The Colin McEnroe Show

In record producer and neuroscientist Susan Rogers’s This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You , she writes, “The music that delivers the maximum gratification to you is determined by seven influential dimensions of musical listening.” Those seven dimensions are authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre. This hour, we talk with Rogers about some o...

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 a bit of trivia about the John Wayne version of  True Grit , paupers and banking in the 1840s, the draft, job descriptions for politicians, prejudices against classic...

This week’s Nose got a couple other cans, ya know, and came back and switched the labels and the cans around. The Long Goodbye is a satirical neo-noir mystery feature film adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel. It is the eighth feature directed by Robert Altman and the second-to-last screenplay by the science fiction writer Leigh Brackett (who also wrote The Empire Strikes Back and the 1946...

At the beginning of the year, the company behind the public effort to de-extinct the wooly mammoth announced it will also be de-extincting the dodo. The announcement stirred up a lot of excitement and questions about whether we can – or should – bring back species once they’re gone. So this hour we're talking about de-extinction! We’ll hear about what it takes to bring back extinct animals, effort...

With Succession , Ted Lasso , The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , and Barry all coming to a close within the span of a week, it’s time for an hour on endings. We look at the art of the ending, wonder what makes a satisfying ending in literature and TV and music, and ponder how we know it’s time to let a thing come to an end. GUESTS: Jen Chaney: TV critic at Vulture and New York magazine and the author of ...

The purpose of incarceration in America is supposed to be a balance between punishment and reform, with the scales tipping toward reforms that can lead to redemption and a second chance after release. But that’s not been the experience of many currently and formerly incarcerated people. Incarcerated influencers are sharing a view of prison life through TikTok videos, podcasts, and journalism that...

This hour, we look at the idea of sacredness — in both religious and secular spaces — and ask how we can identify and make places for the sacred in our everyday lives, through reading, music, and even baseball. GUESTS: Mark Miller: Lecturer in sacred music at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music and Divinity School, composer in residence at Drew University, and the minister of music of Christ Church M...

You don’t have to worry about this week’s Nose taking your phone and putting it in the bottom of a root beer float. On Sunday, The New York Times published an Amy Chozik profile of Elizabeth Holmes, who wants to go by Liz now, it turns out . The piece has been, let’s say , controversial . And: Bupkis is a somewhat autobiographical comedy series created by Pete Davidson with Judah Miller and Dave S...

If you've spent time on the internet, you've probably experienced the feeling of going down a rabbit hole. This hour, we talk about that feeling, how Lewis Carroll invented such a powerful metaphor for the digital world, and, of course, real rabbit holes. GUESTS:  Franziska Kohlt:  Researcher in Science Communication and the History of Science and Literature. She is currently the Leverhulme   Rese...

Hotlines: whether you realize it or not, you’ve likely used one before. From emergency services to customer service and crisis lines, they often fly under the radar in our daily lives. This hour, we’ll look at the history of hotlines and then meet some people who have created innovative ways to talk to strangers on the phone: from a hotline for advice from elementary schoolers to an app that calls...

Well designed queues give you hope and feel fair, while poorly designed ones can ruin your day. Queues are everywhere around us, and not all are designed well. This hour, the art of the queue, the challenge of waiting in line, and when, if ever, cutting in line is appropriate. GUESTS: Jennifer Goff: Owner and founder of  Skip the Line Marie Helweg-Larsen: Professor of psychology at Dickinson Colle...

This hour, we take your calls about whatever you want to talk about. Call us: 888-720-9677. Join the conversation on Facebook  and  Twitter . The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on  Apple Podcasts ,  Spotify ,  Google Podcasts ,  Stitcher , or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter , an email compendium of merriment, secrets, a...

This week’s Nose force feeds hero’s journey to its network. The Writers Guild of America is on strike for the first time in 15 years. The film and television industry, you may have noticed, is very different from the way it was 15 years ago. And that’s a big part of why the WGA is striking and why it matters . And: Mrs. Davis is an eight-episode Peacock miniseries created by Tara Hernandez and Dam...

Note: This episode contains strong language. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all recognize the big names or fall in love with a brand-new star — but what about that lady who killed it with her one line about the coffee? She's a professional actor, too! On this hour of The Colin McEnroe Show, we learn about the art of the smaller role: how they're cast, how to nail it, and what it's like to have a long resume...

This hour: bedtime stories. What can we learn from people who write and tell them? How can we all be more intentional and magical about the last things we think about before sleeping? GUESTS: Faith Adiele: Travel writer, speaker, teacher, and Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun; she writes sleep stories for adults on the  Calm  app Adam Mansbach: Author, screenwriter, and cultural critic who wrote...

Have you heard the music of Connie Converse? She was a singer-songwriter in New York City in the middle of the 20th century, who, in her lifetime, never received widespread recognition. Then, at 50, she drove off, and was never heard from again. This hour, we talk about the life, music, and legacy of Connie Converse and what her example teaches us about how we think about the role of art and artis...

According to a cursory search of my email archive, we started working on rebranding The Colin McEnroe Show in the fall of 2021. It was probably actually longer ago than that. In any case, today, more than 18 months later, our new look and new logo and new tagline and new whatever elses are all ready for the world to see. And so, this hour, a look at rebranding, from Philip Morris and Facebook and...

This week’s Nose traded one fatted goose for ten radishes. The Diplomat is an eight-episode political thriller romantic-comedy (sort of?) Netflix limited series created by Debora Cahn. It stars Keri Russell as the title character and Rufus Sewell as her husband, who is also a diplomat, though a somewhat less diplomatic diplomat. Here’s Netflix’s logline: “In the midst of an international crisis, a...

What else besides an egg can give us human life, culinary delight, life-saving vaccines, jarping , the Clowns International Egg Registry , and a satisfying bit of schadenfreude , all wrapped in one small package? Making a great omelet is the tip of the eggshell for the versatility of the egg. This hour, a hard-boiled look at the ubiquitous, yet overlooked egg. GUESTS: John Portmann: Taught moral p...

We all do some bad thinking sometimes, whether in relatively minor ways or relatively major ones. This hour, we look at why bad thinking happens, how reasoning errors are embedded in the way we think, and how we can all learn how to think better, through lessons from philosophy and psychology. GUESTS: Woo-kyoung Ahn: Director of The Thinking Lab at Yale University and the author of  Thinking 101:...

Most of us have books that we just can’t finish, no matter how many times we try. This hour, a look at those books that we find unreadable, whether they’re too long, too difficult, too confusing, or too dated. What makes a book unreadable? Plus: The Voynich Manuscript , an unreadable and undeciphered book housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Library. We asked our listeners for their list of unread...

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 inflation in our language, the Mario Pavone track “ Colin Mac ,”  Tucker Carlson  … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to...

This week’s Nose is gonna make three 10X trades: 1K to 10K, 10K to a hundred, hundred to a million. Boom. On April 20, Twitter stripped its blue check marks from the accounts of public figures and others who weren’t paying for them. Including many celebrities, who then went on to drag Twitter about how much they don’t care . At the same time, there seems to be a growing feeling (again) that Twitte...

In April, 2010 — 13 years ago this month — we did a segment on the concept of the “mesofact,” a certain kind of data point that  feels  fixed even though it’s actually always slowly changing. (I’d add a link to that show, but our archive doesn’t actually go back that far.) And we’ve gone back to the idea every now and again ever since. Think about things like the world population or the Periodic T...

We have a complicated relationship with our food. We need food to live, yet we’ve become removed from the food we eat and how it’s grown and processed. Even with the best intentions, today’s ultra-processed foods make it hard for us to know exactly what we’re eating or how the methods used to mass produce our food affect our environment and health. And I haven’t even touched on how food has led to...