The Colin McEnroe Show

A Tribute to Cereal: Kid Tested, Mother Approved

12 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

We once did a show about beer jingles, which is a great example of how a product becomes a culture. Cereal as a culture, is off the charts. There's th...

Donald Trump Up Close and Personal

10 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump wants to advance his business interests in Russia - and Vladimir Putin couldn't be happier. Putin's geopolitical interests rely on w...

Nose Go See Tarzan Movie

08 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

There's a new entry in the long, long canon of Tarzan stories and adaptations and shows and movies and musicals and Happy Meals toys or whatever. This...

A Nerding Out About Clouds

06 Jul 2016

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 thesi...

Is America Still a Democracy?

06 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Many Americans feel their vote no longer carries much clout in determining the decisions that most affect their lives -- whether it's about immigratio...

The Scramble: Private Emails and Driverless Cars

05 Jul 2016

Contributed by Lukas

FBI Director James Comey recommended no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal email server while she was Secretary of Sta...

A Show About Infomercials. Operators Are Standing By!

01 Jul 2016

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 were a...

Imagining Aliens: A Conversation in Science, Fiction, and Theology

30 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

From scientists to fiction writers, conspiracy theorists to theologians, aliens have captured the imagination of us all. But as we ponder the possibil...

Adrenaline: America's Favorite Hormone

29 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Since its discovery in 1900, adrenaline and pop-culture have gone hand-in-hand. From extreme sports, to the latest energy drinks, to pulse pounding Ho...

A Love Letter (and Tomatoes) to the Usual Gang of Idiots

28 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Before Stephen Colbert and John Oliver, before Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien, before "The Simpsons," before David Letterman, before "Saturday Night ...

Holy Smokes, Batman! You're a Star!

27 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

My Batman story begins with a crime. I was in third grade. I went to the barber shop in West Hartford Center where there were comic books to read whil...

The Nose Is Exiting the Rest of Its Face

24 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The British voted to leave the European Union yesterday. Let that sink in for a minute. This decision will likely cause geopolitical and economic turm...

Cinderella Doesn't Want to Marry the Prince

23 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Most of us know Cinderella as the poor servant girl who stuck it to her mean stepmother and stepsisters by proving she was good enough to marry the ri...

Borders: A look at The Lines That Divide Us

22 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's easy to think of borders as fixed, almost sacrosanct lines, so rooted in the natural order of things that it often doesn't occur to us to questio...

The Unreliability of the Unreliable Narrator

21 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this year at the Golden Globes, the top TV honor, Best Television Series -- Drama, went to USA's hacker technothriller series "Mr. Robot." Las...

The Scramble Crashed After We Talked Trump

20 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump has had a really bad few weeks. His poll numbers are dropping to the lowest point for any general election candidate in the last three ye...

The Nose Is Prepared to Sit Comfortably in Its Seats for One Hour and No Longer

16 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

I swear we almost never pick the Nose panelists based on the topics we plan to discuss. (We barely ever even plan in the first place, to be honest.) I...

Benedict Arnold: Unscrupulous Traitor or Unsung Hero?

16 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

When you "pull a Benedict Arnold," you sell out your side to join the stronger side of a situation out of fear, not honor.  Needless to say, that...

Sea Change: Transforming Attitudes and Ethics Towards Marine Life

15 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Animal rights have come a long way over the last century, providing, of course, we're not talking about fish. While other vertebrates have slowly been...

A Look at Weiner, The Lobster, and Probably Some Other Movies with Odd Titles Too

13 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

America's Greatest Living Film Critic David Edelstein has called "Weiner," the new documentary about former Congressman Anthony Weiner's ill-fate...

The Scramble: The Shooting in Orlando

13 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Orlando, Florida was the scene of a mass shooting Sunday that left 50 people dead and dozens more injured. We've heard the story before: a shooter wal...

The Nose on O.J.: Made in America

09 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

New York magazine's Will Leitch has called ESPN's new documentary "O.J.: Made in America" a masterpiece, and he thinks it'll be "the only thing this c...

The 2016 Song of the Summer Is...

08 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Every year, we do a Song of the Summer show. It always makes people angry. There is no evidence that it has ever made people happy. A lot of it has to...

Bringing Musical Theater Center Stage

08 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

"Hamilton," the wildly popular musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, will likely win several Tony Awards this weekend for changing the form of musical theate...

Get to Know the Jehovah's Witnesses

07 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Between orthodoxy and cultism exists a narrow divide; a proving ground of public opinion where spirited groups vie for entry into the hallowed halls o...

The Scramble Wonders If We're Ready for a Libertarian President

06 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

There has never been a time in the last ten presidential cycles when voters have disliked two presidential front-runners as much as they dislike Donal...

The New Haven Nose's Tattoo Says Wall-to-Wall Fun

03 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Simon's 13th solo studio album, Stranger to Stranger, is out on Friday. It has apparently been gestating for going on four years, and it's full o...

Understanding Intelligence: From Social Science to Computer Science

02 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

How do we define intelligence? Where does it come from, and what roles do genetics and environment play in its development? We live in a world that va...

It's a Magazine of Sports, of Sorts: Baseball, Basketball, Scrabble, and the Spelling Bee

01 Jun 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Ron Darling won a World Series. He was a Major League All-Star and a Gold Glove winner. He pitched a record-setting eleven hitless innings in an NCAA ...

Krista Tippett On Being Human

31 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Krista Tippett must know something. After all, she's been hosting a show -- originally called Speaking of Faith and now called On Being -- for about 1...

The Nose Watched Lady Dynamite (So You Don’t Have To?)

27 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian Maria Bamford's new Netflix single-camera sitcom, "Lady Dynamite," premiered last Friday. And it's... odd. It's surreal. It's sad. It's a com...

How Much Water Do You Need?

26 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Most of us have heard that our bodies need eight cups of water every day to stay healthy and hydrated. Some think that's the minimum we should drink t...

Buzz Aldrin on the Past, Present and Future of Space Exploration

24 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The man who once walked on the moon, and helped America define itself as a leader in space travel is now out with a new book. It reads half as a memoi...

Live (on Tape) From the Peabody!

24 May 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...

The Scramble: The GOP, Offhand Comments, MLB

23 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Former Governor Lowell Weicker says the Republican Party no longer embraces the ideals of prudent financial governance and social conscience that once...

According to the Uniform Prior, The Nose Has an 82 Percent Chance of Happening

20 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Rio 2016 Olympics are set to start in less than three months’ time. But Brazil’s Zika outbreak is worse than we thought. And there’s ongoing...

The Evolving World of Flash Fiction

19 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Flash fiction goes by many names: micro-fiction, nano-fiction, short-shorts, and with the emergence of Twitter-fiction; twiction and twisters have als...

Are You Smarter Than a Raccoon?

18 May 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...

You Want Me to Eat What?! An Examination of Disgust

17 May 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 conversati...

The Scramble Pretends to Be The Nose

16 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

 Reporters at The Washington Post noted that Donald Trump has a history of calling reporters under the guise of phantom spokespersons named John ...

The Nose Is #TeamCaptainBudweiser

13 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Last Friday, "Captain America: Civil War" debuted in theaters. It is the inaugural film in 2016's summer movie season. It's also the third Captain Ame...

The Contributions of Wilhelm Reich

12 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Wilhelm Reich was a once promising psychoanalyst and scientist under the guidance of Freud in pre-World War II Europe. He promoted "sexual r...

Can Forgetting the Past Be a Good Thing?

11 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

David Rieff isn't against the lessons of remembrance, but he believes it shouldn't be the only morally-sanctioned option. Forgetting may be the b...

The Scramble Scrambles the Steves Metcalf

09 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Rather than me ham-handedly trying to summarize Stephen Metcalf's Slate cover story, "Donald Trump, Baby Boomer," read his thesis below.Support the sh...

The Truth About Ugliness (It Ain't Pretty)

09 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to say that someone, or something, is ugly? For a label that gets tossed around so often, its meaning is hard to pin down. Perhaps t...

The Nose Is a Low-Flying Panic Attack

06 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, the Nose does its best to tackle four full topics.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...

Conservative Talk Radio: The Past, Present, and Future

05 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's easy to see how this year's polarized political climate has split conservatives, but how has it affected conservative talk radio? Those that list...

Politics Has Always Been Nasty

04 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It is not so well known, as it should be, that this federal gem [John Adams], this apostle of the parsons of Connecticut, is not only a repulsive peda...

A Backstage Look at Political Stagecraft

03 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

During Connecticut's 2014 gubernatorial election, Republican candidate Tom Foley chose a failing paper mill in Sprague as the "stage" upon which he'd ...

The Scramble: President Obama's Stand-Up

02 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a kind of idiocy about the way the White House Correspondents Dinner is, conceptually, a Feast of Fools with a comedian as Lord of Misrule, ...

The Nose Better Call Becky With the Good Hair

29 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

We plan to spend upwards of half of this hour unpacking Beyonce's new visual album, Lemonade. And we will barely have gotten the wrapper off by t...

Democracy in the Public Square

28 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Tragedy of the Commons follows the theory that people can't be trusted to take care of common property without degrading it or taking more th...

Imagining Aliens: A Conversation in Science, Fiction, and Theology

27 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

From scientists to fiction writers, conspiracy theorists to theologians, aliens have captured the imagination of us all. But as we ponder the possibil...

Voters Weigh in On Primary Day in Connecticut

26 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's Primary Day in Connecticut and I'm excited about it.For the first time in a long time, Connecticut voters feel they have a say in which candidate...

The Scramble: Inequality Is Our Most Pressing Problem

25 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The effect of a declining middle class is everywhere -- the medically uninsured or underinsured, the heroin epidemic, declining life expectancy for mi...

2day Is the First Day of the Rest of The Nose's Life

22 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

His Royal Badness died yesterday. He was 57.This hour, an appreciation of Prince.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listen...

Good Bulldozer, Bad Bulldozer

21 Apr 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 T...

Poetry: Give It a Try

20 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petry wrote a column a few years ago asking if poetry was still vital enough to change anything. Poets and po...

Live From Watkinson: If You Build It, Will They Come? Sports in Hartford

19 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Most cities would be thrilled to have a major or minor-league sports franchise come to town. It will bring crowds and new business and prosperity, rig...

The Scramble: Politics and Kimmy Schmidt

18 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This year's presidential race is exposing the vast disconnect between candidates and voters,  the inadequacy of the two-party system, and the ove...

The Nose Has Its Girlfriend Experience

14 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Last weekend, the new Starz series "The Girlfriend Experience" premiered on cable and dropped in its entirety online. The always grumpy Richard Brody ...

Spoiler Alert! It's a Discussion About Spoilers

14 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Do you like spoilers? Hate them? Whether it involves sports, television, books or movies, has a spoiler ruined something for you? Enhanced it? Do...

Jesters and Fools: A History of Wit and Whimsy

13 Apr 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...

Pondering Modern Love

11 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's hard to improve on the poet, Rilke, who wrote, "Love consists of this, that two solitudes meet, protect, and greet each other." But did Rilke hav...

Meet 2016 Democratic Presidential Candidate Rocky De La Fuente

11 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump was considered untouchable on his way to winning the nomination to represent the Republican Party in the 2016 election -- until establish...

The Nose Is Done With American Idol

08 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

And after 15 seasons and 555 episodes and more than 345 Billboard chart toppers, "American Idol" is done with us. Love it or hate it, the show changed...

It's Our Secular(ish) Isms Bake Off!

07 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's Yale and New Haven Humanism Week in New Haven, and so we thought: Hey, wait. Just what the heck is a humanism exactly anyway?And so then we thoug...

The Placebo Effect

06 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Placebo treatments have been making people feel better for a long time. They've been working since long before Franz Mesmer was run out of 18th-centur...

A Tough Course Ahead for the Game of Golf

05 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

As golf season begins again there are some troubling signs for the sport's future. The game of presidents past and country-clubbers around the nation ...

Don't Believe Everything You Hear About Polls

04 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The polling industry is in transition. Fewer people consider it their civic duty to participate -- less than ten percent today compared to 80 percent ...

The Nose Is Sad for Sad Ben Affleck

01 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

I get that it's stupid April Fools' Day, and so you can't trust anything you see on the stupid Internet. Except for the Trump quotes. The Trump quotes...

The Strange Brilliance of Buckminster Fuller

30 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Buckminster Fuller may not be a household name. Nevertheless, his contributions to society and to sustainable living through technol...

Living Life While Dying of ALS

29 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Jon Imber was at the peak of his career as an accomplished artist and teacher when he was diagnosed with ALS in the fall of 2012. "Imber's Left Hand,"...

Every Coin and Stamp Tells a Story

29 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, over 1,000 gold coins were found by a couple walking their dog on their property in Sierra Nevada, California. A rainstorm exposed the rusted...

The Scramble: Trump Likes the Idea of Torture More Than He Likes the Idea of Reporters

27 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Reporters describe Donald Trump events as frightening and unsettling for those in the media. Trump relegates the media  to rectangular pens they'...

The Nose Brings Its Kids to Work

25 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Chicago White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche abruptly retired from baseball last week with a year and $13 million left on his contract because the tea...

Should Alcoholics Anonymous Be a First Choice for Treatment?

24 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Pre-prohibition research into alcohol use and consumption was wiped out when the country dried out in the 1920s. In response, American "alcohol s...

Holy Smokes, Batman! You're a Star!

23 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

My Batman story begins with a crime. I was in third grade. I went to the barber shop in West Hartford Center where there were comic books to read whil...

A (Somewhat) Serious Look at Donald Trump's (Possible) Presidency

21 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

For a normal show, on a normal day, in a normal time, we'd usually put two or three experts in a room with Colin and ask them to hash out whatever it ...

The Scramble: Why Trump Now?

21 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

There is no doubt that Donald Trump has taken the country by storm, defying all expectations that his candidacy would implode after the initial infatu...

The Nose Has A Copyright On Its Name

18 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

First Lady Michelle Obama kicked off the next phase of her and President Obama's Let Girls Learn campaign to educate the #62milliongirls&nbs...

Endangered Language: How Technology May Replace Braille and Sign

16 Mar 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...

What Do We Really Want From Our Leaders?

16 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump is closer to locking up the Republican nomination for president after big wins in Tuesday's primaries. He has incredible support fro...

Our Seventh Annual March Madness Show

14 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Every year at this time, as you may have heard, there's a big-old basketball tournament that goes on. And every year at this time, people in offices a...

The Scramble: Donald, Hillary and Yale

14 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's Monday. Remember last Monday when we had a somewhat long and somewhat anguished conversation about Donald Trump? Well, we're planning to have ano...

The Nose Panelists Rock Their Stilettos LOL

11 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

I once slipped on a banana peel in my crowded high school cafeteria when I was sixteen years old. I was navigating the busy lunch room in my almost si...

Bracketology for Bookworms

09 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Starting next week, the nation will turn its eyes to basketball, to college basketball, and its annual March Madness tournament.But... not quite all o...

Why Is So Much Publicly-Funded Research Unavailable?

09 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Laura McKenna went looking for information on a medical condition that would help her care for her child. Unfortunately, she couldn't access most...

A Show About Infomercials. Operators Are Standing By!

07 Mar 2016

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 w...

The Scramble: Millennials in the Cycle of Trump

07 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Steve Almond says he's rooting for Donald Trump to win the nomination, even though he doesn't want him to be our next president. He says the GOP has b...

Listen To The Music

04 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

One of the first things I did with the money I made from my part-time job as a teenager was to buy the next album on my wish list of new music. A...

The Sharing Economy: From Idle Assets to Billion-Dollar Businesses

02 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It goes by many names: the sharing economy, the collaborative economy, the peer economy, just to name a few. Whatever you want to call it, one thing's...

Vin Baker's Journey From Basketball to Barista

02 Mar 2016

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 got him...

A Woman and Her Store: Remembering Beatrice Fox Auerbach and G. Fox and Co.

01 Mar 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This hour, a panel of experts and historians gives us an in-depth look at the life and legacy of Beatrice Fox Auerbach, owner and CEO of Connecticut's...

An Up-Close Look Behind the Glass of… Dioramas

29 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

When I hear the word "diorama," the first thing I think of is Mr. Mack’s fifth grade class and painting hills and grass and clouds and a fence into ...

The Noscars! A Nose in New Haven

25 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The show moves to the Elm City for its annual snort of/at The Oscars, this time from the lobby of The Study at Yale in front of a live audience number...

Everybody's a Critic!

25 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

It's Friday night and I want to go to the movies. But, I don't know how to choose from fifteen or so movies before me. I can quickly knock out a few I...

The Myth of the Underdog

24 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Jules Feiffer wrote that in the early days the fans of either Superman and Batman could be separated out in terms of how neurotic or secure they ...

Adrenaline: America's Favorite Hormone

22 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Since its discovery in 1900, adrenaline and pop-culture have gone hand-in-hand. From extreme sports, to the latest energy drinks, to pulse pounding Ho...

The Scramble Finds a Throughline: Trump, Apple, and Conspiracies

22 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump's win in this weekend's South Carolina primary was bigger than most establishment Republicans, and the media, want to admit. It comes aft...