The Colin McEnroe Show

Cambridge Analytica, a data company backed by Republican donor Robert Mercer and headed by Steve Bannon, harvested private information from almost 50 million Facebook users without their permission to develop and exploit psychological profiles in the 2016 U.S. election.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a lot of pressure on Ava Duvernay to bring Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 classic book, A Wrinkle In Time, to the screen. This is the first $100-million movie directed by an African-American woman with a diverse cast chosen to fill the roles written for whites in 1962.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How did a figure like Hitler emerge so quickly and so forcefully onto the world stage? How, in what was thought to be an enlightened and civilized society, did such demagoguery manage to incite an army to commit one of history's greatest atrocities?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every year at this time, we invite an improv comic and an ex-politician-turned-political-pundit on to break down the NCAA tournament brackets and battle for sports analyst supremacy. Logically.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you ever think about the people who make sure the medicine you're taking is safe for you to take? If your like most of us, probably not. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

According to mytho-historical accounts, the ancient Amazons wore pants while riding into battle. But the trend this tribe of warrior women set was short lived. For nearly two millennia after their demise, the notion of women wearing pants was steeped in controversy.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Ridiculous Moments in Late-Stage Capitalism: Pizza Hut's new shoes -- because there are Pizza Hut shoes, apparently; they're, of course, called "Pie Tops" -- will pause live TV when your pizza delivery arrives. Amazon's Echo devices have started spontaneously laughing at people, which might really be scarier than it is funny. And, to celebrate International Women's Day, KFC is introducing the world to Colonel Sanders's wife, Mrs. Claudia Sanders.And: Netflix's Seven Seconds is not, it turns out, the prequel to a Luke Perry vehicle, rodeo movie it sounds like. It is instead "the contrived, misery-riddled show" that you maybe won't be able to stop watching. And it is also maybe the coldest Netflix show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Times of London has said that Martin Amis "is as talented a journalist as he is a novelist." His latest collection of essays and reportage covers 1994 through 2017, Travolta through Trump.Amis joins us for the hour.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Populism is on the rise from Europe to India to the United States.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Voodoo is more than just a misunderstood religion, its practice draws on age-old beliefs, cultural elements, and folk traditions from a multitude of nations and ethnic groups.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Like the Alexander of children's literature, President Trump had a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad" week.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's The Nose's annual Academy Awards special, and this year we're doing it live at night.The Nose has covered 15 of this year's Oscar-nominated movies. The only Best Picture nom we missed was Darkest Hour, so we're doing this show at the, uh, darkest hour of the day that we're on.Or... something.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the one hand, obituaries are an amalgam of a bunch of different kinds of journalism: they're feature stories, they're profile pieces, they cover history, and they're hard news too.On the other hand, the subject is always... dead.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Slime is not something we often think about. But there are plenty of reasons why that should probably change: From the theory that life on Earth may have have first emerged from a primordial ooze, to the current slime-making craze that's sweeping the internet.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Consciousness has been an elusive enigma for philosophers and scientists alike for about as long as there've been philosophers and scientists.And, while it's long been thought that artificial intelligence would bring us the next big breakthroughs in our understanding of consciousness, A.I. authority David Gelernter has a different idea entirely.He looks for answers to these fundamental questions in, instead... literature.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grading on the post-2016 scale, it was a relatively earth shattering revelation-free weekend. And so we have some time to regroup and take a look at more iterative developments in Mueller investigation- and Parkland-adjacent news.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ryan Coogler's Black Panther is the eighteenth feature film entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the sixth movie in Phase Three, and it's most directly a sequel to Captain America: Civil War, the first film of the phase.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take a look at at any early 20th century photograph and you'll see them: Hats! From Beavers and Bowlers to bonnets and baseball caps, for hundreds of years hats were the essential accessory for any fashionable and upstanding citizen.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

humor = tragedy + timeOkay, but then the logical next question is: How much time?If it's okay, at this point, to joke about, say, The Spanish Inquisition... what about, for instance, the Holocaust? Or AIDS? September 11th? The #MeToo movement?...Parkland?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robert Mueller on Friday indicted 13 Russian nationals and three organizations on charges related to interference in the 2016 U.S. electoral process. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Legend holds that years after the the Hartford Convention, a visitor from the South was touring the Old State House and asked to be shown the room where the Convention met. Ushered into the Senate chamber, the southerner looked at the crimson in the face of George Washington in the Gilbert Stuart portrait hanging here and said, "I'll be damned if he's got the blush off yet." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's expensive to die in America. We spend upwards of $3 trillion on medical care, a large percentage of those dollars concentrated in the last year of a person's life.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From ancient mixtures of boiled goat fats and ashes to modern artisanal soaps with calendula and coffee grinds, humans have been inventing clever ways of cleaning themselves since the very beginning.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During last week's Super Bowl, Netflix announced the surprise release of the third installment in the already-super-unconvential Cloverfield film franchise... that night. Was it a genius, disruptive publicity stunt? Or was it an unceremonious, direct-to-streaming dumping of a subpar sequel? Or maybe it was both?And speaking of unconventional: The official presidential portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama were unveiled this week. The likenesses are being heralded as a milestone in black portraiture. But, predictably, not everyone agrees.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The word bastard hasn't always been meant to offend. Used simply as an indication of illegitimate birth at first, the label bastard didn't bring with it shame or stigmatization until long after it first appeared in the Middle Ages.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has already charged several people associated with the Trump campaign with crimes uncovered in his investigation into Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election. Yet, some some believe there's a good chance he won't indict President Trump - even if he finds wrongdoing. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are nine movies nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. And, as of this week, The Nose has seen eight of them. We saw Get Out way back in last March. We saw Dunkirk over the summer. We went to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri at night. And this awards season, we've gone to Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Steven Spielberg's The Post and Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who's afraid of the Bix bad Beiderbecke?Hartford has an amazing jazz history, and Colin has a lot of jazz musician friends. This hour, a little onstage jazz party.Colin and the panel look to make jazz accessible to mere mortals. They talk about what makes jazz jazz, invite the audience to sing, and teach the audience to scat.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you remember where you were on April 1, 2010? That's the last time the U.S. Census Bureau counted you as one of the 323.1 million people who live in the U.S. Don't remember? No problem. It's time for the 2020 Census. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In looking to our past, a curious trend appears. A vast amount of mankind's great accomplishments in art, music, science, technology and language seem to emerge from a relatively small number of cities:  Athens, Hangzhou, Florence, Rome, Calcutta, Vienna, and Silicon Valley-- just to name a few.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There have been some really great Super Bowl ads over the last 35 years. They changed the way we spoke and the way ads were created and consumed.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I, Tonya is a big, brash, brightly-colored, quirky comedy that happens to be telling a story that's ultimately kind of super sad. It's that mixture of tones -- a cinematic style seemingly at odds with the film's content -- and its Oscar-nominated performances by Margot Robbie and Allison Janney that have earned the movie a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Nose picks it apart.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The history of mazes and labyrinths spans thousands of years. From Bronze Age stone carvings, to Medieval gardens, to modern-day laboratories, these elaborate designs continue to be used for a variety of reasons and in some surprising places.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Americans like to argue, a lot. In politics, in media, and in society at large, arguing has (arguably) become the default means by which we handle disagreement. But is it the most effective way, and has our readiness to wage a war with words gotten out of hand?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Federal regulatory requirements mandate* that all public media outlets occasionally devote significant air time to the health and welfare of bees.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The central question in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is whether a foreign agent interfered in our electoral process and whether the Trump campaign colluded in that effort. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread is nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Anderson, and Best Supporting Actress for Lesley Manville. Oh, and including Best Actor in a Leading Role for Daniel Day-Lewis. It's Day-Lewis's sixth nomination in the category. He's won the award three times previously, including for his work in Anderson's There Will Be Blood. If Day-Lewis were to win again this year, he'd join Katharine Hepburn as the only people ever to win four acting Oscars. It'd be a fitting end to a career that Day-Lewis says is over.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've been trying to push this show out for quite a while now. It's been a bit of a strain, and we got kind of backed up.But, this hour, we let loose a long look at... constipation.It should be a big relief for everyone involved.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A hard-boiled private eye, a glamorous blond, and a hapless drifter all sit at a bar on the seamy side of town. It's night, the streets are wet, the shadows are long. They each nurse a drink to the notes of a mournful saxophone and a lonely piano.  Smoke from the cigarettes swirls in the darkness. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Acceptance for medical marijuana is growing among people who swear by marijuana's power to relieve their ills. Older people are choosing marijuana for their aches and pains, parents are moving to states where marijuana is legal for children with seizure disorders, even pet owners are using pot to ease their pup's pain.  It's currently legal in 28 states with several more on deck.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is one of the worst flu seasons in a decade. For the first time in thirteen years, the entire country is getting sick at the same time. While the government shutdown ended today, the two days of closure remind us what services could be lost when we most need them.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Post is Steven Spielberg's first movie since he turned 70 (and it's actually his first movie since he turned 71 too). It's just a little newspaper picture with a cast of newcomers like Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks and Bob Odenkirk and Matthew Rhys that Spielberg tossed off while he was simultaneously making Ready Player One (which comes out in a couple months). Oh, and it was nominated for six Golden Globes including Best Picture -- Drama and Best Director, and it's probably about to be nominated for a bunch of Oscars too. The Nose has seen it.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Predictions of a paperless future go back to the 1800's. And since then, as technology has advanced, such predictions  have only increased. Today, despite a dizzying array of technological alternatives to paper, those prediction have not come true.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From ancient scrolls to modern toner cartridges, ink (in one form or another) has been around for millennia. And while we may take it for granted now, it was for much of that time a precious and coveted substance.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They smell better, they're better at sensing temperature changes and they can handle more pain. These are just a few of the actual differences between redheads and the rest of us. But while having red hair does come with certain advantages, there are more than a few disadvantages as well.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Race is a myth; racism is not. I'm stealing this line from Gene Seymour, one of our guests on our show today. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dave Chappelle somewhat famously walked away from his Comedy Central series and went twelve years without releasing a comedy special. He broke that streak by putting out no less than four specials in 2017, and now he's maybe threatening to go back on another hiatus? Netflix released two new Chappelle specials -- "Equanimity" and "The Bird Revelations" -- on December 31, and The Nose has watched both.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a period of about fifty years, many of America's top cartoonists and illustrators lived within a stone's throw of one another in the southwestern corner of Connecticut.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some would say we're living in a golden age of awkwardness. We recognize it in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls, and Silicon Valley. It's in Buzzfeed gif-ticles, and those old reruns of Seinfeld. Let's not forget Holden Caulfield, Owen Meany and Winnie the Pooh. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The history of sugar is a complicated one. Once available to only the rich and powerful, sugar now shows up in everything from cereals and soups, to cigarettes and body scrubs. It is known to both have medicinal qualities and to contribute to a variety of health problems.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.