The Colin McEnroe Show

Imagine two people. One of them is named Betsy Kaplan, the other, Betsy F.P.R. Academic studies suggest people, on average, would infer a higher intellectual capacity for Betsy F.P.R. Kaplan and be more likely to admire her and think she made more money than plain old Betsy Kaplan. A middle initial, says the scholarly literature, is basically a free ticket to higher status. Which makes it odd that each successive generation is less likely, overall, to use them. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I was reading a story about some refugees who cabled the President asking for asylum. The President never responded. The federal government had decided not to take extraordinary measures to permit the refugees to enter the United States. A state department telegram stated that the passengers must await their turns on the waiting list and qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible into the United States.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've never done this before but last night the three Nose panelists and I gathered at my house so we could all watch Snowpiercer, a sci-fi summer action movie with a brain. Snowpiercer is a meditation on leadership, climate change and socioeconomic inequality and it manages to tackle all of those topics without skimping on the bloody axe fights. It's based on a French graphic novel and it stars the actor who played Captain America in two movies and we're going to spend a lot of time today in that universe.What with the death of Archie and the news that the new movie Captain America will have a black actor and the new Thor will be a woman. Also, on our topic list will be the viral audio of a guy trying to cancel his cable subscription against spirited resistance from a comcast rep on the other end. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a society which rewards brains over brawn, who better than a prodigy to place your bets on? The answer may surprise you.  Bobby Fischer was terrible at everything  except chess. His entire life was punctuated by extreme paranoia, bouts of seclusion, and cascading, erratic behavior. Ted Kaczynski, a child math and science prodigy… I don’t have to tell you how that one worked out.  Thomas Chatterton was writing publishable poetry by the age of 12, and in the immediately ensuing years, wrote work that left its mark on the literature and influenced the  romantic movement. He took his own life with arsenic three months shy of 18. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Competitive eating has grown far beyond the popular event at local fairs where winners won blue ribbons for eating the most pies.Today, it's a global sport with its own league, dedicated fans, and professional competitors who train to eat more food than seems humanly possible. Major League Eating, the sports governing body, is largely responsible for the change. Public relations executives Richard and George Shea professionalized the sport, attracting larger crowds every year for more than a decade. This July 4,  Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Championships, the Olympics of competitive eating, drew 40,000 fans to the Coney Island contest.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two snapshots: The first from the publication American Bazaar, right after the German World Cup win. "In the city of Leipzig, a solitary car scuttled along, with the flag attached to the roof. Waving the flag has yet to catch on. Jan Hoffman, who works in Frankfurt, was in New York when 9/11 happened.  'I had never seen so many flags in my life. Here, there are hardly any, although we won football's greatest tournament.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm excited about today's Scramble. WNYC podcaster Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex & Money, is our superguest, which means she gets to pick three topics for her conversation with me. Her choices are LeBron James and the notion of going home, a new Jenny Lewis song about a ticking biological clock, and the long agonizing death of the husband of NPR broadcaster, Diane Rehm. At least on paper, that's a perfect combination for the Scramble.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's time for our cultural roundtable, The Nose! Insert smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes. With 250 new emoji coming to a phone near you, we think it's time to give these tiny additions to our written language a face with stuck-out tongue and winking eye. Don't go all Hear No Evil Monkey on us!Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 6, 1944, a circus tent in the North End of Hartford caught fire. The tent covered three blocks. It was gone in six minutes. Roughly 170 people died. You'll understand my imprecision as we go along. Five employees of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and served minimal prison sentences. One of them, James Haley, was so unscarred by this that he later served for 24 years in Congress.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maybe Holden Caulfield was onto something when he ranted about "phoniness." This June, Michael Sharpe  resigned as CEO of FUSE, a Hartford-based charter school management company, when it came to light that he was not, in fact, a doctor, as his biography might have you believe.That got us thinking about faking it: Why do people commit resume fraud? What is with our obsession with titles? What happens when someone adopts a whole new identity?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Philippe Petit made his walk between the towers of the World Trade Center 40 years ago. He stayed up on that wire for 45 minutes, made 8 passes between the towers, got down on his knees, and he even laid down on it! But it's more than that one feat - it was a placeholder for a much broader philosophy of risk and creativity, and evidence of who the man really is.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm pretty sure that in the summer of 1992, somebody tried to tell me about Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't get it, and there weren't that many chances to  break in as a Python fan. Their actual television show didn't begin airing on public TV in America until October of 1974. Then, in the space of about two years, they changed the face of American comedy. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we lead off with a quick discussion of a term floated on Fox News this week. "Beyonce voters," according to one commentator, are single women who depend on the government because they don't have a husband. You know, just like Beyonce.Is he for real or a democratic plant? He does get one thing right. The New York Times reports that "the decline of marriage in this last generation has created an emerging bloc of unmarried women that  is profoundly reshaping the American electorate."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we talk about movie trailers. Maybe you wonder what a movie critic thinks of them. Actually, critics don't see as many as you do because they often go to special screenings.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's take the most dire problem facing humankind: Climate change has so many negative implications it would take all day to list them. Meanwhile, there's the possibility of a sudden acceleration of a problem caused by the melting of Arctic ice, which exposes more ocean water to warming, which causes more melting, which causes more...well, you get the picture.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's that time of year when nine people who were never elected decide all manner of questions about how we live. Monday marked the last round of Supreme Court decisions. By now, you probably know that in a five-four decision, they sided with Hobby Lobby in affirming the rights of employers to invoke their religious principles to opt out of the requirement to provide certain contraceptives otherwise mandated by Obamacare. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Nose, our culture roundtable, we'll tackle "Columbusing," the act of believing that something never existed before you discovered it. Also, this week's biting episode in the World Cup makes us wonder if vampires are setting a bad example.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's become of game shows in America? Since their television debut in 1938 we've seen everything from microwave ovens to million dollar payouts awarded to lucky contestants.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in America, and for one good reason: that 77-million-person wave of boomers headed into their 60s and beyond. Pickleball is what you play when your knees and shoulders start saying "no" to tennis. We talk about the game and its sudden surge.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Monday, we do The Scramble. And on the Scramble, we always start with a SuperGuest, which means that in defiance of public radio logic, we pick the person first and then figure out what the topics will be. This week we started with June Thomas, one of my favorite Slate.com writers and talkers, and someone I assumed would want to riff at least a little bit about pop culture. Instead, her top two choices are Gay Pride month and dentistry.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jeff VanderMeer is one of the hottest writers in the science fiction and fantasy genre. MG Lord is a humorist and recovering political cartoonist who has written books about Elizabeth Taylor and Barbie. Louis Bayard writes historical fiction who specializes in detective novels, but his new book features Teddy Roosevelt stalking a mysterious beast through the Amazon. That's the river and jungle, not the book dealer.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maybe you think of the banjo as primarily a bluegrass instrument, but try not to forget that prior to about 1830, it was played pretty much exclusively by African-Americans, and it seems to have as ancestors several African instruments. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why pencils? Here's an answer from PencilRevolution.com, one of the many pencil blogs and websites we uncovered while prepping for this show: "The first and best reason to use pencils is because you like them, and enjoy writing, drawing with them. Because you feel better connected to the paper you're writing on (or the wall, etc.), and the earth, from which the clay, the graphite, and the wood all came. Because they smell good. Because sharpening them can be sort of a meditative process. Because you can chew on them. Or for reasons we can't explain."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Haven's International Festival of Arts and Ideas is back! The theme of this year's festival is "Transformation and Tradition," and runs from this past Saturday through June 28. You don't want to miss it.John Dankosky and Where We Live will brighten your breakfast with a performance of a "comic-rap-scrap metal musical." They're just getting started. You also hear about corsets, bicycles, and hunter-gatherers.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Henry Alford is a very funny writer. I've been laughing at his writing since about 1990, when he erupted in Spy Magazine, with hilarious speculative pieces like, "What If The Pope Were A Dog?"Not long ago, he was asked to review a collection by another funny writer, Garrison Keillor. He did it, keenly aware that many people who find him funny are the kinds of people who find Keillor tiresome. And, maybe a bigger problem, Keillor had written some columns about gays and atheists that riled up not just Alford's fans, but people he knows pretty well. So what's a critic to do? Alford actually admired some things about the book, and said so. There was pushback. We'll talk about that today on The Scramble. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It has been a strange week for mixing gay right, media, and politics. Texas Governor Rick Perry surprised a San Francisco audience when he said, "I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at homosexual issues the same way." Anderson Cooper had an edgy conversation with a Texas -- what is it about Texas? -- state rep who supports the so-called "conversion therapy."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tab Hunter and Joyce DeWitt, Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones, Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels, Samantha Bee and Jason Jones from "The Daily Show," Timothy Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern: I could go on and on. These are all couples who have acted together in A.R. Gurney's play, "Love Letters."The play is amazingly elastic. Do you want to see Larry Hagman and Linda Gray together one more time post-Dallas? Well, they did "Love Letters." Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Obama announced a five-year, $200 million initiative to help young black men succeed. It's called "My Brother's Keeper," and aims to work with non-profits and foundations to search for solutions to the  problems of young black men. Leaders cite school and job readiness, discipline, and parenting as a few of the problems they'll tackle, but it's  mostly the bone-crushing poverty and low expectations that hold them back. This well-intended initiative put forth to help young black men succeed will  help a few beat the odds at the expense of the masses. The success feels good but may not change much.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Steinberg, Martin Short, Mort Sahl, Rick Moranis, Lorne Michaels, Jim Carrey, John Candy, Kids in the Hall, Samantha Bee, Jason Jones, Howie Mandel, Rich Little, Norm Macdonald, Katherine O'Hara, Russell Peters, Leslie Nielsen - They are all Canadians. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Freakonomics god Stephen Dubner is our SuperGuest for today's Scramble, and he talks about how to think more rationally and creatively, the upside of quitting, and the latest studies on happiness. Then, we chat with sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, and WNPR's capital region reporter Jeff Cohen, on the value of publicly-funded sports arenas. What's the status on the possible building of a baseball stadium in Hartford? Is it a done deal? What else have we learned and expect to understand about what a business like that may do to the city?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Nose, we begin with an essay, "Faking Cultural Literacy." Writer Karl Taro Greenfeld said, "It's never been so easy to pretend to know so much, without actually knowing anything." We pick topical, relevant bits from Facebook, Twitter, or emailed news alerts, and then regurgitate them. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richard Klein and Jerry Adler are veteran actors and directors on stage, television, and film. You might know Klein as Dallas on Three's Company, and Adler as "Hesh" on The Sopranos. On this show, they'll visit the WNPR studios to tell their stories, and reminisce with Colin about his years as Ed the Handyman on Charles In Charge.That's not true, Colin wasn't in Charles In Charge, but we'll explore the nuances of theater acting, the history of their time on television, and get a sneak peek at their latest work together, "The Sunshine Boys" at the Jorgensen Theater at UConn.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Connecticut's history is well documented throughout Connecticut museums and historic villages, but there's much more  that we have yet to discover, much of it underground. Today, we're partnering with Connecticut Explored, Connecticut's history journal, to tell a series of underground stories.                                                                                                                                       Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're like me, you'll have a lot of thoughts about food today but they won't be about how to get some. It will be about what you want for lunch and what you feel like having for dinner.You might have an argument with yourself about whether you can afford to eat a snack or dessert, but to you the word "afford" has to do with your weight and your waistline.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is college worth it? The news about higher education is mostly bad. Student loan debt is now $1 trillion and climbing. Underpaid, demoralized, and harassed adjunct faculty are taking on more and more of the teaching load. By many measures, college isn't doing its most important job: providing a ladder that young people with fewer advantages can climb.College right now seems to be reinforcing class structure rather than loosening it up. Into all of the above steps an optimist: Wesleyan president Michael Roth, who doesn't deny the problems, but insists that a liberal education is essential, and worth it. Despite the shift towards specialized courses of study, a liberal arts education is more important than ever. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why go to a film festival? Because you might see the guy who plays Jaime Lannister on "Game of Thrones" in a Norwegian film also starting Juliette Binoche about a photojournalist on a dangerous assignment in Kenya. Or you might see a documentary about the American roots music dynasty, the Carters and the Cashes. Or maybe you'll bump into an acting legend like Karen Allen or Mary Kay Place on the street or in a seat next to yours. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Luanne Rice has written 31 novels, five of which have been made into movies or mini-series. Her work has been featured in playhouses across the country, including Connecticut's own Hartford Stage. Her latest book, The Lemon Orchard, uses her signature themes of family and loss to tackle the difficult path of illegal immigrants in America.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People who attend Comic Con and Star Trek conventions -- or nerds in general -- used to be the butt of jokes, including a famous "Saturday Night Live" skit by William Shatner, where he tells "Trekkers" to get a life.Now "fandom" is a huge industry. It generates more than $500 million by one estimate, and is growing in both revenue and attendance. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On any given day, it's pretty easy to find all the ways in which modern media has substituted politicization for truth and/or serious reflection. Today, you could take the so-called Santa Barbara killing spree by Elliot Rodger. After the usual first round of back and forth sniping about the availability of weapons. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The story of Josh Hanagarne isn't necessarily funny. He was born with Tourette Syndrome, a poorly understood neuropsychiatric disorder which inflicts on Josh a blizzard of tics, flinches, whoops and yelps.  Most disconcertingly, he frequently hits himself in the face.Josh's first refuge was books, and that led to a career as a librarian. His second refuge was playing the guitar, which somehow distracted his mind from the triggers producing the tics. And his third refuge was exercise, specifically strength and weight training.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can the culture of one nation ever understand that of another? Critics say Fox's newest reality show in which 12 witless contestants believe their in a fight to the near death for the attention of England's Prince Harry. "I Wanna Marry Harry" is said to represent a new low in reality television.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When President Obama introduced the National Climate Assessment a couple of weeks ago, he asked eight special people to help him. They were national and local weather casters including Al Roker.It was an interesting choice.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Science writer Carl Zimmer names the Dodo and the Great Auk, the Thylacine and the Chinese River Dolphin, the Passenger Pigeon and the Imperial Woodpecker, the Bucardo and Stellar Sea Cow among the species that humankind has driven into extinction. What's notable about that list is that most of us would recognize maybe three or four of those names.Think about that. We have obliterated entire species whose names we don't even know.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taxidermy stops time. Creatures are born, they live they die, they decay into dust. But taxidermy catches the wolf or the woodpecker in the middle of the cycle and keeps it there. That's why there's something unsettling and a little creepy about taxidermy. Never forget, the most memorable taxidermist in cinema history was Norman Bates.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bob Garfield, host of WNYC's On The Media, kicks off this edition of The Scramble. Something tells us The New York Times' Jill Abramson saga isn't over...Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You'd think that the New York Times, after covering so many sackings, would know how to fire its own editor without having it become one of the biggest, ugliest stories of the week. On today's show, we'll explore the presumption that the Great Gray Lady is run by sexist pork faces.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The first children's room in a public library may have been in Hartford, Connecticut. The head librarian here, Caroline Hewins was an early advocate for taking seriously the reading needs of children starting in the late 19th century. Prior to that children's lit wasn't really treated as a genre that could stand on its own two feet.  Today, of course, it's massive and diverse. Its themes range from light to darkness, its language may be mannered or naturalistic, its art may be glorious or crude.  And, there really seems to be a readership for all those possibilities. But, some would say we need more diversity.Today on the show, we talk about children's books, first from the perspective of two authors and then with a scholar and a librarian.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When friends say they're going to Paris I make them promise to get a Plan de Paris,  which is a pocket-sized book of little maps and one big, huge fold-out map which you never use because it makes you look like a befuddled tourist and it's really hard to fold back into the little book. But the Arrondissement maps and Plan are essential. If you have them, you'll understand where you are and where you're going. If you don't, not so much. My point is this-it's just not true that we don't need or use maps anymore. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We start today's show with Eric Deggans, NPR's first full-time TV critic. Eric and I have talked before about the issue of diversity in late night comedy programming and lo and behold, the very intriguing Larry Wilmore has been given his own show. So, we talk about that but Eric's main focus right now is a kind of television agrarian ritual, the unveiling of this year's crop of network shows, most of them to be harvested in the fall. A short description if you've been missing Matthew Perry, Patricia Arquette, Scott Bakula, Tea Leone and Katherine McPhee, just watch CBS.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may have forgotten Monica Lewinsky, but she has not forgotten you. She's back with a Vanity Fair interview that re-ignites the whole debate about her.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.