The Colin McEnroe Show

Fyre Festival, Theranos, Anna Delvey, the college admissions scandal... the list goes on. And whether explored on the news or as a book, podcast, documentary or feature film, consumers can't seem to get enough of this 'scamtent.' This hour, we'll talk about scams and scammers, and discuss why we as a culture can't seem to look away.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Voters in favor of Brexit handed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson an electoral victory on Thursday in a landslide not seen since Margaret Thatcher’s win in 1987. Conservatives won seats in British working-class districts that have been Labour strongholds for generations, giving Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party its biggest defeat since 1935. What can 2020 Democratic presidential candidates learn from this election?  Also this hour: President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday following Tuesday's anti-Semitic attack in a Jersey City kosher market that left six people dead, including the two shooters. The order sparked a firestorm online over fears that the order would bring up old debates about Jewish identity and squelch campus protests against Israeli political policy. We try to parse that out.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Nose is off this week (because, on any given day, it's entirely possible that our whole show will be off with all this impeachment nonsense going on), so David Edelstein joins Colin for the hour to talk about some of the best (and some of the worst) movies of the year. The Irishman, Diane, Once Upon at Time... in Hollywood, Uncut Gems, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, The Lighthouse, Ad Astra, Marriage Story, The Goldfinch, and Dolemite Is My Name all get mentioned. But which ones are the best, and which ones are the worst? And what about Toy Story 4? Colin's got it as his favorite movie of the year. (It's #2 on my list so far.) Edelstein's got a whole other take on the Disney/Pixar sequel. And speaking of Disney, there's some Marvel vs. movies talk here too. GUEST: David Edelstein - America's Greatest Living Film Critic Colin McEnroe contributed to this show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're preempted (again) today as the House Judiciary Committee debates its Articles of Impeachment. So, in lieu of a new episode of The Colin McEnroe Show, we thought you might enjoy this interview we did with Dave Eggers for our new, other show, Pardon Me (Another Damn Impeachment Show?). Pardon Me airs on Saturdays at noon on Connecticut Public Radio, and it's available wherever you get your podcasts. Dave Eggers is the author of six books for young readers, including The Wild Things; three works of nonfiction, including Zeitoun; twelve novels, including What Is the What, A Hologram for the King, and The Circle; and the memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. He has written three screenplays, including Where the Wild Things Are with Spike Jonze. And he is the founder of McSweeney's. Eggers's latest is The Captain and the Glory: An Entertainment, about which John Hodgman wrote, "It is difficult these days to portray the sheer, numbing, terrifying, unprecedented strangeness of what is happening in contemporary maritime life. One wants to say it mirrors politics?" This uncut interview is roughly twice as long as the version that ran in the debut episode of Pardon Me. It has been lightly edited for clarity but not for time or content. GUEST: Dave Eggers - The author of thirteen books; his latest is The Captain and the Glory: An Entertainment Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show. Email us your impeachment questions at pardonme@ctpublic.org. Pardon Me is a production of The Colin McEnroe Show on Connecticut Public Radio.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we speak with actor and human-rights activist George Takei, not about his role as Lieutenant Sulu on the original Star Trek, but about a far more troubling chapter in his life. In his new graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy, George writes in detail about his childhood spent in an internment camp for Japanese-American citizens. It's a vivid account of one of the darkest times in America’s history as well as a wake-up call to a country currently detaining tens of thousands of immigrants and their families.  Is there still time to learn from our past mistakes or have the politics of fear and division already caused us, as a nation, to repeat them? GUESTS: George Takei - Actor, Human-rights activist and spokesperson, as well as author of the New York Time's best-selling graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Chion Wolf, and Jonathan McNicol contributed to this show, which originally aired on August 21, 2019.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We had intended to run the debut episode of our new other show, Pardon Me (Another Damn Impeachment Show?), in our hour today. But then the Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Trump. And so suddenly airing a show from last weekend seemed like a bad idea. So instead, we take to the airwaves with you as our only guest. Call in and let Colin know what you're thinking: 888-720-WNPR (888-720-9677). Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Eugene Amatruda, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, and Catie Talarski contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The New York Times has called Harris Yulin "something of the character actor's character actor." You know him from, well... pretty much everything: Scarface, Ghostbusters II, Clear and Present Danger, Bean, The Hurricane, Rush Hour 2, Training Day, The Place Beyond the Pines, 24, Veep, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Ozark. It goes on. Yulin is here playing Righty in the Yale Repertory Theatre's world premiere production of The Plot, which is playwright Will Eno's latest. Eno's previous work includes Middletown; The Open House; The Realistic Joneses, which also premiered at Yale Rep and which went on to Broadway; and Thom Pain (based on nothing), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Yulin and Eno (and Eno's adorable daughter, Albertine) are our guests. GUESTS: Albertine - The adorable daughter of Will Eno and Maria Dizzia Will Eno - An Obie Award-, Drama Desk Award-, and Lucille Lortel Award-winning playwright Harris Yulin - An actor and director who has been appearing on stage and screen for going on 60 years Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe contributed to this show, which includes original music composed by Emily Duncan Wilson, sound designer for Yale Repertory Theatre's production of The Plot.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 interations since gentleman scientists turned to taxidermy to understand anatomy during the Enlightenment. Victorians added a touch of whimsy, decorating their homes with birds under glass and falling in love with Walter Potter's anthropomorphized cats. Later still, Norman Bates shifted the cultural understanding of taxidermy from art to something more macabre after he taxidermied his mother in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho."  Today, animal-loving Millennial women are taking taxidermy to new levels of artistry and craftsmanship, from rogue taxidermists who mix and match animal parts to the mallard wing bridal veil of a couture taxidermist.   In the end, isn't taxidermy about immortality and how we choose to remember?  GUESTS: Kristen Arnett is a librarian and a queer fiction and essay writer. She’s the author of the novel, NYT bestseller Mostly Dead Things, and a short fiction collection, Felt in the Jaw.(@Kristen_Arnett) Beth Beverly is a couture taxidermist and the owner of Diamond Tooth Taxidermy. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and most recently the Netflix series "Stranger Things" (@bethbeverly) John Whitenight is an educator, author, and artist. He’s the author of Under Glass: A Victorian Obsession Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is perhaps no figure more emblematic of the paranormal than the psychic. Able to predict the future, see into the past, and even communicate with the dead, the psychic's awesome gifts are matched only by his or her ability to withstand skepticism and ridicule. But are our misgivings towards these intuitives justified? Is it merely smoke and mirrors which they've learned to master or are they, in fact, possessed of powers beyond our comprehension? This hour we speak with believers, skeptics and self-proclaimed psychics to find out.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Private weather companies are cropping up to produce weather and climate models that has historically been provided by the government at taxpayer expense. Private weather forecasting is a $7 billion industry that threatens the National Weather Services hold on the best data and could lead to a tiered system of access. Also this hour: Montrealers are united around their bagels. Until now, the biggest division was over who made the best bagel. Now, environmental concerns have divided them into those who want to ban the wood-burning ovens that make Montreal bagels unique and traditionalists who want to preserve the city's Jewish history and social fabric.  Lastly, the Apostrophe Preservation Society has closed its doors. It's 96-year-old chairman said "ignorance and laziness" has won. We take your calls (pet peeves) about the apostrophe. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.