The Colin McEnroe Show

Taylor Swift’s newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, comes out Friday. So this hour, we are taking a look at the idea of the actual tortured poet. We talk about where the idea of tortured poets came from, learn about the nature of creativity, and hear from a poet about where their inspiration comes from. GUESTS:  Roland Greene: Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Humanities Center at Stanford University. He is editor in chief of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. His newest book is Five Words: Critical Semantics in the Age of Shakespeare and Cervantes  James C. Kaufman: Professor of Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. He is the author or editor of more than 50 books, including The Creativity Advantage and The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity Sandra Simonds: Writer, professor, and author of eight collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Triptychs. She is also the author of the novel Assia Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.  Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We imagine pirates to be the quintessential rule-breakers — but really, they had their own strictly-followed codes.   How did 18th-century pirates dictate their own community standards? How did they create social mobility in an age when changing one's social status was nearly impossible?   This hour, we join pirate historian Rebecca Simon to find out!   GUEST: Rebecca Simon: Pirate historian with a doctorate in history from King’s College London; she’s the author of several books about piracy, including The Pirates’ Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ship The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!   Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.   Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.   Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired on October 11, 2023.   Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows a couple times a month where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to an essay about NPR in The Free Press, NPR’s response to the essay, (our friend) David Folkenflik’s reporting on the essay and NPR’s response and such … Oh, and Scrabble … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ripley is an eight-episode limited series adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels. It is the first serialized screen version of those stories following five feature film adaptations, including the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jude Law. The Netflix series stars Adam Scott, Dakota Fanning, and Johnny Flynn. It is created, written, and directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian (who also created The Night Of) and shot — in black and white — by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit. And: Scrabble Together is a new, forthcoming version of the classic board game that’s coming to Europe from Mattel. It’s a faster-paced, collaborative version of Scrabble that’s being billed as less “intimidating.” It will not be available in the U.S. GUESTS: Irene Papoulis: Teaches writing at Trinity College, and she’s the author of The Essays Only You Can Write Lindsay Lee Wallace: Writes about culture, health care and health equity, and other stuff, too The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If I say “cult classic,” what do you think of? Probably an underground movie that built up an intense following over time, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Room, right? Or maybe even something a bit more mainstream like The Big Lebowski? But where’s the limit here, if there is one? Is Blade Runner a cult movie? Or Pulp Fiction? Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Office Space? Slap Shot? (I mean: Slap Shot?!?) This hour, a look at a genre, a cross section of cinema history that seems to include everything from all-time classics like A Clockwork Orange to all-time terribles like Plan 9 from Outer Space and many, many weird and not-even-so-weird things in between: the cult classic. GUESTS: Millie De Chirico: Co-author of TCM Underground: 50 Must-See Films from the World of Classic Cult and Late-Night Cinema and co-host of the I Saw What You Did podcast David Edelstein: America’s Greatest Living Film Critic Sam Hatch: Co-hosts The Culture Dogs on WWUH Kevin O’Toole: Co-hosts The Culture Dogs on WWUH This show was produced with Sajina Shrestha. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, Yale Dean Tamar Gendler joins us to discuss her course “Public Plato: Ancient Wisdom in the Digital Age.” We'll talk about how to make ancient philosophy relevant for a modern audience, questions of framing and form, and what we can all learn from concepts like alief, phronesis, and eudaimonia. GUEST:  Tamar Gendler: Professor of Philosophy, Psychology and Cognitive Science, and the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, at Yale University Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.  Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired on October 5, 2023.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we’re talking about lotteries. How did this massive money redistribution game come to be? And we know that lotteries can randomly allocate cash prizes to ticket buyers – but could they also pick our political officials? Or the victims of our human sacrifice rituals to ensure that “corn be heavy soon”? GUESTS: Jonathan D. Cohen: Historian and author of For a Dollar and a Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America Alex Guerrero: Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and author of the forthcoming book, “Lottocracy: The Case for Democracy without Elections” Ruth Franklin: Book critic and author of the award-winning biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.  Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Colin McEnroe, Stacey Addo, Lily Tyson, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired on August 23, 2023. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This legislative session, local students lobbied Connecticut lawmakers to change our state insect, which is currently the praying mantis. This hour we are focused on the praying mantis. We'll learn about the insect, why students think it should not represent the state, and what praying mantises of the future could look like. GUESTS:  Katherine Dugas: Entomologist and research technician at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station  Liz Alter: Professor of Evolutionary Biology at California State University Monterey Bay Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.  Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm has been on HBO for going on 24 years. As the show comes to a close, we take a Nose-ish look at it and its impact on cringe comedy and the role of cringiness and awkwardness in our lives. GUESTS:  Katie Baker: Senior Staff Writer at The Ringer  Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian, writer, and the host of the Nobody Asked Shawn podcast Carolyn Paine: Actress, comedian, and dancer. She is founder, director, and choreographer of Connetic Dance Ty Tashiro: Psychologist by training and author of the book Awkward: The Science of Why We’re Socially Awkward and Why That’s Awesome  Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode.  Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Monday, the contiguous U.S. will see a total solar eclipse for the last time until 2044. Online, the excitement is also giving way to fears — will communities in the eclipse’s path have enough food and gas to support all the travelers? Will it interrupt our power grid? This hour, we’re talking about the dark side of the eclipse — from doomsday predictions to ancient omens. GUESTS:  Vahé Peroomian: Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences Rebecca Boyle : Science journalist and author of the book, “Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are” Leah Hudson Leva: Writer who researched conspiracy theories about this year's total eclipse Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.