The Colin McEnroe Show

This week on The Nose, our culture roundtable, we'll tackle " Columbusing ," the act of believing that something never existed before you discovered it. Also, this week's biting episode in the World Cup makes us wonder if vampires are setting a bad example. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's become of game shows in America? Since their television debut in 1938 we've seen everything from microwave ovens to million dollar payouts awarded to lucky contestants. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in America, and for one good reason: that 77-million-person wave of boomers headed into their 60s and beyond. Pickleball is what you play when your knees and shoulders start saying "no" to tennis. We talk about the game and its sudden surge. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Monday, we do The Scramble. And on the Scramble, we always start with a SuperGuest, which means that in defiance of public radio logic, we pick the person first and then figure out what the topics will be.  This week we started with June Thomas, one of my favorite Slate.com writers and talkers, and someone I assumed would want to riff at least a little bit about pop culture. Instead, her t...

Jeff VanderMeer is one of the hottest writers in the science fiction and fantasy genre. MG Lord is a humorist and recovering political cartoonist who has written books about Elizabeth Taylor and Barbie. Louis Bayard writes historical fiction who specializes in detective novels, but his new book features Teddy Roosevelt stalking a mysterious beast through the Amazon. That's the river and jungle, no...

Maybe you think of the banjo as primarily a bluegrass instrument, but try not to forget that prior to about 1830, it was played pretty much exclusively by African-Americans, and it seems to have as ancestors several African instruments.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why pencils? Here's an answer from PencilRevolution.com , one of the many pencil blogs and websites we uncovered while prepping for this show: "The first and best reason to use pencils is because you like them, and enjoy writing, drawing with them. Because you feel better connected to the paper you're writing on (or the wall, etc.), and the earth, from which the clay, the graphite, and the wood al...

New Haven's International Festival of Arts and Ideas is back! The theme of this year's festival is "Transformation and Tradition," and runs from this past Saturday through June 28. You don't want to miss it. John Dankosky and Where We Live will brighten your breakfast with a performance of a "comic-rap-scrap metal musical." They're just getting started. You also hear about corsets, bicycles,...

Henry Alford is a very funny writer. I've been laughing at his writing since about 1990, when he erupted in Spy Magazine, with hilarious speculative pieces like, "What If The Pope Were A Dog?" Not long ago, he was asked to review a collection by another funny writer, Garrison Keillor. He did it, keenly aware that many people who find him funny are the kinds of people who find Keillor tiresome. And...

It has been a strange week for mixing gay right, media, and politics. Texas Governor Rick Perry surprised a San Francisco audience when he said, "I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at homosexual issues the same way." Anderson Cooper had an edgy conversation with a Texas -- what is it about Texas? -- state rep who sup...

Tab Hunter and Joyce DeWitt, Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones, Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels, Samantha Bee and Jason Jones from "The Daily Show," Timothy Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern: I could go on and on. These are all couples who have acted together in A.R. Gurney's play, "Love Letters." The play is amazingly elastic. Do you want to see Larry Hagman and Linda Gray together one more tim...

President Obama announced a five-year, $200 million initiative to help young black men succeed. It's called  "My Brother's Keeper,"  and aims to work with non-profits and foundations to search for solutions to the  problems of young black men. Leaders cite school and job readiness, discipline, and parenting as a few of the problems they'll tackle, but it's  mostly the bone-crus...

David Steinberg, Martin Short, Mort Sahl, Rick Moranis, Lorne Michaels, Jim Carrey, John Candy, Kids in the Hall, Samantha Bee, Jason Jones, Howie Mandel, Rich Little, Norm Macdonald, Katherine O'Hara, Russell Peters, Leslie Nielsen - They are all Canadians. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Freakonomics god Stephen Dubner is our SuperGuest for today's Scramble, and he talks about how to think more rationally and creatively, the upside of quitting, and the latest studies on happiness. Then, we chat with sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, and WNPR's capital region reporter Jeff Cohen, on the value of publicly-funded sports arenas. What's the status on the possible building of a ba...

Today on The Nose, we begin with an essay, " Faking Cultural Literacy ." Writer Karl Taro Greenfeld said, "It's never been so easy to pretend to know so much, without actually knowing anything." We pick topical, relevant bits from Facebook, Twitter, or emailed news alerts, and then regurgitate them. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richard Klein and Jerry Adler are veteran actors and directors on stage, television, and film. You might know Klein as Dallas on Three's Company , and Adler as "Hesh" on The Sopranos . On this show, they'll visit the WNPR studios to tell their stories, and reminisce with Colin about his years as Ed the Handyman on Charles In Charge . That's not true, Colin wasn't in Charles In Charge , but we'll e...

Connecticut's history is well documented throughout Connecticut museums and historic villages, but there's much more  that we have yet to discover, much of it underground.  Today, we're partnering with  Connecticut Explored,  Connecticut's history journal, to tell a series of underground stories.                       &nbsp...

If you're like me, you'll have a lot of thoughts about food today but they won't be about how to get some. It will be about what you want for lunch and what you feel like having for dinner. You might have an argument with yourself about whether you can afford to eat a snack or dessert, but to you the word "afford" has to do with your weight and your waistline. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org...

Is college worth it?  The news about higher education is mostly bad. Student loan debt is now $1 trillion and climbing. Underpaid, demoralized, and harassed adjunct faculty are taking on more and more of the teaching load. By many measures, college isn't doing its most important job: providing a ladder that young people with fewer advantages can climb. College right now seems to be reinforcin...

Why go to a film festival? Because you might see the guy who plays Jaime Lannister on "Game of Thrones" in a Norwegian film also starting Juliette Binoche about a photojournalist on a dangerous assignment in Kenya. Or you might see a documentary about the American roots music dynasty, the Carters and the Cashes. Or maybe you'll bump into an acting legend like Karen Allen or Mary Kay Place on the s...

Luanne Rice has written 31 novels, five of which have been made into movies or mini-series. Her work has been featured in playhouses across the country, including Connecticut's own Hartford Stage. Her latest book, The Lemon Orchard , uses her signature themes of family and loss to tackle the difficult path of illegal immigrants in America. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudi...

People who attend Comic Con and Star Trek conventions -- or nerds in general -- used to be the butt of jokes, including a famous "Saturday Night Live" skit by William Shatner , where he tells "Trekkers" to get a life. Now "fandom" is a huge industry. It generates  more than $500 million by one estimate, and is growing in both revenue and attendance.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org...

On any given day, it's pretty easy to find all the ways in which modern media has substituted politicization for truth and/or serious reflection. Today, you could take the so-called Santa Barbara killing spree by Elliot Rodger. After the usual first round of back and forth sniping about the availability of weapons. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...

The story of Josh Hanagarne isn't necessarily funny. He was born with Tourette Syndrome, a poorly understood neuropsychiatric disorder which inflicts on Josh a blizzard of tics, flinches, whoops and yelps.  Most disconcertingly, he frequently hits himself in the face. Josh's first refuge was books, and that led to a career as a librarian. His second refuge was playing the guitar, which someho...

Can the culture of one nation ever understand that of another? Critics say Fox's newest reality show in which 12 witless contestants believe their in a fight to the near death for the attention of England's Prince Harry. "I Wanna Marry Harry" is said to represent a new low in reality television . Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.