, making it hard for anyone else to live up to the impeccable standard ...
The Nose Is The World's Biggest Art Heist: 'This Is A Robbery,' Elon Musk Hosts 'SNL,' More
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Elon Musk will host tomorrow night's Saturday Night Live. It is, if nothing else, an odd choice. Speaking of choices, Rolling Stone's l...
The Secret Lives Of Numbers
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Numbers are so fundamental to our understanding of the world around us that we maybe tend to think of them as an intrinsic part of the world...
Are We In The Age Of Peak Newsletter?
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Newsletters have become a great way for journalists and others to dive deep into less-covered topics and engage directly with their readers in ways no...
Running Toward the Fire
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
to help. They chose to be nurses at a time when the risk to their own health was never greater. Why are some people willing to run toward the fire whe...
Aaron Rodgers And The Packers; Classical Music-Loving Cows; and, Why We Should Love Wasps
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Aaron Rodgers leaked his dissatisfaction with the Green Bay Packers just before last week's NFL opening round. The NFL draft drew ...
A Long Look At Losing And Lovable (And Loathsome) Losers
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As we were preparing for our show on underdogs, I kept saying that we shouldn’t overlook the fact that, often, to be an underdog in the fir...
From The Bad Ideas Dept.: It's A Show About Towels!
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Seriously: a show about towels. There's the history of towels, towels in Christianity, Terrible Towels, Towel Day. Oh, and there a...
It's The Breast Day Of The Week
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're so caught up in fetishizing (mostly) female breasts in film, literature, art, and in the anatomy-defying breasts of com...
A Nerding Out About Clouds
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
No one likes a cloudy sky. A cloud on the horizon is seen as a harbinger of doom. We feel like clouds need to have silver linings. But here's our thes...
Our Lunchtime With André
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
André Gregory has directed and acted in the theater for more than 50 years. He has appeared in a number of movies, including Martin Scorsese's&...
We're Feeling Nostalgic For Quarantine Life. It Wasn't All Bad.
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're not the same people today that we were before covid upended our lives last spring. We found ways to survive a deadly and invisible virus, even a...
The Art Is The Idea: A Look At Sol LeWitt
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hartford native Sol LeWitt was one of the giants of conceptualist and minimalist art. As an artist, he abandoned the long histories of painting and dr...
The Myth Of Meritocracy
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Americans like to believe we live in a meritocracy but the odds are stacked in favor of the already lucky and fortunate. We congratulate the "winners"...
Learning How To Breathe
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The jury will begin deliberations later today on whether George Floyd's death was caused by his inability to breathe under the weight of Derek Chauvin...
The Nose (Taylor's Version)
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift has announced plans to re-record six of her previous albums in order to own master recordings of her older catalogue. Fearless (Tayl...
Where Have All The Public Toilets Gone?
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a column proclaiming that "America Is Not Made for People Who Pee." It hit a nerve. ...
One Of The Greats: Robin Williams
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Popeye. The World According to Garp. Good Morning, Vietnam. Dead Poets Society. Awakenings. The Fisher King. Aladdin.&nb...
Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived?
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During his remarkable career with the Boston Red Sox, Ted Williams earned many nicknames: The Kid, The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame... but the on...
Politics Is No Laughing Matter
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fox News broadcast the first episode of Greg Gutfeld's new late-night show, Gutfeld!, earlier this month. They're betting that Gutfeld can turn h...
The Nose Misses The Office: 'Hemingway' And More
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
At Connecticut Public, there's a smallish corner conference room thing that we think of as The Crying Room. I, personally, haven't ever seen anyone cr...
Joni Mitchell: 'Blue' Turns 50
08 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Joni Mitchell's album Blue turns 50 this year. It may not have the artistic sophistication of her later albums, but Mitchell's vulnerab...
The King: Before There Was Lebron, There Was Elvis
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Elvis left two legacies. Musically, he pulled several American musical traditions out of the shadows, braided them together, and made them mainstream....
How Soon Is Too Soon? (And Other Classic Questions And Conundrums About Comedy)
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
humor = tragedy + time OK, but then the logical next question is: How much time? If it's OK, at this point, to joke about, say, The Spanish Inquisitio...
We Want To Hear From You. Give Us A Call.
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We'll be taking your calls during this hour -- and during more of our Monday shows moving forward. We'll still invite guests when we think it's import...
The Nose Vs. 'Godzilla Vs. Kong' (Plus Other Stuff)
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
So celebrities and their giant water bottles: It's a thing, I guess. And then there's the ABC Carpet couches email thread. Plus: Netfli...
The Allure Of Advice
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
John Dunton started the first advice column in 1690. He called it the Athenian Mercury. John, a bookseller, and his four "experts" wanted to answ...
They Say The City Never Sleeps. Neither Do We.
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Did you get enough sleep last night? If you're like most Americans, probably not. You might feel pretty good after six hours of sleep and a stron...
Connecticut's Cartoon County
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For a period of about 50 years, many of America's top cartoonists and illustrators lived within a stone's throw of one another in the southwestern cor...
The First Dogs Are Home; And Other News
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A number of media critics gave poor grades to reporters questioning President Biden at his first formal press conference last week. Is there...
The Nose Is Stuck In A Canal: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Shrimp Tails, 'For All Mankind,' More
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As with all weeks, it's been a strange week. First there were the Cinnamon Toast Crunch shrimp tails. And then an enormous container ship go...
Pressing Rewind On Cassettes
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On March 6, Lou Ottens died in Duizel in the Netherlands. He was 94. I don't think I had ever heard of Ottens before, but the news of his de...
Forget Google Maps. There's Still Lots To Explore
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After a year of pandemic, we're all itching to break from the restrictions of the pandemic. We want to travel and explore. It makes sense; we're hard-...
Anti-Asian Racism, Religion, and 'Sex Addiction'
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Last week's violence at three spas in Georgia, followed a year of escalating violence against Asian Americans, some of it captured...
The Nose Needs To Go Home: 'Promising Young Woman' And More
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It might just be that the pandemic is starting to wind down. Advertisers are anxious to act like it is. We're all maybe anxious to get some ...
Our Hour With Lauren Oyler
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writer and essayist Lauren Oyler, joins Colin to talk about Fake Accounts, her new novel on internet culture. They'll also talk about literary fi...
Our 11th* (Almost) Annual March Madness Show
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Every year around this time, there's a big-old college basketball tournament. So every* year around this time, for every* year that this show has been...
An Ode To Obituaries And Obituarists
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the one hand, obituaries are an amalgam of a bunch of different kinds of journalism: they're feature stories, they're profile pieces, they cover hi...
This Is 'Jeopardy!'
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jeopardy! has been part of the fabric of American TV, in a couple different forms and across a couple different breaks, since 1964. It is the lon...
Profiling Criminal Profilers
11 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Criminal Minds. Mindhunter and Manhunt. Cracker and Profiler. Nearly the whole of the Hannibal Lecter universe: Man...
The Other Connecticut: The Southeastern Region
10 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The southeastern part of our state conjures images of casinos, submarines, and a blue-collar vibe that's just a little different from the rest of the ...
Dancin' In The Moonlight: Connecticut Dance Halls
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This hour, we talk about two Connecticut dance halls, each springing from the vision of two very different men who took their respective dance halls d...
An Evening With Patti Smith
07 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We reair Colin's 2016 interview with Patti Smith at the Immanuel Congregational Church in Hartford when she was in town for a Mark Twain House event. ...
The Nose Has Always Required Content Warnings: Dr. Seuss, The Muppets, 'Allen v. Farrow,' More
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This Week (or so) in Reassessing Not-Necessarily-Current Bits of Culture: Seuss enterprises pulled six mostly early Dr. Seuss books from future p...
The Face Behind The Mask
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We produced our first show on masks in the spring of 2020. It was when most of us were isolated at home to sidestep the life-threatening illness we've...
Regarding Hitchcock
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over just six years, from 1954 to 1960, Alfred Hitchcock made four movies -- Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Nor...
The Multiplicity Of The Multiverse
02 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There's a theory that ours isn't the only universe. That there are, actually, infinitely many universes. That there are, then, infinitely many yo...
Voter Suppression Bills; COVID-19; Deb Haaland
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The theme of election fraud ran through this weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference. We talk about how "The Big Lie" is becoming...
The Nose Has Always Been Gender Neutral: Potato Head, New Mail Trucks, 'Nomadland'
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On Thursday, Hasbro announced that its Mr. Potato Head brand would drop the "Mr." in a move toward inclusiveness. But they also made clear,&...
Ghostwriting: What Happens In The Pages, Stays In the Pages
25 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ghostwriting evokes an image of the writer who toils away in obscurity, secretly penning books credited to another. In reality, ghostwriters are just ...
Something Is Eternal: A Look At 'Our Town'
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Thornton Wilder's Our Town debuted more than 80 years ago. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and, over the decades since, it has continuo...
Are You Smarter Than An Octopus?
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The octopus has always been the stuff of spine-tingling legend, like that of the kraken, the many-armed sea monster believed to drag ships to the...