The Colin McEnroe Show

Fear of Flying sold 18 million copies worldwide and helped tip feminism into a new focus on fulfilled sexuality. But it also introduced a meme so pervasive that the book's author, Erica Jong, worried the phrase " zipless f--k " would appear on her tombstone. Jong recenly defined the phrase on NPR's Weekend Edition: Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for p...

As Slate embarks on a quixotic search for the " most beautiful woman in the world ,"  The Nose will examine how feminine beauty plays a role in American politics. Earlier this week, a U.S. Representative from Indiana dissed a CNN anchor saying, " You're beautiful, but you have to be honest ." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information...

"Reality TV" is perhaps the biggest misnomer in the entertainment industry today. A better name would probably be "scripted unscripted television." It's not catchy, but at least it's accurate. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now that we're reeling at the prospect of life after "Breaking Bad," let's find out about the real lives of chemistry teachers! Hear from Dr. Donna Nelson, the consultant "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan hired to make sure the on-screen science was correct, and then go beyond the test tubes, and meet some chemistry teachers to hear about what actually goes on in the classroom. What did you le...

David Wolman visited a Scottish castle designed for left-handed sword fights, and a Paris museum to inspect 19th century brains. He observed chimps with a primatologist who may help unravel the mysteries of handedness. He met with a left-handed satanist, an amputee whose left hand was reattached to his right arm. He's part of a left-handed episode of The Colin McEnroe Show .  Support the...

You could say that most of the live comedy done by young performers in cities around the United States is just one big feeder system for Saturday Night Live, which launched a new season this weekend. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What can a sandwich say about a relationship? It turns out, a lot. What very well may have been an inside joke between a young couple turned into a controversial essay by New York Post writer Stephanie Smith this week.  Smith's tips on wooing her man via meat and bread featured such gems as: Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maybe you've heard the numbers. An estimated 40 percent of food in the United States never gets eaten. Americans waste 160 billion pounds of food a year. Every day, that amounts to enough food to fill the Rose Bowl. Twenty-five percent of America's freshwater use goes into the production of food that is then wasted. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.co...

As a shot in the dark, this week I asked my rather large Facebook audience whether any of them were lapsed Catholics thinking about tiptoeing back to the church based on the recent comments of Pope Francis, who talked about rebalancing the church's priorities with possibly less emphasis on what he called an obsession with abortion, contraception and same-sex marriage. Support the show: http://www....

It's an art form that came out of the chaos of World War One, when times were desperate, yet the art world was still celebrating still lifes, landscapes and nudes. In protest, artists began rebelling with politically aware ironic work, making bold, sometimes vicious points with their art. Times have changed, and Dada resurfaces periodically, like in the exhibition at the Pump House in Hartford . S...

New Havenites reclaiming a beautiful park in their city got us thinking about urban parks in general. Frederick Law Olmsted is the undisputed father of American city parks, including Central Park itself. He came from Hartford, and he is buried here. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We first got interested in the people inside sports team mascots back in 2010 but that was before we knew about Kelly Frank .  Kelly Frank has done time inside several major league mascot costumes and she's a very funny human being with a lot of stories to tell about the abuse heaped on mascots-- as you're about to discover.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.co...

Infinity is weird. It's neither even nor odd . It's not a number. Really, it's just a concept we use to summarize that which we can't understand . Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can read a lot into media depictions of minorities. Richard Pryor was  hilarious at it. One time he said he had just seen a movie called "Logan's Run." It was set in the future, and there were no black characters in it. "That means white folks ain't planning for us to be there," he said. Media critic Eric Deggans joins us today, and one of his major theses is that extremism and division m...

It just goes on and on. We're in New Haven today where the Yale Rep is getting ready to mount a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire," but there's already one playing in Dublin at the Gate . There probably hasn't been one year in the last 50 when there wasn't a significant staging of this play. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"This is worse than that time we did that Gilbert and Sullivan parody.” That was a Tina Fey line from 30 Rock, and it was a devastating punch at a similar show, Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60," in which a fictional late night comedy show attempted to wow its audience with a song about itself set to the music of "A Modern Major General."  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio....

This week's New York City primaries featured a an intern-groper, a Scrabble harasser, a hooker user and, of course, a Weiner tweeter. And guess what? All of them lost!    And a continent away, the Filner Headlocker got out of the mayor's office too. So does that mean that pervy politicians are experiencing a temporary lull? We talk about that  on The Nose, our weekly culture roundta...

You may eat out a lot, but do you really have tipping figured out? Or do you stress about whether you left the right amount? Would you be happier with an 18 percent service charge added on and no obligation to tip? These are the shifting restaurant rules we'll talk about today. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A roommate will  either get on your last nerve or change your life for the better. In my freshman year, I was assigned to live with two football players, one of whom dropped out at Christmas. I roomed with the other, Ken Jennings, for three years. He was African-American, from right outside D.C. and much more of a straight arrow than I was in those days.  Support the show: http://ww...

You could argue that two trends are in a state of modern collision. Women are hitting puberty earlier than they used to, and their breasts are arriving in larger sizes.  There's a complex matrix of factors making this happen. Average bra size in the fifties was a B. A British bra manufacturer now makes an L cup. Meanwhile, we're watching an explosion in women's sports driven here in the U.S....

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, asexuals seem like brothers and sisters from a distant solar system.  Western societies are gradually growing accustomed -- with varying degrees of comfort -- to the initials in LGBT, but what about A? On our show today we explored the idea that some people have no sexual orientation -- not because of a hormonal deficiency or a position on the au...

Come on, you must be outraged about something! These are the headlines: "Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World." "Dave Chappelle's Hate-On For Hartford Called 'Sad,' 'Asinine.'" "No Exception For Newington Veteran Being Evicted For Smoking."  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Bolton has reinvented himself many times. A few years ago, he cut off his trademark hair.  He put out an album of opera arias and another of American Songbook Standards. But probably his biggest challenge was dealing with his image as a romantic icon so permanently rooted in the dead center of the mainstream that poking fun at him became an easy way for people who really weren't all t...

If you seek parallels between J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon they're easy to find. Both were literary geniuses. Both were publicity-shunning recluses. Both men were psychosexually arrested by God knows what primal wound. Salinger seemed able to bond only with very young women and girls. Pynchon had a pattern -- somehow linked to inability to form normal alliances --  of hijacking the w...

Thirteen years ago, I wrote an amusing but fairly ignorant op-ed piece for The New York Times triggered by watching a planetarium movie narrated by Tom Hanks. I wrote: "I miss the days of the anonymous, nobody-special narrator. Playing next door to Mr. Hanks at the museum was a Mount Everest Imax movie narrated by Liam Neeson. Take a cab to get there, and Isaac Hayes tells you to take your stuff w...