The Colin McEnroe Show

Before the pandemic, most of us craved of a little solitude away from the hustle of life. Now, we've been  been thrust into a form of solitude far from the idleness of the lazy summer afternoon we imagined. Our minds are restless with uncertainty and fear and without the usual distractions we turn toward when being alone with ourselves becomes too painful to confront.  Today, we lea...

Health experts have released  multiple plans  that all call for some version of the same thing. We need to conduct widespread testing, trace contacts of the infected, and quarantine those contacts, BEFORE we can ease social distancing measures.  Despite the  many task forces  the President Trump has formed to deal with the crisis, it's governors, former government official...

We've entered a moment where  the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is a celebrity . You can buy  donuts with his face on them .  A petition to make him  People 's Sexiest Man Alive  has more than 13,000 signatures. And, yes,  sales of Dr. Anthony Fauci bobblehead dolls have raised more than $100,000 . At the same time,  how do...

My son, Simon, is a year old. His mother and his grandmother are both librarians. His father is, well, me. Simon is, predictably, obsessed with books. Back before everything changed, we'd gotten into a pretty good reading routine. Every morning before Simon went to his grandparents', we'd read a big pile of books. Every evening when I got home from work, we'd read a big pile of books. We'd read&nb...

Your sex life doesn't have to suffer just because you're cooped up at home every day. Researchers say that sex is a healthy way to calm the anxiety of pandemic, even if you live alone.  Virtual dating ,  masturbation , and  coronavirus-related porn  are more popular than ever. Some sex researchers think our desire for sex in the middle of a pandemic is  one way we cope &nb...

Ocean Vuong emigrated to Hartford from Vietnam when he was two years old. His family brought with them the trauma of an American-led war that ravaged their people and their culture. How do they retain their culture and assimilate into one that doesn't want them? His family struggled in a Hartford very different from the city that many of us experience. It's a place that still exists in the shadows...

The pandemic is making us reflect on what we value as people and a country. We don't yet know how much COVID-19 will change life as we knew it before the pandemic. We do know that it must change. We're learning  to respect  each other's space. The internet is becoming  a kinder place . And we shouldn't accept political leaders who  can't lead . GUESTS: Gia Kourlas  - ...

The novel coronavirus has started to take its toll on figures from our popular culture.  Adam Schlesinger , who founded Fountains of Wayne and wrote songs for  Crazy Ex-Girlfriend  among other things, died on Wednesday. The great playwright  Terrence McNally  died last week. The list goes on: songwriter  Alan Merrill , country music star  Joe Diffie , fashion des...

You can find lots of  advice  about how to  avoid feeling bored  during this pandemic. There are  virtual dance parties  and  home safaries , lists of what to  read  and  watch , and  yoga classes  on Zoom. Boredom is a difficult emotion for most of us. Almost 3,500 people living under quarantine in Italy shared on a  survey  la...

From ancient mixtures of boiled goat fats and ashes to modern artisanal soaps with calendula and coffee grinds, humans have been inventing clever ways of cleaning themselves since the very beginning. This quest for cleanliness has wound its way through religion, sexuality, culture, and more. It has been the source of everything from comedies to conflicts to consumer crazes. This hour we talk to ex...

For those who put their trust in science, it's hard to understand why anyone wouldn't. But in recent decades, the voices of skeptics have grown louder by the day. From average citizens to media personalities to high-ranking government officials, it seems even the most irrefutable scientific findings are being challenged. Is it the scientists themselves, their research methods, or how their finding...

William Wetmore Story sculpted  The Angel of Grief  for his wife's grave after her death in 1894. He wrote that it was the only way he could express his feelings of utter abandonment. It was his last work before his own death one year later. We may not readily identify grief in the gamut of emotions we're feeling during this pandemic. We haven't lost the kind of love expressed through Wi...

Last Friday night,  Disney released the #1 movie in the country -- Pixar's  Onward  -- for digital download on iTunes/Amazon/etc . It's safe to say, that's the first time that's ever happened. When you say "the #1 movie in the country," you're talking about what was #1 last weekend or maybe last week.  Onward  was also the #1 movie in the country  specifically on last...

Humans have been using soap for literally millennia -- nearly five of them... at least. And while there's  a run on alcohol-based hand sanitizers , it turns out that good, old-fashioned soap is a simpler, more-reliable way  to destroy all that coronavirus that might be all over your gross, dirty hands . In the end, though, " A little bit of soap / Will never never never ever begin / To t...

Restaurants around the country have closed their doors to in-dining service to help slow the spread of Coronavirus and prevent unnecessary deaths. That's good news. The porch of Metro Bis Restaurant in Simsbury, Conn. CREDIT CHRIS PROSPERI But it's also bad news for an industry that employs 160,000 people in Connecticut alone, many laid off and waiting for their unemployment application to be proc...

The Trump administration is  pursuing policies they say are necessary  to fight the spread of coronavirus -- even though Congress and the courts rejected these policies prior to the pandemic. Last week, the president gave his administration the power to shut the southwestern border, implement a rule allowing federal workers to withhold their union dues, and  deliver food boxes &nbsp...

As with all things, The Nose has never been a Nose quite like this week's Nose. First off, for almost every Nose ever, we've put four (sometimes more) people in a radio studio for an hour. This Nose is four people talking to each other from very separate places, and none of them is a radio studio. Meanwhile, we've  said goodbye to movie theaters .  Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson  and&nbs...

The NBA ,  the NHL , and  Major League Soccer  have all suspended their seasons.  Major League Baseball  canceled spring training and postponed opening day until at least mid-May.  The NCAA  canceled March Madness (which would've started in earnest today) and, in fact, all of its winter and spring sports championships.  Tennis's French Open  is postpone...

Did you get enough sleep last night? If you're like most Americans,  probably not . You might feel pretty good after six hours of sleep and a strong cup of coffee, but the physical and mental toll of sleep deprivation is high. We become more impulsive and less mentally agile, and we make more mistakes. Long term, lack of sleep (six hours or less per night) can mess with mood, hormones, and im...

Reality TV shows like the Discovery Channel's  Doomsday Bunkers  and National Geographic Channel's  Doomsday Preppers  perpetuate a stereotype of "preppers" that omits the wide swath of people who engage in preparedness in a less extreme and more varied way. Talk of  nuclear war ,  climate apocalypse ,  pandemic ,  economic instability , and  the declin...

America got (more) serious last week about COVID-19.  Schools and colleges closed ,  workers went remote ,  professional sports teams canceled their seasons ,  theaters and restaurants closed their doors , and Americans hunkered down at home to reckon with the fragility of life as we know it. We want to hear from you. Colin and an epidemiologist answer your questions. Also this...

John McPhee is a writer's writer. He's thought of as one of the progenitors of the New Journalism, of creative nonfiction or narrative nonfiction, along with people like Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. But his style is... quiter than those folks'. His writing is transparent. He tends to keep himself out of the narrative. He doesn't even, in fact, have an author photo. McPhee has w...

When you think of taxidermy, you may imagine a  trophy room  in which mostly male hunters have mounted the heads of 12-point stags along wood-paneled walls. If so, your image would be incomplete. Taxidermy has gone through many iterations since gentleman scientists turned to taxidermy to understand anatomy during the Enlightenment. Victorians added a touch of whimsy, decorating their hom...

Is it safe to say that we're not yet ready to kiss and make up with the banks whose reckless behavior led to the 2008 financial crisis? A little contrition would go a long way to helping us forgive and forget. That's not happening, at least not with Deutsche Bank, the preferred bank of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Deutsche Bank lent money to rogue states that funded terrorist activities that...

Take a few seconds to reminisce about your childhood "best friend." Maybe it was a boy, a girl, an imaginary friend, or perhaps a stuffed toy. This stuffed toy was your childhood confidant that you dragged everywhere, from the local supermarket to the preschool sandbox, a transitional object that temporarily stood between you and your relationship with your parents. If you still have your stuffed...