The Colin McEnroe Show

Sunday morning news shows were abuzz about the Democratic National Committee's decision to deselect Fox News as a media partner for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary debates. But you may have missed it if you didn't reset your clocks to Daylight Savings Time, or like a lot of us, spent your weekend fixated on that hour of lost sleep. On this week's Scramble, we take on the weary rants over both topics. Is the DNC wasting an opportunity to pull in Republicans or independents dissatisfied with President Donald Trump by ruling out Fox News as a debate host? Or is it a justified response to the cable network's uncomfortably close ties to the occupant in the White House, as meticulously detailed in a recent examination in The New Yorker? As for that lost hour of sleep, should we readjust our clocks permanently ahead one hour so we capture that extra sunlight when we get out of work? Many say yes. But what about those children waiting for the morning school bus when it's still dark outside?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been rough going here for the famous for a little while. This week, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek announced his stage four cancer diagnosis. Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver retired from public life because of his dementia diagnosis. And then there are the deaths: Actor Luke Perry at 52. The Prodigy frontman Keith Flint at 49. Actress Katherine Helmond at 89. Also this hour: a look at Netflix's new not-exactly-the-X-Men, but-still-adapted-from-a-comic-book series, The Umbrella Academy.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know all the reasons Trump won, right? Economic anxiety. Racial anxiety. The forgotten working class. The forgotten rustbelt... But what if the real cause were something much simpler and much more pervasive: our popular culture. This hour, a conversation with Peter Biskind, the author of The Sky Is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great for Extremism.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, the only place left in what was once America. Laszlo's job is to bring the worst criminals to justice, those who tell lies. In his new novel, Ben Winters creates a world which might sound Eden-esque in our era of misinformation. It's getting more difficult to distinguish real from fake news, AI-assisted technology allows a bad actor to splice celebrity heads onto the faces of actors in a pornographic video, and major news organizations need to keep track of how often America's president lies.  Yet, we should be careful what we wish for. Philosophers like Derrida have long questioned the nature of truth; can there be one truth? If so, whose truth is it? While few of us want to return to the pre-internet days when everyone got their news from Walter Cronkite, we need to understand how to recognize when information is false and how it is spread. It's too easy to blame ignorance or a willful repudiation of the truth for the spread of misinformation. It's a lot more about who we trust.  For those who fear a Golden State could be our future, there's hope on the horizon if we're willing to pay attention.  GUESTS: Ben Winters - Author of ten novels including Underground Airlines, the award-winning Last Policeman trilogy, and most recently Golden State: A Novel James Owen Weatherall  - Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine and the author of three books. His most recent is The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread, co-authored with Cailin O’Connor  Aviv Ovadya - Founder of the Thoughtful Technology Project, set to launch soon, and a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democrac (@metaviv) Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter Colin McEnroe and Jonathan McNicol contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the past few months, Nose regular Jacques Lamarre has been posting debate-starting, head-to-head style Facebook posts. Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry. Ketchup vs. mustard vs. mayonnaise. When Harry Met Sally vs. Sleepless in Seattle. That kind of thing. And so now, we've decided to try to turn the concept into a radio show. This hour, YOU MUST CHOOSE.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joyce Maynard has been writing for over 45 years about the kind of human experiences we're often taught to keep hidden - stories  about envy, anger, vanity, self-pity, pride.   We read her stories because they offer a chance to first confront and then forgive ourselves for how those emotions can shape us into people we don't like.  Her honesty has come at a cost to her.  She has been criticized for writing about her relationship as an 18-year-old with a famous 53-year-old writer after 26 years of silence. She was told she should have kept quiet.  She did this 20 years before #MeToo. Today, we have a wide-ranging discussion with Joyce Maynard about politics, #MeToo, art, music and her marriage at 59-years-old to a love who died from cancer 3 short years later.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was hard to watch the first part of Leaving Neverland, the documentary which aired on HBO aired on March 3. The poignancy of the mixed emotions expressed by two men and their mothers who fell under the spell of Michael Jackson and later, his predation, left me feeling like a fly on the wall of a particularly difficult visit to a therapist. I was forced to consider my own complicity in how we collectively create and reward a celebrity culture that allows us to suspend reality against our own better judgment. We've seen time and again in the recent year with Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and R. Kelly, to name a few, and how it takes a village to let serial predators go unscathed in the name of art and profit. Also this hour: The cheating and doping scandals in the world of professional bridge. Lastly, we take your calls. Have we hit peak cancel culture yet? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nobody likes the termite. They get into the wood in our homes that can lead to infuriating and expensive repairs. What's to like. It turns out, there's a lot to like about the termite; scientists study how termites build their "mounds" for clues to solving some of the world's most pressing problems, like mitigating the effects of drought, building colonies on Mars, and the creation of biofuels. Plus, their ability to adapt to the harshest conditions over millions of years says a lot about them. Almost 90% of the microbes found in their guts are unique to the termite. Those same gut microbes are what make them so productive and on the flip side, so destructive. Lastly, some believe termites work with joy and have a soul. You be the judge.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do we dance? The answer is more complicated than you might think. Dancing has served a multitude of functions for various cultures throughout history, and there is even evidence to suggest we, as a species, are biologically hard-wired to dance.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You have pain that wakes you up at night and distracts you during the day. You go to the doctor, who asks you to grade your pain on a scale of 1-10. The doctor can't find anything wrong with you; it may be stress or anxiety or that you need more exercise or sleep. You're confused. You feel pain but nothing seems to be wrong. Does this sound familiar?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We were going to produce a show today on loneliness with British writer Olivia Laing. We still want to do that show with Olivia - but not today.Instead, we decided to switch gears and talk with Olivia and other artists about the themes in Olivia's new novel because they mirror our own concerns: how to live life in this fast-moving world where the present is history in the blink of an eye and world leaders can end our world with one wrong tweet? How can we exist, create art, raise children, commit to a future in a world that could be ending?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, we remember Peter Tork of The Monkees. This show originally aired April 25, 2013.John Lennon said they were the greatest comedy team since the Marx Brothers.Gene Roddenberry based the look of the character Chekov on them. The Jimi Hendrix Experience got its first U.S. concert work as their opening act.  Their TV show generated the money that launched the movie career of Jack Nicholson.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a year of aborted missteps for the Academy Awards. There was going to be a new Best Popular Picture category. But now there won't be. Kevin Hart was going to host. But now there's nobody. They were going to present four awards -- including Film Editing and Cinematography -- during the commercial breaks. But now they aren't.Oh and there're the actual movies. Roma and The Favourite lead the field with 10 nominations each. A Star Is Born was once the favorite (no "u") to win in a bunch of categories. But now bettors' odds seem to favor Roma. Or maybe Green Book? And A Star Is Born? Its Best Picture hopes have fallen all the way to 40-1 against.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Religious scholar Elaine Pagels, trusted the Gospel of Thomas to get her through the almost unbearably painful years after the death of her six-year-old son -- born with a congenital heart defect -- followed one year later by the unexpected death of her husband. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Religious scholar Elaine Pagels, trusted the Gospel of Thomas to get her through the almost unbearably painful years after the death of her six-year-old son -- born with a congenital heart defect -- followed one year later by the unexpected death of her husband. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elvis left two legacies. Musically, he pulled several American musical traditions out of the shadows, braided them together, and made them mainstream. Personally, he created a far darker template for the way a musical celebrity could be devoured by the very fame he avidly sought.Recorded live in front of an audience -- and with a band! -- as part of Colin's Freshly Squeezed series at Watkinson School, an hour about the artist who defined the birth of rock and roll and was the genre's first superstar.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To do a show about local stand-up comedy, we figured we should probably do a show of local stand-up comedy.So we went to a comedy club, put on a comedy show, and then did a talk show about the comedy show we'd just done.This hour: some of said comedy show plus most of said talk show -- and we're fairly confident it'll make more sense when you hear it than it probably just did reading about it.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colin's away this week, but The Nose must go on! Or maybe "must" isn't quite right, but in this particular case, The Nose is going on -- with excellent guest hosts: The Arts Paper's Lucy Gellman and the New Haven Independent's Tom Breen.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mimes have been gesticulating their way into our hearts (or nightmares) for a lot longer than you may think. While it may have been the legendary Marcel Marceau who popularized the mime, people have been communicating through movement since the very beginning.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're doing a show on supermarkets today - from a supermarket!Most Americans still buy most of their food from a supermarket. While farmer's markets and specialty stores offer organic and local alternatives, large-scale supermarkets still offer more convenience, the lowest prices and a seemingly endless variety of choices. Their big wide aisles with neatly stacked and eye-catching packaged products are hard to resist. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you make a 100-meter telescope that folds down to three meters so you can tuck it inside a space vehicle? How do you make a heart stent that folds out inside the human body? In each case, researchers have turned to masters of origami, the thousand-year-old art of paper folding.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who would have thought that a book on grammar would be #5 on Amazon's best-seller list? (Should that be "whom" would have thought? Should I write out the number five? Should it be "bestseller?" Ugh. I can't remember if the exclamation goes inside or outside the quotation mark in the sentence I just asked myself.)Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Darko Tresnjak has been artistic director at Hartford Stage Company since 2011. During his tenure here, he's won a Tony. He's had multiple productions make the leap to Broadway. His Anastasia has multiple tours touring internationally.And this season is his last season in Hartford.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton has inspired millions to learn more about the founding of America. Some may be moved by a story of scrappy underdogs fighting for freedom against all odds. Others may wonder if America has ever lived up to the ideals assured in our Constitution. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wilhelm Reich was a once-promising psychoanalyst and scientist under the guidance of Freud in pre-World War II Europe. He promoted the "sexual revolution" to support his belief that sexual repression was linked to the bodily and societal ills of neurosis and fascism.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever been to the opera? I know, you think it's stuffy and formal and only for rich, white people of a certain age. You're wrong. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's not a stretch to say the best part of Sunday's Super Bowl LIII was SpongeBob's short, but sweet, appearance during the halftime show. Should it be a surprise that the game was boring, the halftime show was bland, and the ads were forgettable? The long shadow of Colin Kaepernick cast a cloud over this game and the NFL has yet to deal with the fallout.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The long list of luminaries who have played the Super Bowl Halftime Show includes Michael Jackson, Prince, Beyoncé, Madonna, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, The Who, U2, Tom Petty, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Bruce Springsteen... and as of Sunday: Maroon 5.Whatever artist finally agreed to perform, it was going to be seen as controversial. Maroon 5 is defending their decision, even in the face of petitions asking them to drop out.And: Alfonso Cuarón's Roma is nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including plenty of big ones -- Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay. Its 10 nominations tie it with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the most ever by a foreign-language film. And this hour Roma becomes the 12th Oscar-nominated movie The Nose has covered.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The significance of being confirmed as Connecticut's first African-American state Supreme Court chief justice last May didn't fully sink in for Richard A. Robinson until a class of mostly minority students recently showed up to the Hartford court building for a tour.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Humans are great at making a mess of things. So far, however, that mess has been confined to Earth. But as we develop into a spacefaring species, our capacity for destruction, pollution, and prejudice (towards aliens of earthly and unearthly origins) threatens to have cosmic consequences.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Where We Live producer Carmen Baskauf had been badgering us to do a show about The Good Place for months on end. (It had gotten kind of weird, to be honest. We were a little worried about Carmen, to be honest.)Partly to get her off our back, partly because The Good Place really is "a sitcom that's also a profound work of philosophy," and partly because its Season Three season finale aired last Thursday night, last Friday afternoon we finally did a show about The Good Place....And then we got preempted by the president halfway through the forkin' show!So this hour, we try again.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a healthy debate going on about whether to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Trump.The Atlantic's Yoni Appelbaum and others say now is the time to begin the process. History tells us that the process of impeachment, not the outcome, is a vital protection against the dangers of a president who has not kept his promise to preserve and defend our Constitution. Others say Trump will need to be beaten at the polls in the absence of Mueller-stamped evidence.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Where We Live producer Carmen Baskauf has been badgering us to do a show about The Good Place for months on end at this point. (It's gotten kind of weird, to be honest. We're a little worried about Carmen, to be honest.)Partly to get her off our back, partly because The Good Place really is "a sitcom that's also a profound work of philosophy," and partly because its Season Three season finale aired last night, this hour we're finally doing a show about The Good Place.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had its 50th anniversary, we put together a show with famed Beatles lecturer Scott Freiman and famed Hartford music genius Steve Metcalf.And now that The White Album has had its 50th anniversary, we've gotten the band back together, and we're doing it again.This hour: a look at the best-selling album of the 1960s, The Beatles.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's show might get a bit dicey. In fact,  it's almost certainly headed for Trouble. And all we can say is Sorry, that's Life! Okay, fine, let's drop the Charades. Today's show is about board games. Is that a big enough Clue?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What we each saw in the short video (since deleted) that went viral this weekend of a Covington Catholic High School student staring at a Native American protestor on the National Mall is open to interpretation. Photos and videos carry the authority of truth, yet the 'truth' reflected in a video can vary, depending on what's included, what's left out and how it's framed.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recently, I hopped into my car to go home after a long and grinding first day back to work. I had just returned the day before from a two-week vacation exploring the treasures of two foreign countries I had never seen before. The abrupt transition from play to work left me feeling quite blue, made worse by my receding memories of those weeks. Something in me needed music. So, I traded out my usual afternoon newscast for a "soul" song that caught my ear and brightened my heart. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I once took guitar lessons with a small group of people who met two nights a week in the basement of a local elementary school. We spent most of each lesson practicing in little nooks and crannies we each carved out in the old room. I enjoyed picking out tunes in my own little corner at my own pace. It was all going so smoothly until... the instructor mentioned the final "concert."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Noah Baerman Resonance Ensemble's The Rock & the Redemption is a jazz concept album of sorts that recasts the Sisyphus myth around the heroism of perseverance and persistence.Keyboardist and composer Noah Baerman joins us for the hour.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dust is a fascinating substance. Our bodies are always shedding dust from our skin, hair, and nails, leaving little bits of DNA wherever we roam. Dust floats unseen through the air around us. It's light. It's hard to see unless it lands on a contrasting surface or crosses the path of a ray of sunshine. It can travel far and wide.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another weekend came, and another crop of revelations regarding President Donald Trump came with it.First out was The New York Times' report that the FBI grew so worried the president might be acting in Russia's interests that it secretly launched a counterintelligence investigation. That happened after Trump's firing of former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, according to The Times. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Monday, Imagine Dragons played the Halftime Show at the College Football National Championship Game. The reviews were... not great. In fact, the performance has raised the question: Is Imagine Dragons the worst band ever?And: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure-style, science fiction, psychological thriller film. It's streaming on Netflix, on some devices, as a standalone movie in the Black Mirror television series. The Nose has seen... a number of different versions of it.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Language is an untamable beast. You can decide that infinitives aren't to be split and that "whom" is the objective form of "who" and that "literally" literally means literally. But here's the thing: Language doesn't have to care one way or the other what nonsense you've decided.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most of us know what Kafkaesque means even if we've never read a word Kafka wrote. For example, it's Kafkaesque when your smart home turns on you. It's not Kafkaesque when you wait in line for two hours at DMV and they close the line when you get to the front. (Well, it's a little Kafkaesque.)Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Free will, individual responsibility, and the pursuit of happiness: Fundamental tenets of, wait for it... Satanism. While the word conjures up images of fire and brimstone, the truth is a bit more complicated. So why does a religion which celebrates so much what Americans profess to hold dear get such a bad rap?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The reactions to Representative Rashida Tlaib's profanity and her calls for impeachment against the president have been mixed.While most Republicans are in sync in their outrage over her comments, Democrats are further apart. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Louis C.K. has done another thing. He did the thing a few weeks ago, it turns out. But this week the thing appeared on the internet, as things do. And so The Nose, as it does, must cover the thing.And we've gotten to that part of the year where all the awards-season movies all come out at once. (I guess it's called... "awards season"? Huh.) But then the rest of pop culture keeps keeping on at the same time. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Connecticut's 88th governor, Dannel P. Malloy, loves to make decisions. "That's who I am and what I am," he proclaimed during a wide-ranging exit interview with Colin McEnroe.He also, undoubtedly, loves to get the last word, no matter if it's on state employee pension reforms, his handling of an unspeakable tragedy, severe weather events, or the results of the 2018 election.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been easy to overlook Trump Administration environmental policies that are contributing to the destruction of wildlife and habitats.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Don't miss -- for what might just be the sixth year we've done this -- a very badly planned New Year's Eve Eve Eve Eve special featuring chaos muppet and music legend "Big Al" Anderson and the great Jim Chapdelaine!Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.