The Colin McEnroe Show

Who am I? We’ve all wondered at some point. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality test based on Carl Jung’s psychological types, has offered many an answer. This hour, we delve into the history of the MBTI and contemporary applications of this test and explore its scientific validity. Plus, a look at a dating app that uses the 16 personality types to help people find love. GUESTS:  Paul T...

Today, the sea chantey is something people listen to while having a good time in bars or at festivals, but its roots are more complex, stretching into the hard labor performed by sailors on 19th century merchant vessels and having ties to Black work songs. During the first year of the pandemic, there was a sea chantey craze on TikTok as people found joy and connection in the songs. In this hour, w...

Searching for sunken treasure? Long Island Sound is hardly the place to look. But what can be found in its murky waters are ample remains of Connecticut’s once prominent shipping industry , and perhaps evidence of early Native American villages from around 20,000 years ago when the Sound was a glacial lake. This hour, we survey shipwrecks and other bits of history resting off Connecticut’s coast,...

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 ticks, sea shanties, classical music on our show, ice cream, artificial intelligence in sports … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they...

According to Mattel, more than a billion Barbie dolls have been sold since they launched the toy in 1959. Barbie and Ken are said to be the two most popular dolls in the world. It would be hard to overstate the influence — for better and worse — that the Barbie toy line has had on our culture. And now, you may have heard, there’s a movie. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is the No. 1 movie in the country. It...

It looks like this beach was a little too much beach for this week’s Nose. The Barbenheimer Apocalypse is upon us. Barbie  is the fourth film written and directed by Greta Gerwig and the second Gerwig has cowritten with Noah Baumbach. It is the first film released by Mattel Films and the first live-action film based on the dolls. Oh, and it’s the No. 1 movie in the country, having grossed $495 mil...

J. Edgar Hoover served as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation under eight presidents and made the FBI into the organization it is today. This hour, Beverly Gage, Yale historian and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Hoover, joins us to talk about his life and legacy. Plus, a look at the status of the FBI today and the lessons we can learn from Hoover’s example. GUESTS:...

It’s been more than a decade since Tom Cruise made a movie that did NOT make $100 million. The newest Mission: Impossible just opened at $235 million. And yet. Didn’t we all decide not to like Tom Cruise anymore a long time ago? This hour — in the fifth decade of his career, in the seventh (!) decade of his life, nearly two decades after Oprah’s couch — a look at the continued phenomenon that is T...

This hour, novelist Joyce Maynard joins us again to talk about her latest novel, the blurring of life and fiction, and her new career running a hotel in Guatemala. GUEST:  Joyce Maynard:  Novelist whose latest book is  The Bird Hotel Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Terms that started out in the therapist’s office have moved into the public discourse. This hour we talk about therapy-speak, armchair psychology, and how greater awareness of mental health terminology and diagnoses impacts the broader conversation around mental health, for better and worse. Plus, a look at how therapists are depicted on TV and how that’s impacted their work outside the screen. GU...

This week’s Nose wants its own water working. Showing Up  is the eighth feature film directed by Kelly Reichardt, and it’s Reichardt’s fourth collaboration with Michelle Williams. Williams plays a sculptor preparing to open a new show.  Showing Up  is a quintessential example of so-called “ slow cinema .” And:  The Whale  is the eighth feature film directed by Darren Aronofsky. Brendan Fraser won...

What if our ideas about how sleep should look are getting in the way of a good night's rest? This hour we talk about how we came to develop ideas of how, and how much, we should sleep. Plus, we'll compare how humans and animals sleep. And it turns out that some animals aren’t hibernating as well as they used to. GUESTS:  Matthew Wolf-Meyer:  Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselae...

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 spongy moths, white baseball caps, Hiram Bingham, Gustav Mahler’s  Symphony No. 6  … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be...

This hour: recipes. We talk with someone who makes recipes found on gravestones, and we consider what makes an effective recipe, the history of the modern recipe, and the art of the recipe introduction. Plus, a look at the phenomenon of pop culture cookbooks. GUESTS: Dinah Bucholz: Author of The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook and The Unofficial Narnia Cookbook Rosie Grant: Posts gravestone recip...

This hour we get an update on the latest in the American conversation about the search for extraterrestrial life. This includes a conversation with journalist Leslie Kean, a check-in with the director of MUFON CT, and a discussion with astrophysicist Adam Frank about what we miss in space when we're focused on the objects we find here on earth. GUESTS:  Leslie Kean : Investigative journalist and a...

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists has joined the Writers Guild of America on strike . It’s the first SAG strike since 1980 (which strike was largely about the oncoming home video boom). And it’s the first dual actors-writers strike since 1960 (when Ronald Reagan was president of SAG and the strike was mostly about residuals for movies licensed to televisio...

This hour we look at the philosophy of humanism. We survey the history and evolution of the humanist tradition, and discuss what it means to practice humanism. Plus, how humanism can help us relate to technology. GUESTS:  Sarah Bakewell :   Author of  Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry and Hope , among other books Greg Epstein : Author and Humanist Chaplain at...

Loneliness: It’s often cited as an “epidemic” and can have a health impact comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day . This hour, we talk about what loneliness looks like in the brain and how public policy could affect our loneliness epidemic. Plus: a conversation with an expert on making friends as an adult! GUESTS: Elisa Baek: Assistant professor of psychology at USC Dornsife Chris Murphy: U.S....

Whether we love or loathe our butt is deeply influenced by race, gender, and whether the shape and size of our butt is in or out of style. This hour, a look “back” at the science, history, and culture of butts, including how they took on so much meaning beyond their basic function and why it’s so hard to find pants that fit. GUESTS: Alex Bartlett: Co-owner of  Planet Pepper  and a costume supervis...

This hour, a look at what’s going on with Twitter, and why it matters, even if you don’t use the platform. Plus, we discuss what this all means for the future of social media and the human archive. GUESTS:  Shannon McGregor : Associate professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, and a senior researcher with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at the University of N...

Asteroid City  is Wes Anderson’s 11th feature film. It’s written and directed by Anderson from a story by Anderson and Roman Coppola. It’s a comedy-drama, sort of sci-fi thing with a play-within-a-TV-show-within-a-movie structure. The ensemble cast is predictably ridiculous and includes the likes of Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Ed...

Why do humans cry? This hour, we look at the science of crying and discuss what it does for us, emotionally and culturally. Plus: musician Dar Williams on why some songs make us cry. And: We investigate “crocodile tears” with a crocodile biologist. GUESTS: Benjamin Perry: Minister at Middle Church and the author of  Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter Kent Vliet: Recently retired from his position as...

There’s an old Latin saying from the early Middle Ages: Verba volant, scripta manent — What is written remains, what is spoken flies away. Essentially, it means you should write down your contracts. But according to Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading , the phrase can be interpreted in a different way: What is written is stuck to the page. It’s only when you give it a voice that it acq...

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 — calls about grammar, gardening, long-distance dialing, autotune. Anything. Everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we’re doing another one. In other words: Give us a cal...

The Nose is off this week. In its place: Why do we have so much trouble remembering all the TV we watch? This hour, a look at why episode recaps are so popular, what makes them so useful, and what their prevalence can tell us about the current TV landscape. Plus: the evolution of the “previously on” television recap sequence. GUESTS: Wilma Bainbridge: Assistant professor in the Department of Psych...