The Colin McEnroe Show

The microphone makes everything we do on the radio possible. This hour we celebrate the invention and look at the role of microphones in music. Plus hot mics, mic drops, and more. GUESTS:  Susan Rogers: Multi-platinum record producer, cognitive neuroscientist, professor at Berklee College of Music and co-author of the book This is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You Azi Paybarah: Politics Reporter for The Washington Post Forrest Wickman: Slate's culture editor 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, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Colin McEnroe, Angelica Gajewski, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired on March 25, 2025.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows 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 the “No Kings” protests, Star Wars merchandise, the labor market, Gilmore Girls, yacht rock … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. MUSIC FEATURED (in order): Dazzling - Casiopea And Love Goes On - Earth, Wind, & Fire REAL THING - DRUGDEALER ft. WEYES BLOOD Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise - The Javier Nero Jazz Orchestra with Veronica Swift Going Out Of My Head - Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66 Living - Dominique Adams Concerto in E Minor, Op. 11 (Chopin) - Tianyao Lyu, final round of Chopin Competition You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Subscribe and get notified when we go live. Or 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, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rope is an interesting movie in Alfred Hitchcock’s œuvre. It’s his first color picture. It’s one of 13 movies he made based on plays, and it’s one of four movies he made that are set basically entirely in single locations (along with Lifeboat, Dial M for Murder, and Rear Window). But of the four single-location pictures, Rope is the only one that Hitchcock made to really seem like a filmed play. It unfolds in real-time, in one room, in long, continuous shots that are edited together in ways that are meant to hide most of the cuts. As Hartford Stage’s new adaptation of the play Rope is based on opens, we present a conversation taped on their stage, in front of an audience, about Alfred Hitchcock, his movies in general, and Rope, the movie and the play, in particular. Note: This podcast version of the show is more than eight minutes longer than the episode as it’s airing on the radio. GUESTS: Illeana Douglas: The Official Movie Star of The Colin McEnroe Show and the author of Connecticut in the Movies: From Dream Houses to Dark Suburbia Sidney Gottlieb: Professor of communication and media studies at Sacred Heart University and the editor of The Hitchcock Annual Jeffrey Hatcher: A playwright and screenwriter; he wrote the adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s Rope that’s currently in production at Hartford Stage 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. Thanks to Lucas Clopton and Jennifer Levine at Hartford Stage. Colin McEnroe, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, Dylan Reyes, and Lily Tyson contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Women scientists and inventors have been making ground-breaking discoveries since Agnodice pretended to be a man in order to become the first female anatomist in ancient Greece. Yet, women's scientific contributions have historically been hidden in the footnotes of the work men claimed as their own. Women scientists are banding together to call out bias and give credit where it’s due— one Wikipedia page at a time. This hour, we talk to four of them. GUESTS: Ainissa Ramirez: Author, scientist, and science communicator. She gave a TED talk on the importance of STEM education and was a mechanical engineering professor at Yale for ten years. She is the author of The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another Kathryn Clancy: Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Emily Temple-Wood - Family medicine resident and founder of WikiProject Women Scientists Jessica Wade: Royal Society University Research Fellow and Lecturer in Functional Materials at Imperial College London 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, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to the show, which originally aired April 9, 2019.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rope has been foundational to so much of human civilization. It's made sailing, hunting, building, and so much more, possible. This hour, we look at the history and utility and future of rope. GUESTS: Tim Queeney: Author of Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization, among other books Manuel Medrano: A PhD candidate in Harvard’s History Department, who studies quipus Tahira Reid Smith: Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Design and the Director of the REID Lab at Penn State. She is also the patented inventor of the Automatic Double Dutch Machine, and the founder of Jump Dreams, Inc. MUSIC FEATURED (in order): Flamingo – Kero Kero Bonito The Last Shanty – Derina Harvey Band Rope – Foo Fighters Tightrope – Janelle Monae Rope A Dope – Victor Oladipo, 2 Chainz Double Dutch – Charity Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour is all about notebooks. We'll talk about the history and evolution of notebooks, favorite examples, and celebrate the joy of writing things down. Plus, a look at the Notes App. GUESTS:  Roland Allen: Book publisher and author of The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper Charley Locke: Journalist, and contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, who wrote “Keep Your Notes App Under Lock and Key” for The Atlantic 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, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired on October 10, 2024.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows 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 — with our old friend Chion Wolf at the helm this time! — winds around to family shorthand, tech bros, bunkers, bodies, adventures… Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. MUSIC FEATURED (in order): La Puerta - Roy Hargrove Big Band You Only Get What You Give - New Radicals Go Gina - SZA Don’t Break Down On Me - Sarah Jarosz Bless the Telephone - Labi Siffre The Telephone Call - Kraftwerk Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year is the 50th anniversary of A Chorus Line and Chicago and the 10th anniversary of Hamilton. Meanwhile, new Broadway shows are struggling to make their money back. This hour, we take stock of stage musicals today, learn how they’re developed, and ask about their status in our culture. GUESTS: Alexander Gemignani: Actor, music director, orchestrator, conductor, composer/lyricist, educator, and artistic director of The National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Elysa Gardner: Theater critic for The New York Sun and a contributor to The New York Times. She is also author of Magic To Do: Pippin's Fantastic, Fraught Journey to Broadway and Beyond Paul Hodge: Award-winning writer-composer from Brisbane, Australia. His work has been produced Off-Broadway, in London, Edinburgh and Australia, including at the Sydney Opera House. His new musical, The Great Emu War, is currently at the Goodspeed Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

COVID has caused more than 7 million confirmed deaths (and estimates of the actual total go well past 20 million). Here’s the even worse news: It wasn’t the truly devastating pandemic epidemiologists have feared for decades. But here’s the good news: We learned every possible lesson from COVID, and now we’re utterly prepared for the next big pandemic that’s inevitably barreling towards us. No. Wait. Maybe I’ve gotten that last bit wrong. This hour, Michael Osterholm, founding director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, joins us to talk about the dreaded potential “big one” and what we need to do to be ready. GUEST: Michael T. Osterholm: Founding director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and the co-author of The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics 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 contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, a look at words and usage and grammar and language and all that fun stuff. Have you noticed how we Americans have become “so bloody keen on Britishisms?” Ben Yagoda joins us to talk about his book, Gobsmacked! The British Invasion of American English. Plus, there’s been an update to The Chicago Manual of Style. We take a look at the CMOS, in particular, and bang on (there it is again!) about dreaded style guides, in general. GUESTS: Scott Huler: The author of seven non-fiction books; his most recent is A Delicious Country: Rediscovering the Carolinas along the Route of John Lawson’s 1700 Expedition Ben Yagoda: The author, coauthor, or editor of 14 books and the host of the podcast The Lives They’re Living 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. Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate. Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired on October 8, 2024.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.