The Colin McEnroe Show

Before Covid, Most Americans couldn’t imagine the staggering loss of life that earlier generations experienced during epidemics of smallpox, diphtheria, polio and other fatal infectious diseases. We’ve been living in a golden age since WWII, when widespread use of vaccines and antibiotics eradicated the biggest killers and doubled life expectancy. But the catch-22 of medical discovery is that over time, we collectively forget the horror of the diseases from which we were saved. Today, a look at our never-ending quest to escape contagion. We also talk about the myth of ‘Patient Zero’ and a lunar pandemic that never happened. GUESTS:  Richard Conniff is a National Magazine Award-winning writer for Smithsonian magazine, National Geographic, and other publications. He’s  also a former Guggenheim Fellow. His most recent book is Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape From Contagion. Leyla Mei is a New York City-based writer and medical historian. She has a PhD in American history and writes about disease, risk and race.  Dagomar DeGroot is an associate professor of environmental history at Georgetown University. His work has appeared in Aeon magazine, The Conversation, and The Washington Post, among other outlets.  His most recent book, Ripples in the Cosmic Ocean: An Environmental History of Humanity's Place in the Solar System, will be published in 2024.  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!Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour we take your calls about anything you want to talk about. You can reach us by calling 888-720-9677. 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! Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show. 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.

The botched Watergate break-in happened 51 years ago today, on June 17, 1972. Over the decades since, the whole Watergate story has been processed through our popular culture over and over again, from Alan J. Pakula’s classic movie of All the President’s Men through HBO’s recent limited series White House Plumbers. This hour, a look at both of those versions, plus we talk to writer Thomas Mallon about adapting the story as a novel and the late actor Hal Holbrook about playing Deep Throat. GUESTS: Jim Chapdelaine: An Emmy-winning musician and a patient advocate for people with rare cancers Ann Hornaday: Chief film critic for The Washington Post and the author of Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies Hal Holbrook: Was a film, television, and stage actor Thomas Mallon: A critic and the author of many novels, including Watergate: A Novel Irene Papoulis: Teaches writing at Trinity College 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. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Anya Grondalski, Sam Hadelman, Betsy Kaplan, Cat Pastor, Catie Talarski, Lily Tyson, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, parts of which originally aired August 6, 2014; February 4, 2015; June 15, 2022; and June 2, 2023, in a different form. 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.

This week’s Nose thinks that a semicolon is worth fighting a civil war about. Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb is a 2022 documentary directed by Lizzie Gottlieb. We decided late Monday or early Tuesday — kind of randomly, to be honest — that we wanted to talk about this movie this week. And then Robert Gottlieb died on Wednesday. The Nose feels vaguely, cosmically responsible. On the other hand, we’re glad we get to talk about Gottlieb at length this hour. And: “The Binge Purge” is a nearly 6,000-word New York magazine feature on TV’s broken streaming model and what the hell Hollywood can possibly do about it. The Nose has thoughts. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89 “All the Pretty Horses,” “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men” were among his acclaimed books that explore a bleak world of violence and outsiders. Glenda Jackson, Oscar-Winning Actress Turned Politician, Dies at 87 She walked away from a successful acting career to enter the British Parliament, before returning to the stage as the title character in an acclaimed “King Lear.” Treat Williams, Actor Known for ‘Hair’ and ‘Everwood,’ Dies at 71 His many other roles included a detective turned informant in “Prince of the City.” He was killed in a motorcycle accident in Vermont. Pat Sajak, host of ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ says 41st season will be his last 10 of the Most Valuable Cassette Tapes From the ‘80s and ‘90s The Startling Intimacy of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Even addressing a stadium of seventy thousand people, the singer seems to be speaking directly to you, confessing something urgent. Paul McCartney Used AI to Purify John Lennon’s Voice on Upcoming ‘Last Beatles Record’: AI ‘Is Kind of Scary, but Exciting Because It’s the Future’ This alien ocean is the first known to have all elements crucial for life The subsurface waters on an icy moon of Saturn appear to contain the ingredients needed for ‘habitability’ GUESTS: Illeana Douglas: The Official Movie Star of The Colin McEnroe Show Gene Seymour: A “writer, professional spectator, pop-culture maven, and jazz geek” Lindsay Lee Wallace: Writes about culture, health care and health equity, and other stuff, too Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have so much on our minds that we couldn’t pick one topic for today — we’re going with three! Strap in. First: a failed bill from the 1900s that proposed hippopotamus ranching in the U.S. Then: an initiative to save humanity by storing poop in a vault And finally: orcas teaching each other to sink boats. GUESTS: Dr. Shoshi Parks: freelance writer Dr. Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello: Professor at Rutgers University and President of The Microbiota Vault Monika Wieland Shields: Co-founder and Director of the Orca Behavior Institute and author of Endangered Orcas: The Story of the Southern Residents Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve done this show every year (except 2012) since 2011. (We maybe even did it in 2010. We probably did. I just can’t prove it.) So it’s a bit of a tradition. It’s a tradition that… makes some people angry, we realize. And that has a lot to do with how we define the term ‘song of the summer.’ We use the Amanda Dobbins definition: Let’s be clear about how this works: There is no such thing as a ‘personal’ song of summer. We do not anoint multiple songs of summer. There can only be one; the Song of Summer, by its very definition, is a consensus choice. It is the song that wrecks wedding dance floors. It is the song that you and your mother begrudgingly agree on (even though your mom has no idea what rhymes with ‘hug me’ and won’t stop yelling it in public). It does not necessarily have to hit No. 1 on the charts, but it should probably be on the charts because it must be widely played. It must bring people together. It must be a shared enthusiasm. So it’s our job here to figure out what song from 2023 will get added to the long list of song of the summer classics like “Party Rock Anthem,” “Call Me Maybe,” “Despacito,” and “Blurred Lines.” And if we’re wrong, well, it really just won’t matter at all. GUESTS: Sam Hadelman: Works in music public relations and hosts The Sam Hadelman Show at Radio Free Brooklyn Brendan Jay Sullivan: A writer, producer, and DJ Cassie Willson: A comedian and musician 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. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show. 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.

Countless books, movies, and TV shows explore time travel. This hour, a look at the hold that time travel has on pop culture and the philosophy, ethics, and science of time travel. Plus, we hear from an author about how to create and utilize rules of time travel in fiction and the idea of memory as time travel. GUESTS: Sara Bernstein: The R.L. Canala College Professor of Philosophy at The University of Notre Dame Amanda Gefter: MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow and the author of Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn Emma Straub: The author of This Time Tomorrow, now out in paperback 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. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Taylor Doyle, Jacob Gannon, Jonathan McNicol, Cat Pastor, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired November 17, 2022.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour we take your calls about anything you want to talk about. 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, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colin is off this week, so we decided to do a Nose without him — and a Nose all about stuff Colin doesn’t care about: video games and things video games-adjacent. Comedian Shawn Murray guest hosts. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the highest-grossing movie of 2023, the highest-grossing video game adaptation ever made, and the third-highest-grossing animated movie of all-time. None of that, of course, means it’s particularly good. And: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Wild is the 20th entry in the main Legend of Zelda series of video games dating back to 1986. It is the second Zelda game for the Nintendo Switch, and a direct sequel to 2017’s Breath of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom came out last month and reportedly sold 10 million copies in its first three days of release. It’s the fastest-selling Nintendo game in the Americas — ever. Oh, and it’s already showing up in discussions of the greatest video games ever made. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Taylor Swift And Matty Healy Have Reportedly Broken Up Best believe she’s still bejeweled. How the Marvel Cinematic Universe Swallowed Hollywood Robert Redford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Rudd, and Angela Bassett now disappear into movies whose plots can come down to “Keep glowy thing away from bad guy.” The Binge Purge TV’s streaming model is broken. It’s also not going away. For Hollywood, figuring that out will be a horror show. Why Is Everyone Watching TV With the Subtitles On? It’s not just you. ‘Perry Mason’ Canceled By HBO After 2 Seasons A ‘Crown Jewel of Comedy’: The Joan Rivers Card Catalog of Jokes Finds a Home Take a look at some of the artifacts from her archive, which includes 65,000 cross-referenced gags and is headed to the National Comedy Center. Kylie Jenner Casually Pulled Out A $40,000 Rolex During A “What’s In My Bag” Video, And People Have Thoughts The post just called me broke. How to Talk to Your Child About Minesweeper This Sandwich Is Due to Go Viral Any Second The absurd moo yong sandwich is just what the internet craves. Why haven’t we heard more about it? GUESTS: Carolyn Paine: An actress, comedian, and dancer; she is founder, director, and choreographer of CONNetic Dance Brian Slattery: Arts editor for the New Haven Independent Pedro Soto: President and CEO of Hygrade Precision Technologies Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University 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. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Shawn Murray contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You must have heard the term “vibe” by now, right? We’ve heard about the vibe of the economy, the vibe of a music playlist, the vibe of a season, the vibe of a party … Plus there are vibe shifts and vibe checks. This hour: vibes. We learn what the word really means, where it comes from, and how the internet has given it new life. GUESTS: Kyle Chayka: Contributing writer for The New Yorker covering technology and culture on the Internet Robin James: Editor for philosophy and music at Palgrave Macmillan Eda Uzunlar: Freelance journalist and student at Yale University Ben Zimmer: Linguist, lexicographer, and the Word on the Street columnist for The Wall Street Journal 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. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Taylor Doyle, Jacob Gannon, Jonathan McNicol, Cat Pastor, and Catie Talarski contributed to this show, which originally aired November 15, 2022.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.