The Colin McEnroe Show

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...

The Nose Walks Into a Bar and Sees Louis CK

19 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

If there is a through line to this week's Nose, I would have to call it trespass.In the remarkable third episode of Louis C.K.'s from-out-of-nowhere f...

Juliet and Shakespeare's Women

18 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Hartford Stage's current production is maybe Shakespeare's most popular play. This hour, Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak joins us to talk about his n...

Do You Think Your Heart Is Healthy?

17 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Heart disease is still the biggest killer in the United States, even though fewer people die from from heart attack and cardiac arrest than ever befor...

The Scramble: Scalia and the Future of SCOTUS

16 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The 2016 presidential election took a dramatic turn this weekend with the sudden death of Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court's most divisive, yet color...

The Nose Keeps Hot Sauce in Its WNPR Tote Bag

12 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week, the universe chirped... and we heard it! Samantha Bee's new politics-lampooning late-night show debuted to a ton of buzz. The primary debat...

Wait, Wait! It's Paula Poundstone!

11 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Paula Poundstone and I started out with a plan for a short chat about her upcoming appearance in Connecticut, and then the conversation sprawled all o...

It's Elementary, My Dear Watson That I Owe My Life To William Gillette

10 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Sherlock Holmes is the most recognizable character in the world. According to the Sherlock Holmes Society, the famous detective has been portrayed by ...

A Conversation With Elizabeth Alexander

09 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Ficre Ghebreyesus and Elizabeth Alexander were born two months apart in 1962, he in Eritrea, she in Harlem. They didn’t meet until 1996. He was an a...

We Just Watch for the Commercials

08 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

You may have heard there was some big football game on Sunday. You may have heard that the Denver Broncos won, 24 to 10. You may have heard that Beyon...

The Nose Cautions Women Not to Drink or SHOUT in the Presence of Men

05 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The CDC this week recommended women between the ages of 15 and 44 not drink alcohol unless they're on birth control. Why run the risk to the baby...

The Audacity of Hoop

04 Feb 2016

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 di...

It's My (Political) Party and I'll Switch If I Want to

03 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Our deepest convictions shape how we see the world from a very young age. Our parents, community, and religion deeply influence our beliefs and ultima...

Live From Watkinson: What's So Funny About Connecticut?

02 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, a group of us gathered on stage at Watkinson School for a conversation about humor and comedy. The conversation had two fields on inquiry. T...

The Scramble on Politics: Presidential, UConn, Conard High School

01 Feb 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The eyes of the nation turn to Iowa. But, why? The caucus process doesn't really resemble voting as we do it the rest of the time in this nation. And,...

The Nose "Likes" Michael Jackson and #FlatEarth

29 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph Fiennes will play Michael Jackson in a new British made-for-TV movie about a fictional road trip taken by Elizabeth Taylor, Mich...

A Tribute to Cereal: Kid Tested, Mother Approved

28 Jan 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...

Surviving Unbearable Heartache

27 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Bill Petit spent Sunday, July 23, 2007 playing golf with his father. The day was sunny and hot and a great day to be outside. His wife and two dau...

The Unreliability of the Unreliable Narrator

26 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

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

The Scramble: Trump, X-Files, We Love Phil Collins!

25 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Republican establishment is wringing its hands over the rise of Donald Trump. On Friday, National Review, one of the leading and oldest voices for...

The Nose Ain't Right Wingin' and Bitter Clingin'

22 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Warning to listeners: the audio contains some information about "The Revenant" that slipped out of one of the guests during the discussion. It could b...

Daniel Dennett on Free Will and Consciousness

21 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Quick! Name a living philosopher. Chances are if you can do it at all, you're going to say Peter Singer, Martha Nussbaum, Shelly Kagan, or Daniel Denn...

Barbra Streisand: The Last Great American Showwoman

20 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

One thing we can all agree on regarding Barbra Streisand; she provokes strong reactions. Or, she used to. I don't think Millennials or Generation X an...

Marching in Mississippi for Dr. King

19 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This all started with a scratchy phone message from a guy named Bobby Duley. He had been making regular visits to his mother convalescing at a rehab f...

And The Nose Goes to... Sean Penn in Gringada

15 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Academy is supposed to nominate the best actors, directors and writers for Hollywood's most prestigious Oscar awards; instead, they see only white...

Can a Con Artist Con You?

14 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Joseph Cyr, a surgeon with the Royal Canadian Navy, had to think quick when his ship came upon a rickety boat with mangled and bloody bodies. at t...

Gregg Easterbrook: In Defense of Football

13 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

How disgraceful was last weekend's Cincinnati Bengals/Pittsburgh Steelers game? Well, Boomer Esiason, a former Bengals quarterback, used that word - d...

Illeana Douglas Blames Dennis Hopper

12 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Life changed dramatically for Illeana Douglas in 1969 when her parents fell in love with the two Harley-riding hippies in the Dennis Hopper - Peter Fo...

Remembering David Bowie

11 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In "A Knight's Tale," Heath Ledger is invited to a dance among the nobles. He is a peasant, impersonating a noble and is anxious because he doesn't re...

An X-Chromosome Nose Takes on "Making a Murderer" and Gender

08 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

People can't get enough of the new Netflix story "Making a Murderer," a depressing story about Steven Avery, the son of troublesome auto-salvage deale...

You Want Me To Eat What?!

07 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Okay, this show comes with a trigger warning.We're going to talk about things people eat, and some of those things are not for the squeamish. This is ...

That's Shocking!!

06 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

When the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe were exhibited at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford in 1989, there were protesters on the street and line...

The Truth About Ugliness (It Ain't Pretty)

04 Jan 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 th...

The Scramble: Natalie Cole, George R.R. Martin, Oregon

04 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Natalie Cole struggled to step out of the shadows of R&B icon Aretha Franklin and the longer shadow of her father, singer Nat King Cole. But she d...

The Nose Reminisces on 2015

31 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

I assembled seven Nose panelists and asked them to pick a topic we used during 2015 from my list of twelve.  Of the five left over, four of them ...

Historical Fiction Is Not All Made Up

30 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Many of our ideas about history are drawn from historical fiction. Who, for example, is Thomas More? Is he the tragic hero of the play and movie,...

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

28 Dec 2015

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...

The Scramble: Steve Collins on Resigning from Bristol Press and the Mysterious "Edward Clarkin"

28 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

On the surface of things, there would seem to be little connection among the following: two small daily newspapers in central Connecticut, the wealthy...

Why Coincidences Happen: The Psychology and Mathematics Behind Rare Events

24 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Coincidences happen to everyon, wwhether it's hearing a song you've been thinking about all day on the radio, or running into an old acquaintance whos...

Technological Unemployment: The Facts, Fears, and Future

22 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

To the list of things you can't avoid -- death and taxes -- we now add losing your job to a machine. A worry typically reserved for those in manufactu...

A Look Back at the Best Jazz of 2015

22 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It's a yearly tradition: Jazz critic Gene Seymour releases his list of the best jazz albums of the year, and musicians Jen Allen and Noah Baerman gath...

Wrapping Up 2015 With "Big Al" Anderson and Jim Chapdelaine

21 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

For the second year, we welcome singer/songwriter extraordinaire "Big Al" Anderson and Emmy Award-winning producer and musician Jim Chapdelaine i...

The Force Is With The Nose

18 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Fans are flocking to J.J. Abrams's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" in droves. The film is set to break box office records. It drew $14.1 mill...

Vin Baker's Journey from Basketball to Barista

17 Dec 2015

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...

The Problem of Evil

16 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

For most shows, I’d use these first paragraphs to explain why we’ve chosen to spend an hour on its particular topic. I’d remind you of events in...

What About Bill? Author Robert Schnakenberg Discusses Actor Bill Murray

14 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Bill Murray has been involved with some of our favorite movies of all time: Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Moonrise Kingdom. He doesn't like managers or ag...

The Scramble: Serial, SCOTUS, and Jesus

13 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the University of Texas at Austin can consider race when deciding who can come to their school...

The Nose's Person of the Year is Mx...

11 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The New York Times  and Washington Post are adding new forms of address and pronouns for people who haven't chosen a single gender. Res...

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

10 Dec 2015

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 ...

Walking With Dante

09 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

"Dante's Inferno" is the most famous section of "The Divine Comedy," poet Dante Aligheri's, 14,000 line epic poem. It's where Dante must face his...

A Conversation About Russia, the Cold War, and Espionage With a Once Aspiring Spy

08 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Justin Lifflander wanted nothing more than to become a spy for the CIA. Growing up during the Cold War, he practiced spying on friends, family, and sc...

The Scramble Reacts to Terror

07 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Dozens of reporters rushed the apartment of the San Bernardino shooters on Friday. They live-streamed their tour through the home for 15 minutes,...

The Nose Prays for Sensible Gun Policy

04 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Two married shooters with a six-month-old baby rushed a social service agency this week in San Bernardino, California. They killed 14 people and injur...

A Cartoonist's Mother's Love Affair With a Cartoonist

03 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

I first met cartoonist Bill Griffith back in the 1980s. I arranged for us to tour a Boston-area Hostess Twinkie plant, which sounds like a weird first...

Can Evangelicalism Be Progressive?

02 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Long before evangelicalism became associated with the mostly white, conservative followers aligned with the Republican Party, a long line of progressi...

The Placebo Effect

01 Dec 2015

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...

The Scramble Is Fundamentally Indistinguishable From All Other Scrambles

30 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Here’s a question: If the things we’re made of — the particles, the fundamental elemental irreducible bits, the most basic littlest chunks of us...

The Trouble With Changing Your Mind

25 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Changing our mind on an issue is something we're all free to do. But that doesn't mean it comes without a cost. What would it cost a lifelong liberal ...

An Up-Close Look Behind the Glass of… Dioramas

24 Nov 2015

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 Scramble: Lawrence Lessig, Peanuts, and Adele's 25

23 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Lawrence Lessig recently ended his pursuit of running for president as a Democrat. But his mission to take money out of politics and fix corruption is...

The Nose: A Word is a Word is... an Emoji?!

20 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday, actor Charlie Sheen revealed he is HIV-positive and has spent millions trying to hide it. This hour, we take a...

New Book Examines Muslim-American Life and "War on Terror Culture"

19 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest book, author and scholar Moustafa Bayoumi takes a critical look at what it means to be Muslim-American in post-9/11 society.Support the ...

The Re-Emergence of Socialism in America

18 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

After decades of being dismissed as a radical movement, socialism in America is back in the spotlight. What's fueling the newfound attention? Some poi...

Obsolescence: Novelty Versus Nostalgia in the Age of Mass Production

17 Nov 2015

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: Reme...

The Scramble: Moving Forward After the Paris Attacks

16 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The Paris bombings and shootings are the latest in a string of attacks by the Islamic State. Mourners around the world have gathered to show support f...

The Nose Weighs in on Yale

13 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Events this past week at Yale and the University of Missouri have sparked intense debate about the boundaries of free speech, and whether that debate ...

What Do You Really Know About Prosthetics?

12 Nov 2015

Contributed by Lukas

It's not uncommon to see someone wearing a prosthesis, especially after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sent many veterans home minus a limb. While losin...