The Colin McEnroe Show
Episodes
The Philosophy and Psychology of A-Holery
19 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jerks. Jackasses. A-holes. Some people are just... the worst. Aren't they? But so: Why? And what do we do about it?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.o...
An Assessment Of Accessibility
19 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
"Accessibility" is a word that we maybe too quickly file away as having something to do with the disabled or something like that. But it's really abou...
We're In The Final Days of Sanity. Are You Ready?
18 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Inauguration Day is here. In a few short days, President Obama will transfer what remains of his power to Donald Trump. Some are elated, others afrai...
If You Hate Political Gridlock, Blame The Constitution
17 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field on 9/11 was likely headed for the U.S. Capitol. Had it hit its intended target and disabled - not kill...
Protest Music: Then and Now
13 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Music can be a powerful, transformative tool in the quest for social change. Protest songs are the songs associated with a particular movement. ...
The Nose Goes To 'La La Land'
13 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Damien Chazelle's big musical La La Land won a record seven awards at this year's Golden Globes. The New York Times says the movie "makes musicals mat...
Spielberg At 70
12 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jaws, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones. Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan. Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. And the ...
Trump, Russia, And An Overdue Press Conference: A Deep Dive Into The Day's News
11 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It's been over 160 days since Donald Trump last gave a press conference. On Wednesday, as he holds his first as President-elect, questions abound rega...
Human Guinea Pigs Are So Unappreciated
10 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Do you ever think about the people who make sure the medicine you're taking is safe for you to take? If your like most of us, probably not. Supp...
The Scramble: Hitler, Michelle Obama, Trump's Cabinet
09 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
His followers were “impressionable voters” duped by “radical doctrines and quack remedies,” claimed The Washington Post. Now that ...
The Nighttime Nose Goes To 'Manchester By The Sea'
05 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea just won three awards at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards (which Colin attended, because he's a big fa...
Virtual Reality: Big Business Or Empty Promise?
05 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
To say virtual reality is finally here is inaccurate -- it's been here for decades. What is finally here is the right combination of low cost, high po...
Vin Baker's Journey from Basketball to Barista
04 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Vin Baker was an Olympic basketball player and four-time NBA All Star. The journey from University of Hartford to professional basketball ...
The Scramble Exposes the Long Game of Putin
03 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Molly McKew says the liberal world order of democratic values is unraveling. In its place, Vladimir Putin is building a new world order with the ...
The Audacity of Hoop
02 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
While basketball didn't take up residence in the White House in January 2009, the game nonetheless played an outsized role in forming the man who did,...
An Hour With Dick Cavett
30 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Clive James called Dick Cavett one of the great intellectuals who shaped the 20th century. Cavett combined wit with serious discussion for ninety...
"Big Al" Anderson and Jim Chapdelaine's Rockin' 2016 Year-End Special!
29 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For the third year in a row, "Big Al" Anderson and Jim Chapdelaine sing some songs and tell some stories as we usher out 2016. Anyone in the WNPR new...
Are You Smarter Than an Octopus?
28 Dec 2016
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 bott...
Who Created the Best Jazz of 2016?
27 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Every year, an all-star panel of musicians and critics join the show to go through a painfully short list of the best jazz of the year. Will this year...
How Likely Is An Asteroid Apocalypse?
26 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Scientists say that the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia four years ago was a rare event, unlikely to happen more than every 100 -200 y...
2016's Final Nose Goes Rogue (One)
23 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Rogue One is the eighth live-action Star Wars movie. It's the first movie in the Star Wars anthology series, and its story happens between Star Wars E...
Being Prepared: Boy Scouts in the 21st Century
22 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everybody knows the Boy Scouts. They're the scouts who don't sell cookies. (That's the Girl Scouts.) But for more than a century the Boy Scouts have ...
I Want To Follow Jesus But...Can You Hold the Religion?
21 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump's election last month was the culmination of a venom-filled campaign that was nastier than almost any in recent memory. The mean-spirited...
How Streaming Music Redefined an Industry
20 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The way we listen to music has been changing for years: iPods replaced Walkmans, playlists replaced albums, and streaming services replace...
The Scramble: Trump, More Trump, and Zsa Zsa
19 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Voice of America is a U.S.- funded and independent source of news that airs in societies that don't have a free press. Last week, Congress dec...
It's Up to The Nose to Deal With Donye
16 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In case you missed it, there was a major summit in Manhattan earlier this week, a meeting of the minds at Trump Tower: Kanye West went to see the Pre...
The Official Public Radio Guide to Polyamory
15 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
If there's one thing we've never been good at, it's limiting ourselves. We eat too much junk food, watch too much T.V., and engage in all manner of se...
A Long Look at the Electoral College
14 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Electoral College.There's a pair of words you've maybe heard once or twice recently.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/li...
A Conversation With Connecticut's Wally Lamb
13 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Felix Funicello walks into the historic Garde Arts Center in New London to prepare for his Monday night film class. He takes a moment to appreci...
ALS as a Test of Faith: a Conversation with Nancy Butler
12 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Nancy Butler was first touched by God while listening to bible stories at the Methodist bible camp she attended when she was nine-years-old. By the en...
The New Haven Nose Beholds 'Moonlight'
09 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
My mom liked Moonlight. She compares it favorably to other movies she's liked like Brokeback Mountain. But she's not sure that she left the theater a ...
The Multiplicity of the Multiverse
08 Dec 2016
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 yous.Su...
Forget Gustave. There Was a Woman Behind the First Flight
07 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Gustave Whitehead became a household name in Connecticut in 2013 when the editor of the highly-respected aviation magazine IHS Jane's All the Wor...
A Show About Nothing (Really!)
06 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Why is there something rather than nothing? This has been described as perhaps the most sublime philosophical question of all. Today, on The Colin Mc...
The Scramble: Trump, Carson, and Standing Rock
05 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump will make an announcement on December 15 that he will leave his business "in total" to focus on the presidency. This will likely mea...
An Evening With Jon Meacham
02 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Many Americans were surprised by the results of the presidential election last month. During the early morning hours of November 9, half of America ce...
Beyond Words
01 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine if you couldn't speak and had no capacity for learning language as we know it. You couldn't choose words to communicate your feelings and desi...
Adventures in Solitude: Two Tales of Life in Isolation
30 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
As social creatures we know that isolation can be emotionally difficult, but research shows that it can be psychologically damaging as well. So why th...
The Philosophy and Psychology of A-Holery
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jerks. Jackasses. A-holes. Some people are just... the worst. Aren't they? But so: Why? And what do we do about it?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.o...
The Scramble Wonders: How Can We Respond to Hate Speech?
28 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The charged language used by President-elect Donald Trump this election season may have emboldened people with open hostility toward blacks, gay peopl...
The Nose Starts to Come to Terms with a President Donald Trump
23 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For the last 18 months, we've kind of all seen Donald Trump's possible presidency as, well, implausible. As funny on its face. But guess what. It's a...
Visceral Voting: The Psychology Behind Picking a Politician
22 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we vote the way we do? The easy answer, of course, is that we pick the politician whose values, beliefs and opinions most closely resemble our ...
The Scramble Has Some Questions About Our New Trumpian Reality
21 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Colin is back, and we've got some questions, and we're guessing you do too.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener fo...
The Final Frontier or the Glass Ceiling: The Legacy of Women in NASA
18 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
As the men of Apollo 11 returned home to ticker tape parades, the women who made their journey possible worked quietly behind the scenes. Since its fo...
Westerns: American Mythology or Cultural History?
17 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There are few genres of entertainment more American than the Western. But for a genre so steeped in the iconography of our past, its accuracy in portr...
An Ode to the Sun (Listen, Don't Stare!)
16 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What can you say about the sun? It sits not only at the center of our solar system but has, over time, been at the center of religions, scriptures, so...
The Art of the Audiobook
15 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a great audiobook? What makes a great audiobook narrator? (And, for that matter, what makes a not-so-great audiobook and audiobook narrator...
The Scramble: The Media and the Election, Chappelle Returns to TV, and R.I.P. Leon Russell
14 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
You may have heard there was an election last week. You may have heard that the outcome... surprised some people. You may have heard that the press m...
You Want Me to Eat What?! An Examination of Disgust
11 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Okay, this show comes with a trigger warning.We talk about things people eat, and some of those things are not for the squeamish. This is a conversat...
An Evening With Patti Smith
10 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Patti Smith wasn't seeking fame when she landed in Manhattan in 1969. She was a fan of the greats of the day - like Dylan, Mapplethorpe, Pollock...
Uh. Well. The Election Is Over.
09 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The one thing we knew for sure was that by the time we got to today, yesterday would be over.And it is.And we have a new President-elect.Support the s...
Election Day STILL Makes Me Happy
08 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
We're all a little tired of this election. I vacillate between excitement, fear, anger, fatigue - sometimes all in the same hour. What will become of...
The Scramble: Can America Recover Her Reputation?
07 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
American democracy is limping to the finish line this election week, dehydrated and injured from many stumbles during this race. Can it recover before...
Richard Dreyfuss, Live from TheaterWorks
04 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
He's an Academy Award winner, a Golden Globe winner, a BAFTA Award winner.He's the star of American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kin...
To Catch a Burglar
02 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
George Leonidas Leslie robbed the Manhattan Savings Institution of $3 million in 1878. At the time, it was considered one of the safest buildings...
The North Korea You Don't Know
01 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Amidst the increasing concern over a nuclear armed North Korea, it's easy to forget the nearly 25 million citizens who live there. Their stories, whi...
The Scramble: The End (of This Election) Is Near
31 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
FBI Director James B. Comey wrote in a Friday memo to Congressional leaders that "the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be per...
The Nose on the New Leonard Cohen and The Run-Up's Trump Tapes
28 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Leonard Cohen's 14th studio album, You Want It Darker, dropped last Friday. Coupled with a new David Remnick profile of Cohen in The New Yorker, the r...
An Hour With Ira (Glass)
27 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ira Glass -- host of This American Life, creator of Serial, professional dancer -- used our show as his prime example in "a principled defense of fun ...
The Mystery and Legend of Gangsters
26 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Al Capone told everyone who asked him what he did for a living that he was a "property owner and taxpayer in Chicago." He was really a powerful multi...
Good Bulldozer, Bad Bulldozer
25 Oct 2016
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 all the Ton...
The Scramble: Why Do We Do the Things We Do?
24 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Against Everything is a book about self-improvement. Before you tune out, I ask you to challenge your notion of 'self-improvement.' Support ...
The Nose Is Glad It Wasn't Invited to the Al Smith Dinner
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It's just by happenstance that we ran into three short films this week that are both remarkable and newly available online. One of them is really some...
The Debates Are Over!
20 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met in Las Vegas last night for their third and final debate before the November 8 election.&...
Little House Libertarians
19 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A lot of you reading this are familiar with the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder because you watched the popular "Little House on the Prairi...
The Scramble: Trump's Conspiracy Theories Threaten Democracy
17 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump spent the recent days creating an alternate reality filled with 'global conspiracies' against him he claims are led by Hillary Clint...
Jesters and Fools: A History of Wit and Whimsey
17 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
History and literature are filled with their antics. From the Renaissance's Triboulet to Shakespeare's Feste from "Twelfth Night," jesters and fools h...
The Nose Goes to the Theater
14 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
We've never sent a Nose panel to a play before. So this week, we figured we'd try it out. So we've all gone to see Steve Martin's world premiere at th...
Live From Watkinson: Honey, We Broke The Democracy
13 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
I wasn't sure anyone would show up for a live, on-stage discussion about this year's election. I mean, no one's starving for content about this. We're...
Wonders and Curiosities of the Modern World
12 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
If Anthony Bourdain and Wes Anderson were to ever collaborate, chances are they'd end up creating something like Atlas Obscura. The founders of the&nb...
Trump Supporters Tell Us What We're Missing About Their Man
11 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The job of the media is to inform voters on views and behaviors that relay how a political candidate will behave once elected to office. Fair and hone...
The Scramble: Are Debates Still Relevant?
10 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone was wondering how Donald Trump would handle the 2005 tape of him talking with Billy Bush about sexually-assaulting women because "you can do ...
The Nose Goes to Kim and Kanye Westworld
07 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
HBO's new 10-episode western sci-fi thriller remake of the 1973 movie "Westworld" took an awfully long time and a big old pile of money to see th...
Neonaticide Is an Act of Desperation
06 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Neonaticide is a hard concept for most of us to wrap our heads around. Yet, the CDC estimates that "a baby born in the United States is ten times more...
Live (on Tape) From the Peabody!
05 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the more than six years that it's been on the air, we've never taken The Colin McEnroe Show to the Peabody Museum before. (Crazy, right?) And: In t...
It's the Breast Day of the Week!
04 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Marie Antoinette's breasts were believed to inspire the design of the shallow French champagne coupes we see on the shelves of the local Pottery Barn....
The Scramble Is Being Audited
03 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump's horrible, terrible week got worse after the New York Times released three pages of Trump's 1995 tax return this weekend. They ...
The Nose Can't Stop Talking About Cargo Shorts
30 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Everybody hates cargo shorts. Except the people who don't. And more than that, everybody keeps talking about whether or not they hate cargo shorts. It...
David Ortiz Is Just the Worst Thing
29 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
So here's what happened. Lucy Nalpathanchil got a pitch from some PR person about covering David Ortiz's retirement at the end of this baseball season...
Twice-as-Nice Advice About Vice
28 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Three guests, Peter Sagal of WWDTM, Maria Konnikova of The New Yorker, and Robert Evans of Cracked, take you on a tour of vice. They talk everything f...
Satanism: Religion, Philosophy, Lifestyle
27 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Free will, individual responsibility, and the pursuit of happiness: Fundamental tenets of, wait for it... Satanism. While the word conjures up images ...
The Scramble Mourns Jose Fernandez
26 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This hour, we mourn the loss of 24-year-old Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez, who died in a boat accident over the weekend. Support the show:...
The New Haven Nose Doesn't Want to Talk About Brangelexit
23 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The biggest surprise about Oliver Stone's Snowden is probably how controversial it isn't. Which isn't to say that it isn't somewhat controversial -- a...
We Predict That The Amazing Kreskin Will Be on This Show
22 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Colin's out today, and Julia Pistell returns as guest host. We devote the hour to two interesting guys and their interesting jobs.Support the show: ht...
The Greatest Show on Radio Looks at The Greatest Show on Earth!
21 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The modern circus has been thrilling audiences for over 250 years, but as times have changed, so has the circus. What began as little more than an equ...
Remembering H.M.: The Man Who Couldn't Remember
20 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
H.M. is one of the most important and studied human research subjects of all time. He revolutionized what we know about memory today because of the am...
The Scramble: Is That Really News?
18 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How we make decisions is a thread that runs through today's Scramble.First, Donald Trump called a press conference in his new Trump International Hote...
The Nose Just Needs Some Time to Find Itself, Okay?
16 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Normally by Friday morning we've got the first one or two topics for The Nose ironed out, and we maybe spend some time hashing out what the third and ...
Are You Smarter Than a Raccoon?
15 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Colin has a "pet" raccoon that visits his porch. The raccoon will press her tiny paw up against the outstretched palm of Colin's significant other, wh...
The Future Is Now: Mr. Robot and Our Cyberpunk Reality
14 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction emerged in the '70s and '80s with books like Neuromancer and movies like Blade Runner set in the early 21st ...
Women Warriors
13 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
There is still a debate about whether women belong in combat. It's been more than a year since Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered all branches ...
The Scramble Has a Charitable Foundation
12 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have both been criticized in recent weeks for activities related to their respective foundations. Clinton is accused ...
The Nose Ponders Babs, 'Atlanta,' and Clowns
09 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Barbra Streisand's new album dropped two weeks ago. It's an album of duets with . . . actors. Babs and her famous friends sing . . . show tunes. To my...
50 Years of Boldly Going
08 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At 8:30 pm on Thursday, September 8, 1966, NBC aired the premiere of a new series called "Star Trek". The episode was "The Man Trap." The star date wa...
The Scary Truth Behind Our Love for Horror
07 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Horror films have been scaring audiences for over a hundred years. And in all that time, some things have never changed: Year after year, the collecti...
The Scramble on Politics, Football and Immigration
06 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The presidential debates are scheduled to begin this month with the first scheduled for September 26 at Hofstra University in Long Island. Donald Trum...
U.S. Intelligence Dabbles in Forecasting the Future
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The participants are average citizens: school teachers, waiters, pharmacists, perhaps even your neighbor. By day they work and pay their bills, but wh...
What About Bill? Author Robert Schnakenberg Discusses Actor Bill Murray
01 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Murray has been involved with some of our favorite movies of all time: Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Moonrise Kingdom, and so many more. He doesn't l...
Endangered Language: How Technology May Replace Braille and Sign
31 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
A transcript of this show is available here.It's hard to think about language as being endangered or replaceable. But as our culture and means of comm...
Obsolescence: Novelty Versus Nostalgia in the Age of Mass Production
30 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In an era awash in the rollout of brand new gadgets, gizmos, fashions, and fads, it's easy to think of obsolescence as part of the natural order -- re...