The Colin McEnroe Show

I saw someone on TikTok ask (rather vulgarly) that we just have, for once, a week that is … precedented. And I mean, yes. Could we? Well, not this week. The shooting. The convention. The running mate. The president with COVID. The ominous election. And then Bob Newhart died, too. So we decided we need — and that you might need, too — an hour to figure out where to find hope even in the face of all this. GUESTS: Noah Baerman: A pianist, composer, and educator; his new album, from the Noah Baerman Trio, is Live at the Side Door Susan Clinard: The owner of Clinard Sculpture Studio in Hamden, Connecticut Azar Nafisi: The author of six books, including Reading Lolita in Tehran; her newest is Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times Benjamin Perry: Minister of outreach and media strategy at Middle Church and the author of Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter Gene Seymour: A “writer, professional spectator, pop-culture maven, and jazz geek 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 Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we look at our cultural fascination with dead bodies. What do we owe the dead? What can the dead teach us? What does a body represent to you?  We talk to a death investigator who observes what the dead can teach us about living, a poet / mortician, who laments our growing estrangement from our dead, and a reporter who has investigated the large — and legal — market for body parts. GUESTS:  Barbara Butcher: A retired New York City death investigator and the author of What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator; she is featured in Dick Wolf’s Netflix docuseries Homicide: New York Thomas Lynch: The author of six collections of poems, six books of essays and a book of stories; a novel, No Prisoners, is forthcoming; he worked as a funeral director for over 50 years with Lynch & Sons Ally Jarmanning: A senior reporter for WBUR; she’s the host and reporter for Season 4 of the podcast Last Seen: Postmortem — The Stolen Bodies of Harvard 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, Jonathan McNicol, and Bradley O’Connor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we're taking stock of what the events of July 13 mean for our election and our polity. First, a conversation about the effects political violence can have on democracy. Then, a look at the rise of conspiracy thinking across the political spectrum in response to the attempted assassination of former President Trump and an analysis of the iconic photo of Trump with his fist raised. GUESTS:  Arie Periliger: Professor at UMass Lowell studying political extremism and political violence for more than 20 years David Gilbert: A reporter at WIRED covering covering disinformation and online extremism Philip Kennicott: Senior art and architecture critic at The Washington Post Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, 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 Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give it to humans, and suffered an eternity of punishment for it. This hour, we revisit that myth, and talk about why it resonates so much today. Plus, a look at the Alien prequel Prometheus. GUESTS: Annie Dorsen: Theater director; her most recent production was Prometheus Firebringer Adrienne Mayor: Research scholar in the Classics Department and the History of Science Program at Stanford University and the author of Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines and Ancient Dreams of Technology, among other books Dom Nero: Writer, video editor, and co-host of the Eye of the Duck podcast A.O. Scott: Critic at large for The New York Times Book Review and the author of Better Living Through Criticism 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, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired January 17, 2024.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After this weekend, we thought you might want to talk. 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 Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We got to the end of this week and decided it’d be nice to have some stuff to think about besides the election. This hour, we present to you three such things. First, in advance of this weekend’s finals, we check in with arguably the grandest of the Grand Slams, the most major of the four tennis majors, The Championships, Wimbledon 2024. And then: The New York Times wondered, “Should you hug a sloth?” (Spoiler: Probably not.) And finally, a look at all the ways our mapping apps — Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps, etc. — are (maybe) letting us down. GUESTS: Julia Angwin: A contributing opinion writer at The New York Times and the founder of Proof News Matthew Futterman: A senior writer covering tennis at The Athletic Melena Ryzik: A roving culture reporter at The New York Times 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, Eugene Amatruda, and Bradley O’Connor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, a look at refrigeration and how it’s shaped what we eat and how we live with Nicola Twilley, author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. Plus, we’ll take a look at what we can learn about someone from the inside and outside of their refrigerator. GUESTS:  Nicola Twilley: Co-host of the podcast “Gastropod,” and author of the new book, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves Peyton Dix: Social media strategist, content creator, writer, and co-host of the podcast “Lemme Say This”   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 Bradley O’Connor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Legal gratuities for government officials, an overturning of the Chevron doctrine, and (perhaps most importantly) presidential immunity from prosecution for official acts — the Supreme Court just issued a batch of rulings that you may have noticed in the headlines, and we’re here to debrief them! Plus: a discussion on the state and future of the court. GUESTS:  Akhil Reed Amar: Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. He hosts the podcast “Amarica’s Constitution” and wrote the book “The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840” Cristina Rodríguez: Professor of Law at Yale Law School.  Ian MacDougall: Writer and lawyer by training who’s clerked for federal judges in Brooklyn and Washington D.C. 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 Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Somewhere along the way, cars stopped being just a means of transportation — now, they’re also a dining room, an entertainment center, even an extension of our selves. And apparently, they’re sharing and selling data about you that you might not know they collected in the first place. This hour: everything you didn’t know about that thing you sit in for an hour every day. GUESTS: Jen Caltrider: Program director of Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included project Stefan Gössling: Professor at Linnaeus University Kashmir Hill: Technology reporter at The New York Times, specializing in privacy Ian Walker: Professor of environmental psychology at Swansea University 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, Jonathan McNicol, Cat Pastor, and Lily Tyson contributed to this show, which originally aired January 11, 2024.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Franz Kafka died 100 years ago last month, but his work is still very much alive today in literature classes and, surprisingly, on social media. This hour, we look at Kafka’s life and legacy, discuss the “Kafkaesque,” and investigate why the author resonates so much today. Plus, we revisit his most famous work, “The Metamorphosis,” and talk with a zoologist about the idea of turning into an insect. GUESTS: Benjamin Balint: Author of Kafka’s Last Trial; his new book is Bruno Schulz: An Artist, A Murder, and the Hijacking of History Tim Coulson: Professor of zoology at the University of Oxford; his new book is The Science of Why We Exist: A History of the Universe from the Big Bang to Consciousness Margarita Mouka: Content creator and creative executive; her TikTok handle is @aquariuscat444 Karolina Watroba: Post-doctoral research fellow in modern languages at Oxford’s All Souls College and the author of Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka 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, Jonathan McNicol, and Bradley O’Connor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.