The Colin McEnroe Show

We’ve been doing these shows a couple times a month where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to the speed limit, the Great American Songbook, trucks on the Merritt Parkway, the state parks, police car chases. Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun...

The Nose  is off. In its place, a look at the No. 1 podcast in America,  Strike Force Five , hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver as a way to pay the late night writing staffs during the strikes. Plus:  New Yorker  film critic Richard Brody joins us to extol  the virtues of owning movies on physical media . And finally: endorsements, Nose or no. Durin...

This hour, a look at the cultural significance of the apple, from Adam and Eve to keeping the doctor away. Plus: growing apples and the future of apples, and we compare apples and oranges. GUESTS:  Martha Bayless: Director of folklore and public culture and a professor of English and folklore at the University of Oregon; she is also the founder of the Early English Bread Project, which studies the...

What exactly is charisma? You know it when you see it, but is it possible to measure? Is it something you can learn, or just something you’re born with? This hour we look at the impact of charisma, especially in politics. Plus, in the world of wildlife conservation there’s a term for those animals everyone cares about: “charismatic megafauna.” What are the impacts of decisions about conservation o...

Since we just spent a number of years thinking about viruses, here’s a question: Should we be pretty worried about funguses, too? This hour, a look at the real-life fungal infection of ants that inspired the video game and TV series The Last of Us. Plus we talk with a local mushroom farmer and an author who writes fungal fiction and look at the role of fungi in our world. GUESTS: William Beckerson...

Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein. These, along with many others, are the sorts of songwriters we associate with the Great American Songbook, the amorphous canon of important 20th century pop songs, jazz standards, and show tunes from Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, and movie musicals. But there’s another important det...

You may have heard that tick borne diseases are on the rise. But don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. This hour, we’re taking you through three ways to defeat ticks. From tick-immune blood, to a tick-destroying robot and tried-and-true tweezers, this show is not for arachnids who are faint of heart. GUESTS: Rick Ostfeld: Distinguished senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Hol...

When we think of public health, we tend to think of things along the lines of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines, or even seatbelts and tobacco. But public health expands well beyond that, to realms like housing, climate change, access to the outdoors, and gun violence. This hour, we look broadly at the world of public health. And we ask what’s next for the field. GUESTS:  Katelyn Jet...

There’s more to narcissism than meets the eye. This hour, we reflect on narcissism — our misunderstandings about it, its pervasiveness in our culture, and the personal, public, and political damage it wreaks. GUESTS: Mark Ettensohn: Clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of narcissists Lee Hammock: “Self-aware” narcissist who shares his experience and insights on social media Pete Hat...

We’ve been doing these shows a couple times a month where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to wild fires, riding bikes, Jay Silverheels, the Bronze Age Pervert, and … explaining the concept of Earth time to aliens. Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows...

The Nose is off this week. In its place: Everyone loves a good band breakup story. But it’s far more unusual to find bands that manage to stay together for the long haul. This hour we explore the challenges musicians face as they seek band harmony and discuss what makes them succeed — or fail — together. GUESTS: Jim Chapdelaine: Guitarist, producer, Emmy Award-winning composer, recording engineer,...

Journalist and author Lisa Belkin spent 10 years retracing the ancestry of three families, over four generations, to understand how a series of random encounters between three men led to the 1960 murder of a Stamford, Connecticut, police officer. Genealogy of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night looks at how family “truths” passed down through the generations can influence...

Earlier this month, somebody in Florida won a $1.58 billion lottery jackpot. It was the largest Mega Millions jackpot to date, although four other Mega Millions prizes over $1 billion have been won in the past five years. This hour, we’re talking about lotteries. How did this massive money redistribution game come to be? And we know that lotteries can randomly allocate cash prizes to ticket buyers...

You’ve likely heard the Greek myth of Cassandra, a woman given the gift of prophecy who was cursed never to be believed. This hour, a look at the Cassandra story and its relevance today, including some real-life Cassandras, like the diplomat who tried to stop World War II and the public health official who tried to warn us about the COVID-19 pandemic. GUESTS: Joel Christensen: Professor of classic...

Today "Luddite" is used as a derogatory term for someone who doesn't understand technology. But the original Luddites weren’t behind, they were technical workers who were concerned about the impact that technology would have on people. This hour, we look at the history of Luddites, how their philosophy applies today, and ask what our present would look like if they had won. Could we all gain somet...

This hour, we grapple with the impact our ancestors have on our lives and what our responsibility is if they did something we disagree with. GUESTS: Maud Newton: Author of  Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation Jenny Strauss: Great-granddaughter of Lewis Strauss The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Podcasts , Amazon Music , TuneIn , Lis...

You’re probably familiar with the panicked rush that comes when you’re running around your house, looking for keys or a wallet you’ve misplaced. It’s an awful feeling. But maybe there’s some value in the process of searching for lost things — beyond the prize you may (or may not) find at the end. This hour, we’re talking to some professional “lookers” to find out: Is there joy, or hidden value, to...

Scientists estimate that there are 20 quadrillion ants on Earth . But. How do we make sense of a number like that, like 20,000,000,000,000,000? This hour, how we relate to unimaginable numbers, both large and small. Plus: why our inability to conceptualize large numbers might have a real-world impact during times like a pandemic. GUESTS: Shabnam Mousavi: A scientist at the  Max Planck Institute fo...

We’ve been doing these shows a couple times a month where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to our Jesse Thorn take off promo, the Roberts Sinners and Heinlein (and Heinlein’s short story “  ‘—All You Zombies—’  ” and  the movie adaptation of it ), pronoun case...

Timothy Olyphant has been a regular presence on various TV shows every single year dating back to Damages in 2009, before the original Justified . And yet, it feels significant that he’s in no less than three new series this year. The Nose already covered the first, Daisy Jones & the Six . This week, we catch up with the other two: Full Circle is a Max Original limited series written and creat...

It seems like everything’s been turned into a story. You can see a company’s story on the packaging of juice, cereal, alternative milks. Politicians tell stories to rally support for policies. And social media helps us all tell the story that we want to tell about our lives. This hour, Peter Brooks on his book, Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative , and a look at why storytelling isn’t...

Our lives are entrenched in secrets — the average person, apparently, keeps as many as 13 of them at any given time. They’re largely regarded as bad for us. But maybe secrets, like us, are more complex? Is there a time when a secret can be harmless, or even good? Can a secret save lives? And how many people can be involved in one before it all topples down? GUESTS: David Robert Grimes:  Scientist...

Rules are everywhere around us. This hour we talk about the history of rules and the power of unwritten rules. We wonder why some rules succeed while others fail. Plus: a game designer on how rules can facilitate play. GUESTS: Lorraine Daston: Author of  Rules: A Short History of What We Live By Jason Turbow: Author of  The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The U...

When’s the last time you read a short story? This hour, we talk about why short stories are so popular in the classroom, but why adults don’t seem to read them much once they’re done with school. And we make the case for why you should. Plus, a look at the art of the short story with some masters of the craft. You can read Rebecca Makkai’s Substack post that inspired this show here .  Here is the...

This week’s Nose has been traveling 22 years to get here, and now it’s here, and it’s either heads or tails, and you have to say. Hollywood continues  its seeming slow-speed suicide . It’s hard to imagine  it even really capitalizing  on the huge and ongoing  Barbenheimer  phenomenon. The Nose continues to be concerned. But.  The Meg 2  is finally here! Actually, that exclamation point notwithstan...