The Colin McEnroe Show

The U.S. is  on track  to reach 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 this week. Yet, most states began reopening last week  using data  that may be  undercounting  how many people are currently infected.  The reopening  of some businesses and activities is a step that can lull us to believe that this pandemic is almost behind us. That would be a mistake. The on...

Today, in lieu of  The Nose , an hour with America's Greatest Living Film Critic, David Edelstein. GUEST: David Edelstein  - America's Greatest Living Film Critic Join the conversation on  Facebook  and  Twitter . Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who would have guessed a face mask would become the latest  cultural symbol  of our identity, one more way to express our politics, our sense of style, and our  deepest beliefs  in what it means to be American. Whether you wear a mask might depend less on the science behind the advice, and more on how you view society - are we in this together or is it each (wo)man for him or h...

Nyctophiliacs rejoice! The color you know and love (black) is now blacker than ever before. And never mind that black is not technically a color. The point is that as you were traipsing through graveyards and reveling under the night sky, scientists were busy inventing two new shades which are so dark they'd make Wednesday Adams reach for a flashlight. But while  Vanta black  and  B...

Connecticut will reopen some businesses on May 20, as coronavirus-related hospitalizations continue to  decrease . This may be good news for business owners and unemployed workers, and for those looking for a glimmer of light at the end of a long tunnel. It may be scary for people with  greater risk  for having severe illness from COVID-19 and  front-line workers  with gre...

Twitter announced on Tuesday  that its employees who can work from home can continue to work from home -- for forever, if they want. One wonders how many companies will follow suit -- and how employees will feel about such an arrangement. And: Ryan Murphy is the showrunner behind things like  Nip/Tuck ,  Glee ,  American Horror Story ,  9-1-1 , and  The Politician . I...

Bats get a bad rap. People are afraid of animals that tap into our deepest fears and revulsions. Bats aren't cuddly, they fly at night, have big eyes that can’t see, and conjure creepy images of  vampires  who steal the  blood of the unsuspecting as they sleep.  Their role in the pandemic hasn’t made them more popular. Most scientists who study the genomes of bat vi...

In November, 2016, we did a show about all the problems presented by, well,  a-holes . And so it seems only logical to expand our scope a bit and do a show about all the problems presented by, well,  a hole . For instance:  How many holes are there in a straw?  Did you say one? Okay, cool. Then how many holes are there in a sock? (A relatively new sock, I mean.) You said one ag...

We can observe how economic inequality in America plays out during this pandemic by watching who gets help and who gets ignored. Two America's live side by side, often in the same community. Nowhere is it on display more than in  Greenwich, Conn. , where hedge fund managers in gilded mansions live across town from minimum wage workers in local service jobs. The inequality on display today is...

23 Hours To Kill  is Jerry Seinfeld's fourth-ever standup comedy special and his second for Netflix. It hit the streaming service on Tuesday, and The Nose thinks it's great. And also that it sucks. And then:  Waco  is a six-part miniseries that tells exactly the story you'd guess it tells. Taylor Kitsch plays David Koresh.  Waco  was the big, original launch title for the...

" It is the rare person who doesn't own a pair of sweatpants. " I am, it turns out, that rare person. Sweatpants are just too warm, is my take. But I do own a number of pairs of cotton pajama pants. They're my sweatpants proxy. Back before the pandemic became the central preoccupation of our existence, back when we made our radio show in, ya know, a radio studio, I would always get a little dresse...

Joni Mitchell is a singer-songwriter from Alberta, Canada. In 1968, her debut album,  Song to a Seagull , was released and since then, Mitchell has become one of the most influential and greatest recording artists. Mitchell has won nine Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, and countless music awards, and her albums are considered among the best ever made. We're big fans. It turns...

It's hard to fathom the idea that more people have to die from COVID-19 before we come out on the other end of this pandemic. Is it time for political leaders of both parties to have  an honest conversation  about the moral trade-offs of this pandemic and how to balance them toward the public interest? The world is  rushing to produce a vaccine  against COVID-19. We talk about...

There are plenty of questions about what the future of live performance looks like right now , and, in certain ways, no form seems more displaced by social distancing and everything else than does standup comedy. As such, people are just going to have to try new things, right?  New York club comedian Ted Alexandro's YouTube comedy special  is one of the first such experiments. And: Do yo...

Three years ago, we did  a show where we asked which fictional dystopian future we were actually already living in . Now that we've arrived at, ya know, this present moment, that show has been on our minds. But we've realized we've got a new set of questions now too. After all the dystopian and apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction there's been over the past couple decades -- and there's b...

Humans typically make enough collective noise to keep the earth vibrating at a steady hum. But the pandemic has quieted that hum enough to let  seismologists study  the vibrations that can be hard to detect in the din of our noise. The world is eerily silent now, showing us how accustomed we have become to  cacophony of loud sound  in our lives. We're hardwired to focus on the...

This show originally aired on July 25, 2018. Two years ago, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security ran an  intricate simulation  of a rapidly spreading pandemic with government leaders to talk about the difficult ethical questions that arise in the event of a pandemic and the same questions we are confronting today.     They learned what had to be done in the event of a real&...

People in several states came together last weekend  to protest  against stay-at-home orders. Their actions followed President Trump tweets of support  to "liberate"  their states and start reopening the economy. Dr. David Grew makes the case that resuming "normal" business activity in the absence of testing and credible messaging will do more economic harm than good.  Als...

Fiona Apple's new album,  Fetch the Bolt Cutters , is currently the best-reviewed album, um, ever,  according to Metacritic . Bon Iver has  a new benefit single out  that seems to have been written specifically for the present moment. Norah Jones has  a new tune . Bob Dylan has kind of randomly put out two  new song s,  one of which  charted in the U.K. desp...

The Noah Baerman Resonance Ensemble's  The Rock & the Redemption  is a jazz concept album of sorts that recasts  the Sisyphus myth  around the heroism of perseverance and persistence. Keyboardist and composer Noah Baerman joins us for the hour. To purchase  The Rock & the Redemption  (including the full-length concert video),  visit Noah Baerman's Bandcam...

In March, President Trump  blamed  our global pandemic on China. When that didn't work,  he blamed  the World Health Organization (WHO) for not responding quickly enough to the virus. When that didn't work, he  blamed governors  for not getting their own supplies. Now, he says  immigrants  will take away American jobs. The Bible defines  a scapegoat &nb...

That headline is just a direct quote from James Poniewozik's  Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America . I was torn between that line from the book and this one: Donald Trump is not a person. Poniewozik's take is that "Donald Trump" is really a character that Donald Trump has been playing on television since at least the early 1980s. "Television has entertained...

One can't help but wonder if the President understands that getting through this pandemic  will not be a quick sprint.  On Thursday, the Trump Administration announced  guidelines  for states to begin reopening the economy, with a goal to  begin by May 1.  On Friday, the President personally  encouraged protesters  in Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia, to "l...

Last weekend,  Saturday Night Live  aired a prerecorded special, "Saturday Night Live at Home."  Tom Hanks hosted from his kitchen.   Michael Che and Colin Jost did Weekend Update from their living rooms and by Zoom or something similar.  Chris Martin covered a Bob Dylan song in front of handwritten "ENTRANCE TO TRAIN" signs. All of the late night shows are operating in so...

I haven't been grocery shopping in 21 days. The last time I went, March 26, was a harrowing experience. It was before this particular grocery store, at least, had started limiting the number of customers in the building at a time, before it had made aisles one-way, before it started wiping down carts after each use and providing sanitizing wipes for customers to use. Staff and customers alike didn...