The Colin McEnroe Show

We’ve all heard the generational stereotypes, and rolled our eyes at them. This hour: we investigate generational groupings to discover why we’re interested in separating people into generations, when it is useful, and when it is not. GUESTS: Bobby Duffy - Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, and author of The Generation Myth:...

Think about it. When’s the last time you saw a brand-new instrument in a marching band? New instruments don’t come around too often — but it’s not for lack of trying. Getting a new sound off the ground involves design, production, music expertise, composition, and fans. It’s no easy task to invent the next best thing, but this hour we talk to inventors, composers...

When we think of unicorns, many of us picture idyllic white horses with a single horn, surrounded by rainbows. But that’s not how unicorns have always been depicted. This hour, a look at the history of unicorns and their enduring popularity. GUESTS: Martha Bayless - The Director of Folklore and Public Culture and a professor of English at the University of Oregon Adam Gidwitz - Author of&nbs...

This hour, we discuss the latest on COVID-19, learn about how books can be used in therapy, and hear about a controversial football rule surrounding a coin toss. GUESTS: Vincent Racaniello  - Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Columbia University, host of the podcast “This Week in Virology”  Katrya Bolger  - A journalist who works for Future of Good, and autho...

This week’s Nose is a five-letter word. Wordle  is the newish online word game that, either, you’re already addicted to or you’re already sick of everybody else posting about. It’s browser-based, free and ad-free, deceptively simple, and  exceedingly popular . And:  The Tragedy of Macbeth  is a new movie adaptation of the Shakespeare play written, direct...

Humans have been trying for, well, forever to predict the future. But how helpful is predicting the future, really? And what factors determine whether someone is successful at doing it, or not? This hour, we try to predict whether predicting the future is useful, and understand why we’re so interested in doing so. GUESTS: Amanda Rees -  A   historian of science based at the Univers...

We’ve been doing these shows a lot of weeks where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. We don’t even, anymore, start with the suggestion of a topic that your calls might, potentially, be about. We’ve had fun with these shows, and you seem to like them too. So we did that again. From my post screening the calls, it’s kind of hard to know wh...

Drinking alcohol has a number of negative impacts. But humans have been doing it for thousands of years and show no signs of stopping. This hour, a look at why we drink, why more people are moving towards sobriety through the “sober curious” movement, and the rise of nonalcoholic cocktails. GUESTS: Elva Ramirez - A journalist and media consultant and the author of Zero Proof Cocktails:...

This week’s Nose is a crushing responsibility. The Lost Daughter is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s debut as a writer and director, and it’s made her a Golden Globe-nominated director and a Golden Osella-winning screenwriter so far. It’s an adaptation of the Elena Ferrante’s 2006 novel, and it’s available to stream on Netflix. The Lost Daughter stars Olivia Colman (in a Glo...

As the pandemic marches on, the “Great Resignation” is a sign that a lot of us are feeling overworked. More than 745,000 people died in 2016 alone from overwork that resulted in stroke and heart disease, a problem so common in Japan they have a word for it: Karoshi. This hour, our guests unpack the looming threat of overwork. We look at how we got here, why we idolize overwork, why the...

This hour, we discuss COVID-19: from the latest science,  to communication about the virus , and  its depiction on television . GUESTS: Brianne Barker  - Associate Professor of Biology at Drew University and a co-host on the podcast “This Week in Virology.” Aaron Blake  - Senior political reporter writing for The Fix at The Washington Post.  James Poniewozik &n...

Plum Island sits less than 7 miles off the coast of Connecticut in Long Island Sound. It is completely owned by the federal government and controlled by the Department of Homeland Security. Since 1954, it has been the site of the soon-to-be-decommissioned Plum Island Animal Disease Center . “All islands carry a certain mystery, but Plum Island has more than its share of stories and secrets,&...

You probably know when you’re feeling happy, sad, or angry. But our range of emotions stretch beyond the language we have for them. This hour, we learn about what emotions are, and give names to ones you’ve probably felt, but never knew what to call. GUESTS: Edgar Gerrard Hughes  - Researcher at London's Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions and editor of “The Bo...

This week’s Nose is a willow hamper containing umpteen pins, plaques, and official citations of the highest order. In this week’s newest nonsense news: Jon Stewart says he does not think the Harry Potter movies are antisemitic . The Pope says people who have pets instead of kids are selfish . And Connecticut’s own fart bottling “fartrepreneur” says she has retired . A...

New York Times  columnist Ross Douthat knew he was sick, but none of the doctors he visited in the early days of his illness could tell him what he had. He was treated for Lyme disease but he didn’t get better. So he took matters into his own hands. Ross joins us to share his personal story of what it’s like to feel sick when few believe you and how his pain led him to seek answer...

Recent scientific discoveries have shown just how much we’ve previously underestimated Neanderthals. It turns out that their lives were very similar to those of our ancestors. This hour: we learn about Neanderthals, and discuss why humans have dismissed them for decades. GUESTS: Ella Al-Shamahi  - National Geographic Explorer, a TV presenter, palaeo-anthropologist, evolutionary biologis...

It’s a brand new year, baby! The holidays are over, the winter is upon us… 2022 is upon us. So we figured you might want to talk. In other words: We’ve got no guests today, just Colin and you. Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EST hour  about anything at all . 888-720-9677.‌ Or join the conversation on  Facebook  and  Twitter . Support the show: http://ww...

It’s been a long, strange year. (Aren’t they all at this point?) And so, how is our popular culture dealing with it all? The Nose has a number of questions. Will movies and TV ever really deal with COVID? Whatever happened to sympathetic characters?  Whatever happened to comedies?  Did anybody watch any standup comedy this year that wasn’t Bo Burnham or Dave Chappelle?...

To round out the year, we round up the best jazz of the year. We’ve done this every year for at least the last eight years . Here are our 2021 picks: “Dark Blue Residue” from Afrika Love by Alchemy Sound Project “Homeward Bound (for Ana Grace)” from Homeward Bound by Johnathan Blake “Movement 6” from Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and The Lo...

Have you ever considered lifting lipstick from Sephora, only to wonder why? Did you feel the rush of valor when Indiana Jones breached Russian defenses to nab an enchanted skull for the sake of humanity? This hour on the Colin McEnroe Show, our guests invite our inner thieves to reveal themselves and shine light on why we steal. We look at thefts through history and culture, discuss how a common v...

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring hit theaters 20 years ago this month, on December 19, 2001. This hour, a look back at the Lord of the Rings books and movies and their impact. GUESTS: John Garth  - Author of The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth and Tolkien and the Great War , among other books Molly Ostertag  - Graphic...

We’re back from the holiday weekend. We’re looking forward to the holiday weekend. As we start this holiday interregnum week, we figured you might want to talk. In other words: Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EST hour… about anything at all . 888-720-9677. Or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter . Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show. Support the show:...

On this special Christmas Eve Eve edition, The Nose is not pretending to be any age. And Just Like That… is an HBO Max original limited series revival of Sex and the City . Set 11 years after the events of the 2010 movie Sex and the City 2 , the series is said to have had the most-watched debut on HBO Max to date. And: Yellowjackets is an hour-long Showtime drama created by Ashley Lyle and...

Every year since 2014, we’ve done some version of this show. Ideally, we’d do it in person, but these aren’t ideal times. But our holiday spirit remains, dauntless. “Big Al” Anderson and Jim Chapdelaine and the band are back together over at Jim’s studio. Colin’s hermetically sealed up in our studio. We sing some songs, tell some stories, have some surpris...

When was the last time you had fun? I mean the kind of fun where you lost track of time, you didn’t care what others were thinking of you, and you felt connected to the people you were having fun with. We all know what fun feels like, so why don't we make time for it? We tend to think of fun as a side dish, something to eat if you’re not too full. That’s wrong. Fun should be the...