The Colin McEnroe Show

This week’s Nose has been attending various dinners and functions and telling what it’s learned about banks and troop movements, so on and so forth. Last night, Elon Musk’s “hardcore” Twitter “long hours at high intensity” ultimatum deadline passed, and hundreds of Twitter employees seemingly decided to leave. And then Twitter closed all of its offices until next week. And now people ON Twitter ar...

Countless books, movies, and TV shows explore time travel. This hour, we talk about the hold that time travel has on pop culture and the philosophy, ethics and science of time travel. And, we hear from an author about how to create and utilize rules of time travel in fiction and the idea of memory as time travel. GUESTS:  Sara Bernstein : The R.L. Canala College Professor of Philosophy at The Univ...

This hour we investigate the ways words change when they enter our discourse and how they acquire new meanings, or sometimes even lose their meanings. We look at specific examples, discuss how the internet is influencing language, and learn about how dictionaries interact with the evolving nature of words. GUESTS: Sylvia Sierra: A linguist and the author of  Millennials Talking Media: Creating Int...

You must have heard the term “vibe” by now, right? We’ve heard about the vibe of the election, the vibe of the economy, the vibe of a music playlist, the vibe of a season, the vibe of a party … Plus there are vibe shifts and vibe checks. This hour: vibes. We learn what the word really means, where it comes from, and how the internet has given it new life. GUESTS:  Kyle Chayka : Contributing writer...

Ringtones went from uniform to a million dollar industry to the unconscious soundtrack of our lives. They’re pieces of music that are designed to get you to react. They’re sounds that often carry emotions and memories with them. But we tend not to give them much thought. This hour, the art of the ringtone. We look back at their history, investigate their rise and fall, discuss the appeal of a well...

There’s no gentlemen where we are and none where we’re going. This week’s Nose is worried it’s not fair. Taylor Sheridan is an actor and film- and television-maker. You might recognize him from Sons of Anarchy or Veronica Mars . You might have seen some of his movies, like Sicario or Wind River or Hell or High Water . But it’s more likely you’ve seen some of the five TV series he’s created. This w...

In the century since Russia’s “Mad Monk” was poisoned, we’ve come to believe a lot of things: he was mystical, he was evil, he was the world’s greatest lover. This hour: Rasputin — the all-too-human peasant who found his way to friendship with the Romanovs and the comical, absurd version of him that just won’t die. GUESTS: Chris Roberson: Co-writer of the Hellboy comic  Rasputin: Voice of the Drag...

The one thing we knew for sure was that by the time we got to today, Election Day would be over. And it is. This hour, we regroup after a long night and try to figure out what we’ve figured out by today. And we do our best not to start immediately talking about 2024. Hopefully. Listen live Wednesday, November 9, at 1 p.m. GUESTS: Dan Barry: Longtime reporter and columnist for The New York Times ;...

On Election Day we do a show where we ask people across Connecticut to do a simple thing: Go vote in your town before 1 p.m. Then call us between 1 and 2 p.m. and tell us how it felt, what you saw, whom you spoke to. Say whatever you want to say about the experience of voting. This hour we hear from Citizen Observers about their experiences at the polls. GUESTS:  Charlie Barber : Nonfiction author...

Some Americans are considering whether this country is a place where they want to live in the future. This hour is all about leaving the United States. We talk to someone who made the move about what inspired her and her new life in Portugal. Plus, we learn more about the process of actually moving out of the country. And we talk to someone who has considered leaving, but ultimately decided to sta...

This week’s Nose is energy unfocused, innovation hindered, hope strangled, greatness disguised. Taylor Swift currently occupies the entire top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That’s the, uh, new record . She’s also got 10 other songs in other spots on the Hot 100. Fully one-fifth of the entire Hot 100 is Taylor Swift songs right now. Federal law requires that we cover this phenomenon. (No it do...

This hour: Mark Leibovich on the past, present, and future of the Republican Party, and his new book, Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission . GUEST: Mark Leibovich: Author of Thank You For Your Servitude: Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission and a staff writer at The Atlantic The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Po...

This hour, we celebrate poetry with three contemporary poets. GUESTS: Margaret Gibson: The seventh poet laureate of Connecticut; her most recent collection is  The Glass Globe Yanyi: Writes the advice column  The Reading  for creative writers; his most recent poetry collection is  Dream of the Divided Field Matthew Zapruder: A poet, professor, and the author of  Why Poetry ; his most recent poetry...

From San Francisco’s iconic fog and COVID-related brain fog to a location-tracking program called Fog Reveal, this hour, we lift the fog on all kinds of fog. GUESTS: Travis O’Brien : Professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Indiana University Javeed Sukhera : Chair of psychiatry at the Institute of Living and chief of psychiatry at Hartford Hospital Anne Toomey McKenna : Visiting professor 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 Halloween as the most educational holiday (or not), having Election Day on the weekend (or not), giving poll workers your license (or not), the oncoming civil war (or...

This week’s Nose is, I don’t know, worrying about a volcano. The Watcher is a thriller/mystery miniseries on Netflix created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan and (very loosely) based on the New York magazine story “ The Haunting of a Dream House .” It stars Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale, Mia Farrow, and others, and it’s currently the No. 2 TV show on Netflix in the U.S. And: Bros is a romantic comedy...

Why is the two-party system so entrenched here in the United States? This hour, we talk about third parties. We learn about a new third party, discuss the history and political viability of third parties, and talk with a third party candidate. GUESTS:  Dr. Amy Chai : Independent Party candidate for Connecticut’s 3rd U.S. Congressional District Seth Masket : Professor of political science and direc...

Note:  This episode contains strong language. We realized four years ago now that The Nose doesn’t cover very much horror stuff. So we started doing an annual Halloween special that tackles horror head-on. This hour: the fifth one of those. We look at the indie studio that’s mostly taken over the elevated horror genre (and the not-so-elevated horror genre some, too): A24 . Plus: the evolving relat...

This hour, we investigate the relationship between public opinion and policy. We explore to what extent public opinion impacts policy in the United States and discuss public opinion and Supreme Court decisions. Plus, a look at polling and how we understand public opinion. GUESTS:  Jennifer Dineen : Associate professor in residence in the School of Public Policy and associate director of the Center...

Henry David Thoreau is a bit of a polarizing figure. He has been both celebrated and criticized for his writing. He’s considered an inspirational figure for retreating to the woods but mocked for his reliance on his mother during that same period. This hour, we look at the life and legacy of Henry David Thoreau and ask what his example can teach us about who is remembered and celebrated. GUESTS: A...

This week’s Nose wants to feel like it’s in the middle of a conversation … between inanimate objects. Confess, Fletch is the third movie in the Fletch series, the first in 33 years, and the first to star Jon Hamm, rather than Chevy Chase, in the title role. It premieres on Showtime on October 28. And: Athena is a French-language epic action tragedy directed by Romain Gavras, the son of the two-tim...

State politics are becoming increasingly nationalized as voters, and candidates, focus more on national issues, instead of local ones. This hour, we look at the impact of this nationalization, and we discuss how the loss of local news has impacted our awareness of state politics. Finally, how Americans have become increasingly politically segregated. GUESTS: Paul Bass: Editor of the  New Haven Ind...

Mysteries have been popular for centuries. This hour we ask: why are we drawn to this genre? Plus, we look at the television detective and discuss true crime podcasts. GUESTS:  Martin Edwards:  Crime novelist and author of the new book  The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and Their Creators Gene Seymour : A “writer, professional spectator, pop-culture maven, and jazz geek” Alexan...

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 driving culture in Connecticut, pet culture everywhere, the state cutting down trees on route 164, probate, direct registration of stocks … Anything. (Seemingly) every...

Record producer and neuroscientist Susan Rogers has a new book out, This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You. In it, she writes that “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...