The Colin McEnroe Show

Dragons have captured our imagination going back to the Greek and Roman Empires when the skeletal bones of dinosaurs fed the myths we still believe today. And those myths show up in our most popular popular culture today – in the Harry Potter books and movies, in Tolkien’s Middle-earth books and movies, in George R. R. Martin’s Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion. This hour, a look at dragons from the ancients through Game of Thrones. GUESTS: Cressida Cowell - Author of the How to Train Your Dragon series Adrienne Mayor - Author of The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times and Fossil Legends of the First Americans William O’Connor - The late author and illustrator of the Dracopedia book trilogy Matthew Reilly - Author The Great Zoo of China, among many other novels Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Greg Hill, Jonathan McNicol, Chion Wolf, and Alan Yu contributed to this show, which originally aired June 4, 2015.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Toad’s Place and The Shaboo Inn were part of a magical era for music in Connecticut in the 1970s and ’80s. It was a time when small music venues had a symbiotic relationship with fans and could lure thousands of rock, blues, and hip-hop superstars like Bruce Springsteen, Muddy Waters, and Cardi B to their stages. Local arts papers, FM radio, two huge coliseums, a less fragmented music industry, and plenty of college students from places like Yale and UConn who wanted cheap drinks and great music, provided a pipeline for local and national artists who wanted the intimacy of a smaller venue. This hour, the past and future of Toad’s and the Shaboo. GUESTS: Randall Beach - A columnist for Connecticut magazine and a former reporter, columnist, and rock music critic for the New Haven Register; he’s the co-author of The Legendary Toad’s Place: Stories from New Haven’s Famed Music Venue Brian Phelps - Owner of Toad’s Place and the co-author of The Legendary Toad’s Place: Stories from New Haven’s Famed Music Venue David Foster - Former co-owner of the Shaboo Inn, founder of the Shaboo and Mohegan Sun All-Stars, and current owner of Shaboo Productions Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The inconic inventor and pitchman Ron Popeil died July 28. He was 86 years old. This hour, we listen back to the 2016 show we did with Popeil on the form he perfected: the infomercial. The Thighmaster, the Chop-O-Matic, the George Foreman Grill, and the Clapper… products which are all part of American consumer culture and which were all introduced through infomercials. But as online shopping increases and traditional television watching decreases, what will become of celebrity pitchmen like Tony Little and Richard Simmons? GUESTS: Kevin Harrington - Author of Key Person of Influence: The Five-Step Method to Become One of the Most Highly Valued and Highly Paid People in Your Industry Ron Popeil - The late inventor and infomercial pitchman Remy Stern - Author of But Wait… There’s More! Tighten Your Abs, Make Millions, and Learn How the $100 Billion Infomercial Industry Sold Us Everything But the Kitchen Sink Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Lydia Brown, Ray Hardman, Greg Hill, Betsy Kaplan, Ross Levin, Stephanie Riefe, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired March 7, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Philip Morris became Altria. Apple Computer became Apple. Radio Shack became The Shack (and then went bankrupt). The New Britain Rock Cats moved to Hartford and became the Yard Goats. Tribune Publishing Co. became Tronc (and then became the Tribune Publishing Co. again). Dunkin’ Donuts became Dunkin’. The Washington Redskins became the Washington Football Team. Last month, Facebook became Meta. And next year, the Cleveland Indians will become the Cleveland Guardians and the Washington Football Team will become… something else. And that’s all just this century, and it’s all just companies and sports teams. Let’s not forget Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Puffy or Snoop Doggy Dogg/Snoop Lion/Snoop Dogg or John Mellencamp/Johnny Cougar/John Cougar Mellencamp. Or His Royal Badness, The Artist Formerly Known as an Unpronounceable and Untypable Symbol. Or, just, David Bowie. Or, just, Madonna. Sometimes a logo gets old or an identity gets stale or a color scheme gets out of date. Sometimes a company or a sports team needs to put its past behind it. Sometimes people go to a doughnut shop mostly for coffee. Sometimes a computer company mostly sells iPods and iPhones and iPads. Sometimes rebranding is the only solution. Or a terrible mistake. Or even just an interesting challenge. This hour: rebranding, from Google to Kanye to, yes, The Colin McEnroe Show. GUESTS: Patrick Dugan - Creative director and chief copywriter at Adams and Knight Irene Papoulis - Teaches writing at Trinity College Mike Pesca - Host of the independent podcast The Gist Garett Sloane - Technology, digital, and media reporter for Ad Age Brendan Jay Sullivan - A writer, producer, DJ, and food history TikTokker Join the conversation on Facebook (or whatever it’s called) and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Eugene Amatruda, Cat Pastor, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a debate surrounding Munger Hall, a dorm designed by billionaire Charles Munger to house over 4,000 students on the University of California, Santa Barbara’s campus. The design has been criticized because of the lack of windows in most rooms, and concerns over fire safety. This hour, inspired by that debate, we discuss architecture that makes humans feel bad, and the ethics of architecture. GUESTS: Mark Pasnik - Architect at OverUnder, Professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology, and author of Heroic: Concrete Architecture and the New Boston Joseph Heathcott - Chair of Urban and Environmental Studies at The New School Shalini Agrawal - Associate Professor in the Critical Ethnic Studies Program at the California College for the Arts, Director and Co-Founder of Pathways to Equity, and Founder and Principal of Public Design For Equity Julio Bermudez - Director of the Sacred Space and Cultural Studies graduate concentration program of The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Voyage is ABBA’s ninth studio album and their first album of new material in 40 years. Its 10 tracks dropped early this morning. A concert residency, ABBA Voyage, is scheduled to run next year in London. The band will not appear in person for these concerts. Instead, digital “ABBAtars” will perform in their place. It was announced that ABBA would officially break up after the release of Voyage. And: Succession is an hour-long, satirical comedy-drama series on HBO. It was created by Jesse Armstrong and originally debuted in 2018. We’re three episodes into its third season, and 23 episodes have aired overall. Its first two seasons won nine Emmys between them, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2020. Succession was renewed for a fourth season in October. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Halloween and the Anatomy of the Sitcom Holiday Episode Over eight seasons on two networks, the recurring Halloween heists established a model template for one of TV’s underappreciated art forms The 1970s sitcom divide that still secretly rules American TV comedy Though less and less of it with every year We Asked Gen Z to Review Millennial Subculture Fashion From emo to nu-rave, nobody is safe. This Man Moved Several States Away, Not Realizing He Had Accepted A Job At NASA, And TikTok Can’t Get Enough Of The Story I signed the paperwork and they measured me for my spacesuit. Can We Separate the Art From the Artist? GUESTS: Rebecca Castellani - Co-founder of Quiet Corner Communications and a freelance writer Sam Hadelman - Works in music public relations and hosts The Sam Hadelman Show at Radio Free Brooklyn Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Eugene Amatruda, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows most weeks where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. The last few times, we haven’t even started with the suggestion of a topic that your calls might, potentially, be about. And those shows have been fun. So we’re doing that again. In other words: Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EDT hour about anything at all. 888-720-9677. Or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Should people use Oxford commas? Is there a correct number of exclamation points per email? If someone ends a casual text with a period, does that mean they're mad at you? This hour is all about punctuation and how we use it. We talk about the history of punctuation marks, timeless punctuation debates, and how writing for texts and emails has changed the way we use punctuation. GUESTS: Claire Cock-Starkey - Author of Hyphens and Hashtags: The Stories Behind The Symbols On Our Keyboard   Julia Pistell - Founding member of Sea Tea Improv, one of the hosts of the Literary Disco podcast, and a producer freelancing with us Raquel Benedict - Claims to be the most dangerous woman in speculative fiction; she’s the host of the Rite Gud podcast Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is there something rather than nothing? This has been described as perhaps the most sublime philosophical question of all. This hour, we try to answer it. But as we do, we realize that it’s not just a philosophical quandary; it’s a scientific, cultural, and theological one as well. Indeed, to the extent that “nothing” is even understood, it is understood so differently across different domains that one person’s nothing truly is another person’s something. Confused? You’re not alone. The concept has vexed, distressed, and seduced all manner of folk, from Aristotle to Einstein, and remains no less mysterious to today’s brightest minds. GUESTS: Ronald Green - Author of Nothing Matters: A Book About Nothing Jim Holt - Author of Why Does The World Exist? An Existential Detective Story James Owen Weatherall - Author of Void: The Strange Physics of Nothing Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired December 6, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's something almost romantic about airships--from zeppelins to dirigibles to little Goodyear Blimps. The image of a giant, floating aircraft feels both nostalgic and futuristic. In the early 20th century, airships were on the leading edge of aviation; today, they mostly live on in the domain of steampunk art and speculative fiction.But a number of companies are betting they can bring airships out of the history books and into modern real-world applications like cargo transport and military uses. This hour, we talk with speculative fiction author Ken Liu, as well as a journalist and the leader of a modern hybrid airship company about airships, real and imagined. GUESTS: Ken Liu - Speculative fiction author and futurist, the author of the Dandelion Dynasty, an epic fantasy featuring airships Jeanne Marie Laskas - Journalist; she wrote a piece for The New Yorker in 2016 on modern airships Nick Allman - Chief Operating Officer of Hybrid Air Vehicles Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.