The Colin McEnroe Show

From our favorite songs and movies, to Shakespeare and Maya Angelou, we regularly quote others in our daily lives. This hour, we talk about famous quotations and misquotations, and discover why some quotations endure through history, while others don’t. Plus, why is Mark Twain misquoted so often? GUESTS: Elizabeth Knowles  - Editor of  The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Fred Shapi...

COVID is no match for the enduring power of the handshake. It has survived cholera, the 1918 pandemic, and Donald Trump’s lengthy grip. It has thrived when other shakes, snaps, and pats have failed, such as the penis handshake and the beard-and-pat. The handshake is our most enduring symbol of egalitarianism and brotherhood. It has helped elect politicians to office, to seal the deal on cont...

During his remarkable career with the Boston Red Sox, Ted Williams earned many nicknames: The Kid, The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame… but the only nickname that he ever wanted was “ the greatest hitter who ever lived .” And maybe he really was?  He’s baseball’s all-time leader in on-base percentage , and he’s second behind only Babe Ruth in both ...

We’ve been doing these almost weekly shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. The last few times, we haven’t even started with the suggestion of a topic that your calls might, potentially, be about. And those shows have been fun. So we’re doing that again. In other words: Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EDT hour  about anything at...

So you get home from a long day of work, and then you spend a long evening dealing with the family and the dinner and the house and the pets. And then you finally get some time to yourself to… play stupid  Candy Crush  on your phone. Or watch hours of HGTV that you don’t even like. Or whatever. While you should be sleeping so you can be well-rested for your long day of work...

It’s been a while since we’ve done a math show. So this hour, some discussion of just  what mathematics even is  in the first place. Plus, some news from the world of math: A look at three landmark papers  bridging the gap between quantum physics and formal mathematics . And: the low-dimensional topology of…  knitting . GUESTS: Sabetta Matsumoto  - A the...

This hour, we’re joined by novelist Ruth Ozeki. Her latest novel is  The Book of Form and Emptiness . We talk about animism, hearing voices, and how Zen Buddhism informs her writing. GUESTS: Ruth Ozeki  - Novelist, filmmaker, and professor of English language and literature at Smith College Join the conversation on   Facebook  and   Twitter . Colin McEnroe, Jonathan...

This hour, we talk about movie trailers. Maybe you wonder what a movie critic thinks of them. Actually, critics don’t see as many as you do because they often go to special screenings. I asked America’s Greatest Living Film Critic, David Edelstein, about trailers. He answered, “Actually, I avoid them like the plague. I don’t watch them online, and when I see movies in theat...

Francisco Goldman made a big choice as a young man. He chose to spend a year in Guatemala living with his uncle instead of pursuing the master’s degree he could have had from a prestigious school offering him a full scholarship. It turned out to be one of the most consequential decisions of his early life. This hour, Colin talks with Goldman about his novel  Monkey Boy , a story about t...

Y: The Last Man  is an FX on Hulu television series ( whatever that means ) based on the DC comics series. It stars Diane Lane as President Jennifer Brown and Ben Schnetzer as Yorick Brown, the last living person with a Y chromosome. And: Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie were (at least aspiring) #vanlife influencers. Tragedy, and our culture around this particular sort of tragedy, has turned t...

Radiation is everywhere. It’s emitted by our sun, by cat litter, by bananas, and occasionally by nuclear bombs. It’s even emitted by you and by me and by every living (and dead) person in the world. So why are we so scared of something so prevalent in our everyday lives? While certain types of radiation can be very harmful in high doses, our fears may have more to do with how radiation...

Glass is all around us: from windows and mirrors, to phone screens and fiber optic cables. This hour, we learn how glass helped shape our world, about efforts to create different types of glasses, and what it's like to make art out of glass. GUESTS: John Garrison  - Professor at Grinnell College, and author of the book  Glass Alexis Clare  - Professor of Glass Science at Alfred Univ...

Seventeen AFC East championships. Nine Super Bowl appearances. Six Lombardi trophies. Twenty seasons pairing maybe the greatest head coach in the history of the NFL with maybe the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. At the same time, there are words like “spygate.” “Deflategate.” And even “solicitation in Florida.” This hour, a look at one of the all...

“Animals, which were in the service of man, could be arrested, tried, convicted and executed,” according to Edmund P. Evans in his book The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals , published in 1906. They could also be excommunicated from the church. Our relationship to our pets and wildlife has mellowed over the centuries, but we still can’t figure out how to sha...

Only Murders in the Building  is a half-hour-ish (!) mystery-comedy series on Hulu. It stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, and Amy Ryan. Five first-season episodes have dropped so far, and it was  renewed for a second season  this week. And:  Small Engine Repair  is a film adaption written by, directed by, and starring John Pollono and based on his black comedy...

Gossiping is considered a bad habit. But, when done well, it can actually have social benefits. This hour on the Colin McEnroe Show, we’ll discuss what gossip is, its benefits and drawbacks, and why we’re interested in celebrity gossip. GUESTS: Frank McAndrew  - Psychology professor at Knox College Shayla Love  - Senior staff writer of features at  Vice   Amanda Keh...

This hour, a smorgasbord of disparate topics: mandates, mammoths, and merch. First, a look at the state of  America’s patchwork of COVID vaccine requirements . And then: New England’s own Dunkin' has started doing limited-edition merchandise drops.  Can normie coffee make itself into a lifestyle brand? Finally:  Scientists are trying to genetically resurrect the woolly m...

Fire imagery abounds in music, literature, art, and scripture. It thrives at the center of ceremony and ritual around the world. We associate fire with sentiments of passion, anger, transformation, purity, and even evil itself. Some say our fascination with fire is owed to the fact that, of all creatures, we alone possess the ability to create and control it. They say at its center, fire burns hot...

We’ve been doing these weekly shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. A few times, we haven’t even started with the suggestion of a topic that your calls might, potentially, be about. And those shows have been fun. So we’re doing it again this week. In other words: Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EDT hour about  anything at all ....

Mimes have been gesticulating their way into our hearts (or nightmares) nearly for forever. It may be that the legendary Marcel Marceau popularized the mime, but people have been communicating through movement since the very beginning. Today, characters in big-budget Hollywood movies and television shows routinely rely on pantomime techniques to create the on-screen characters we love. This hour,...

B. F. Skinner thought pigeons were so smart they could be used to guide missiles during World War II. He  proposed a system in which pigeons would essentially pilot a missile . Skinner said pigeons could be trained to peck at a screen to adjust the trajectory of the missile toward its target. Project Pigeon was funded but never used. In 2013, New York conceptual artist Duke Reilly  train...

At 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 8, 1966, NBC aired the premiere of a new series called  Star Trek . The episode was “The Man Trap.” The star date was 1513.1, in case you’re interested in that kind of thing. I am not interested in that kind of thing. The  Star Trek  canon encompasses 10 television shows — 811 episodes, so far — and 13 movies. I&rsquo...

The word “bastard” hasn’t always been meant to offend. Used simply as an indication of illegitimate birth at first, the label “bastard” didn’t bring with it shame or stigma until long after it first appeared in the Middle Ages. Today, while its original meaning has not been forgotten, its use is largely reserved for insult. Yet, ironically, the underdog status o...

According to Vulture,  TV’s white guys are in crisis , and specifically on a bunch of shows The Nose has covered:  Kevin Can F**k Himself ,  The White Lotus ,  The Chair ,  Ted Lasso … Oh, and  Jeopardy! And speaking of TV’s white guys,  Seinfeld  is coming to Netflix  next month. Eric Deggans wonders  why it hasn’t caught...

In the 20 years since Christopher Nolan’s  Memento  hit theaters, his movies have grossed more than $5 billion, earned 36 Academy Award nominations, and won 11 Oscars. His Dark Knight films helped spark the comic book movie renaissance we’re still experiencing, and his seventh feature,  Inception , is the highest-grossing totally standalone live action movie ever made. T...