The Colin McEnroe Show

Last week's violence at three spas in Georgia, followed a year of escalating violence against Asian Americans, some of it captured on videos that went viral. Despite visual evidence, New Yorker writer Hua Hsu, writes that this current moment stresses the "in-between space Asian Americans inhabit." It's hard to prove bias when we lack a historical understanding of what Asian American racism looks like.  The 21-year-old man who killed eight people last week, six of whom were Asian women, told investigators that he attacked the spas because he was struggling with a “sex addiction” and wanted to eliminate the “temptation” of buying sex. Psychologist Joshua Grubbs writes that religion is deeply intertwined with perceptions of sexual behavior and moral beliefs about sexuality.  GUESTS:  Hua Hsu is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific. He is an associate professor of English at Vassar College (@huahsu) Joshua Grubbs is an assistant professor of psychology at Bowling State University. His research is primarily concerned with the scientific study of addiction, personality, and morality (@joshuagrubbsphd) Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It might just be that the pandemic is starting to wind down. Advertisers are anxious to act like it is. We're all maybe anxious to get some hugs back into our lives, or maybe we'll all just always be anxious about hugs. And: How does this all work for half-vaccinated couples? Plus: The Nose sees some parallels in the sexlessness of superheroes. And: Promising Young Woman is Emerald Fennell's feature-film debut as a writer, director, and producer, and it's made her an Academy Award-nominated writer, director, and producer. The movie is nominated for five Oscars overall, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Carey Mulligan. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Yaphet Kotto, Bond Villain and 'Alien' Star, Dies at 81Well known for playing hardened personalities, he was also seen in movies like "Midnight Run" and the TV show "Homicide: Life on the Street." Boxing great Marvelous Marvin Hagler dies at 66 Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez Announce They Are Still TogetherLess than a day after E! News confirmed reports that Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez were going their separate ways, the music superstar and actress and retired MLB star issued a joint statement How Hollywood Is Complicit in the Violence Against Asians in AmericaReducing Asians, women and sex workers to flat punchlines isn't just degrading -- it's dangerous 'Avatar' Overtakes 'Avengers: Endgame' As All-Time Highest-Grossing Film Worldwide; Rises To $2.8B Amid China Reissue 2021 Oscar Stats: Two Female Filmmakers Are Up for Best Director for the First Time; Plus Historic Nods for Viola Davis, Riz Ahmed, Steven Yeun, More The Winners and Losers of the 2021 Oscar NominationsThe good: 'Minari' and 'Nomadland' leading a far less local slate. The bad: Delroy Lindo getting snubbed. Razzie Awards 2021: Robert Downey Jr., Adam Sandler, Anne Hathaway Among Nominees Movies That Would Have Been Better with Richard Kind in Them The Mound Is Too Damn CloseFor nearly 130 years, the distance between pitchers and batters has remained the same. But as pitchers get better and bigger -- and balls in play become increasingly rare -- MLB could benefit from giving hitters some space. Prominent NCAA tournament players launch '#NotNCAAProperty' protest as March Madness begins Why Channel 37 Doesn't Exist (And What It Has to Do With Aliens)Since the advent of analog TVs, channel 37 has always been static. Here's why. '60 Songs That Explain the '90s': The Ugly Beauty of ToolUp next on our trek through the decade: "Stinkfist," one of the hardest, crudest songs from one of rock's hardest, crudest bands Sanitary CultureExperts brightly offer to help create a society so safe, clean, inoffensive, and nontoxic art disappears. Show them the door. Teen Vogue Editor Resigns After Fury Over Racist TweetsThe hiring of Alexi McCammond, who was supposed to start at the Condé Nast publication next week, drew complaints because of racist and homophobic tweets she had posted a decade ago. Topps removes Garbage Pail Kids collectible sticker card featuring bruised BTS after backlash NYC man sells fart for $85, cashing in on NFT craze If You Look at Your Phone While Walking, You're an Agent of ChaosAn experiment by Japanese researchers revealed how just a few distracted walkers really can throw off the movements of a whole crowd. Is This Going To Be The Horniest Summer Of All Time? GUESTS: Tracy Wu Fastenberg - Development officer at Connecticut Children's Bill Yousman - Professor of Media Studies at Sacred Heart University Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Catie Talarski contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Writer and essayist Lauren Oyler, joins Colin to talk about Fake Accounts, her new novel on internet culture. They'll also talk about literary fiction, cultural criticism, ghostwriting, and her staunch defense of semicolons, among other things. Lauren Oyler will be at the Mark Twain House & Museum, Tuesday, March 23, 7-8 pm. The event is free. You can register at marktwainhouse.org GUEST: Lauren Oyler’s essays have appeared in the London Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Bookforum, New York Magazine’s The Cut, and elsewhere. Her first novel is Fake Accounts. (@laurenoyler) Find us on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Gene Amatruda contributed to this show. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every year around this time, there's a big-old college basketball tournament. So every* year around this time, for every* year that this show has been on the air, we've put together a big-old hour of radio about said big-old college basketball tournament. Until last year, of course. Last year, we were right in the middle of getting this show together when quarantines started, when we closed our building to the outside world, when sports seasons were suspended and canceled, when we all suddenly switched to working remotely. Last year, the NCAA basketball tournaments were canceled, so we had to cancel this show. And so we're very excited to be doing this show again this year. We're still working from home, but that's no reason not to do an hour of radio about basketball with an improv comic and an ex-politican-turned-political-pundit. There are a bunch of other reasons not to do that, but we don't care about any of them very much. *Our best guess is that this is the 11th version of this show we've done. It might be the 10th, maybe the ninth. But we're going with 11th. It could be that one of the 11 was a show more about birds than it's about basketball, but whatever. GUESTS: Bill Curry - Playing the part of Bill Curry Julia Pistell - A founding member of Sea Tea Improv, among a number of other things Gregory S. Woodward - President of the University of Hartford Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the one hand, obituaries are an amalgam of a bunch of different kinds of journalism: they're feature stories, they're profile pieces, they cover history, and they're hard news too. On the other hand, the subject is always... dead. This hour, a look at the art of obituaries and obituarists. GUESTS: Kate Cimini - A reporter for The Salinas Californian and CalMatters Vanessa Gould - Produced and directed the documentary Obit. Heather Lende - Obituarist for the Chilkat Valley News in Alaska and the author of Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer Bruce Weber - Retired New York Times obituarist Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Cat Pastor, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired August 24, 2017.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeopardy! has been part of the fabric of American TV, in a couple different forms and across a couple different breaks, since 1964. It is the longest-running nationally-televised game show in U.S. television history. At the 2015 Emmys, John Oliver quipped, "The sun could burn out, humanity could flee to another galaxy, time as we know it could cease to exist, but Alex Trebek will still be there scolding librarians from Ames, Iowa, to answer in the form of a question." Except, of course, Alex Trebek died last year. And before that, Jeopardy!'s long-time executive producer and its long-time contestant coordinator both left at the end of last season. So what's in store for this quiz show institution? The Nose is off, but that doesn't mean some other stuff didn't happen this week, give or take: 'Phantom Tollbooth' Author Norton Juster Dies At 91 The Best Movie Performances of the Century So Far 'Nomadland,' 'Rocks' Lead 2021 BAFTA Awards Nominations Steven Spielberg to Direct a Movie About His Own Childhood; Michelle Williams to Star People are Using Dating Apps to Find Doctors, Drugs, and ProtestersAs the world gets weirder, dating apps are expanding from attracting horny singles to even being a marketplace for everything but love. The Internet Is Making Lots Of Jokes At The News That Instagram Is Launching A "Lite" Version Of Its App"Does Instagram Lite have less calories than the other competitors?" GUESTS: Sherri Cohen - Former Jeopardy! contestant Claire McNear - Staff writer at The Ringer and the author of Answers in the Form of Questions: A Definitive History and Insider's Guide to Jeopardy! Carolyn Paine - An actress, comedian, and dancer, and founder, director, and choreographer of CONNetic Dance Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired November 18, 2020.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Criminal Minds. Mindhunter and Manhunt. Cracker and Profiler. Nearly the whole of the Hannibal Lecter universe: Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal (the movie and the TV series), Red Dragon, and now Clarice. It seems we're fascinated by forensic psychology, by criminal profiling, by... mindhunting. This hour, we look at three different criminal profilers: James Brussel, the psychologist who helped catch the Mad Bomber of New York in 1957; James Fitzgerald, the forensic linguist who caught the Unabomber; and Bill James, the father of sabermetrics, turns his data analysis on a century-old serial killer mystery that no one had even realized was a serial killer mystery before he and his daughter figured it out. GUESTS: Michael Cannell - Author of Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling James Fitzgerald - Retired FBI agent, criminal profiler, and forensic linguist; he's the author of a series of memoirs, A Journey to the Center of the Mind Bill James - Former Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox; co-author of The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery Rachel McCarthy James - Co-author of The Man from the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Cat Pastor, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired November 7, 2017.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The southeastern part of our state conjures images of casinos, submarines, and a blue-collar vibe that's just a little different from the rest of the state's image of leafy suburbs, clapboard homes, and town greens that show off Connecticut's colonial past. The southeastern corner has its own allure, challenging writers and artists mystified by this place that time left alone. It's quirky, a little unruly, and special in ways we can't fully define. Wally Lamb describes it as "more feisty than fashionable, more liverwurst than pate." We talk to three writers, including Wally Lamb, who have tried to capture the essence of this unique region of Connecticut. GUESTS: Wally Lamb - The author of I Know This Much is True, She's Come Undone, We Are Water, and I'll Take You There John-Manuel Andriote - A reporter and the author of Victory Deferred, Wilhelmina Goes Wandering, and Tough Love: A Washington Reporter Finds Resilience, Ruin, and Zombies in his ‘Other Connecticut' Hometown Stephen Dobyns - Poet of 13 volumes including Winter's Journey and Velocities and the author of Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired October 29, 2015.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we talk about two Connecticut dance halls, each springing from the vision of two very different men who took their respective dance halls down very different paths. One's dream soared, bringing thousands of concert-goers to over 3,000 acts over an 11-year history. The other's dream stalled, his elaborate dance hall sitting idle for decades. Thrall Hall in East Windsor is a lot of things. By most accounts, it's a fascinating example of vernacular or folk architecture. Ed Thrall built the dance hall from materials he recovered from demolition projects, sometimes salvaging pieces of historical interest. He built it his own way following his own idiosyncratic ideas about architecture. Thrall Hall contains some engineering marvels including the use of recycled tractor trailer tires under the dance floor to give it adjustable bounce. What Thrall Hall is not is usable.  Ed is a peculiar and troubled man. He didn't work and play well with others, and you'll hear today an occasionally hair-raising account of his battles with the town. Catie Talarski shares this heartbreaking story of lost dreams, betrayal, and redemption. Thrall Hall was just about the only thing that could make the wild 11-year run of the Shaboo Inn in Mansfield seem pale by comparison. That's the second story we tell today.  Connecticut’s Shaboo Inn, a legendary 1970s and 1980s blues and rock concert dance hall, attracted over 100 top artists, including Bonnie Raitt, Miles Davis, The Police, Aerosmith, and Tom Waits, to the former silk mill in Mansfield. David "Lefty" Foster started Shaboo at the age of 19 when he wasn't yet old enough to be inside the building. He joins us to share stories from this long and storied Connecticut icon.  Read and listen to Catie Talarski's feature here. GUEST: David Foster - Co-founder of Shaboo Productions and the leader of the Mohegan Sun Shaboo All-Stars; he was inducted into the New England Music Hall of Fame in October, 2020 Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Betsy Kaplan, Catie Talarski, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired September 30, 2014.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We reair Colin's 2016 interview with Patti Smith at the Immanuel Congregational Church in Hartford when she was in town for a Mark Twain House event. The church was filled to the rafters with a capacity crowd of 700 people who remained enraptured by her presence throughout the entire evening. If you don't know her, you may come to love her after hearing this very funny and endearing interview.  She looked back over her life as an artist, a lover of Robert Mapplethorpe, a wife and a mother, and as a person she says is a better friend in the abstract than in reality. Again, she's really funny.  GUEST: Patti Smith - Singer, songwriter, poet, and visual artist; she's released almost a dozen albums and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007; she won a National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids; her second memoir is M Train Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired November 10, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.