The Colin McEnroe Show

You probably wonder sometimes if you chose. Growing up, I was pretty sure I'd be a novelist and sometimes even now I wonder why I'm not. Why am I not sitting in a cabin at the McDowell Colony banging out my 24th book. No kidding, I really feel pretty bad about that. But the reality is, I'm not wired that way. My mind needs constant stimulation and constant feedback. This is a really good job for me even though my self-image is radically different.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is the religious version of recession food. Since the end of the Civil War, the Mormon membership numbers have grown every single year, and quite often they've grown at an astonishing pace.  In the late 1970's and 80's, they added members at a rate of 5-6% a year. Today, their worldwide membership is around 15 million. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We crave color. Think of the Spring trip you make to the park, that has beautiful tulips or multicolored roses in the Summer. Think of the enormous travel industry that springs up around fall foliage every year. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour on The Scramble our superguest is David Folkenflik. I don't have to tell you who David Folkenflik is, do I? I mean, you're public radio listeners. The superguest always sets the agenda, and David wants to talk about new journalism start-ups like Vox, Five-Thirty Eight, First Look,  and about what middle-aged digital brand names like Slate are doing to survive. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour on The Nose, we lead off with a Gallup poll in which Connecticut ranked second, just a tick behind Illinois, as one of the states people are most eager to leave. Half of the Connecticut people polled said they'd like to move out.Now, it would be a mistake to ascribe this to any one thing. Property taxes, job market, unfriendly people, dormant cities, and cold weather all play a role, but I can't help but wonder whether Connecticut temperament itself also plays a role. People from Wisconsin would be less likely to say a bad word about the place, even if they had all their belongings packed. That's just now how they talk about life.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Okay, here's a borrowed analogy. My grandmother talked about the light bill to refer to what you call the electricity bill. And, that's because she lived at a time when literally, that's all electricity did-power the lights. And now, all sorts of things run on that same power. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sick with the April flu, lying in bed in a New York apartment, and trying to distract myself by watching one of the film adaptations of "Nicholas Nickleby". I found myself repeatedly moved to tears, especially when anything good or kind happened. Okay, part of this was that I felt a little vulnerable, and may have over identified with poor tubercular Smike. But another part, I'm convinced, was the excitement generated by pure moral language, which you don't encounter so much in modern culture.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For people with really bad arthritis the idea of intentionally suffering bee stings is an easier sell than it is with the rest of humankind. Sometimes my knees hurt so bad, a bee sting would be a welcomed distraction. I mean, it couldn’t make things any worse and there’s something intuitive about the idea that our body’s natural response to the venom might actually counteract other problems. So, this hour, we talk about apitherapy.First, we explore the world of long-haul bee truckers. The nation’s farm depends on these peripatetic pollinators who cross the country and travel up and down the coasts. It’s a lot like other kinds of trucking and then it’s totally different.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We cover a lot of ground on this hour's Scramble. We begin with the editor of Salon.com in a conversation about a story that dominated the headlines this weekend, the racist remarks attributed to Los Angeles Clippers owner, Donald Sterling. Dave Daley sees Sterling and Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy as part of a pattern. I don't. Not exactly, anyway. Dave also talks about Thomas Piketty, the first rock star economist in, well, a really long time.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This was a week when Connecticut professors got rambunctious, when pine tar was discovered in places it shouldn't have been, and when President Obama played soccer with a robot. I can't guarantee which of these things will make its way onto our weekly pop culture roundtable, The Nose, except definitely the professors.This one from UConn mocked and challenged the arguments of a creationist, and this one from Eastern was caught railing against Republicans, calling them "racist, misogynistic, money-grubbing people" and saying colleges will close if the GOP takes over the Senate.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You have to trust us. Because I realize that a show about the Eastern Hemlock doesn't sound that sexy. In fact, we've done tree shows in the past after which I have said, "Let's not do any more tree shows." But we think we've got something here. First of all, this our third show working with Bob Sullivan, a writer who, in the past, has been able to make just about any topic exciting. Second, this is a story with a villain, a cottony, crawling, feeding life form called the wooly adelgid. You want something you can hate without the tiniest tremor of remorse? We're going to give it to you. Third, this little villain is striking right at a major player in the natural cycles that can either slow or accelerate climate change. Fourth, we're going to be talking about the souls of trees. Trust us. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The more I read about The Dallas Buyers Club, the less I like it, which is too bad because I really like that movie.First, I read the that film's portrayal of Ron Woodruff, the hard-bitten homophobe who gradually softens is wrong. Woodruff was, according to friends and family, comfortably bisexual. He never had to go through the transition you see in the film.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's hard to improve on the poet, Rilke, who wrote, "Love consists of this, that two solitudes meet, protect, and greet each other." But did Rilke have to deal with Angry Birds and Snap Chat? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is there a connection between what happens in youth sports and the locker room bullying of Richie Incognito or the steroid-spattered reputations of Alex Rodriguez and Lance Armstrong?And, we all know that major college sports have become engines of commerce allowing a lot of people, although not the athletes who drive those engines, to get rich.But, is there any way in which those dollar signs are sliding down into youth and high school sports.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Molly" is the nickname for MDMA, or ecstasy. It's short for "molecule," meaning you're getting the "real thing," chemically speaking. Except you almost never do.This hour, we talk about the dangers of Molly, the medical uses of MDMA, and the curious romance between the drug and the form of music known as EDM, Electronic Dance Music.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The zipless f---- was more than a f----. It was a platonic ideal. Zipless, because when you came together, zippers fell away like rose petals. Underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff. Tongues intertwined and turned liquid. Your whole soul flowed out through your tongue and into the mouth of your lover.Jong recenly defined the phrase on NPR's Weekend Edition:The zipless f---- was more than a f----. It was a platonic ideal. Zipless, because when you came together, zippers fell away like rose petals. Underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff. Tongues intertwined and turned liquid. Your whole soul flowed out through your tongue and into the mouth of your lover.So how does the world of 2013 look to the writer who gave us Isadora Wing?We talk with Jong about feminism and gender in American pop culture and politics.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Consider America from 1985 to 2000. You wouldn't say nothing happened in those 15 years but America was a fairly calm place to be most of the time.Now consider the period that came next. It began with a presidential election so riddled with such uncertainties that the effort to confirm the result dragged on for days and went to the Supreme Court.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our SuperGuest on today's Scramble is Jen Doll, who has three topics that she wants to discuss:The first is the return of "Mad Men," a show in its final season and perhaps more than any other TV show, a driver of the phenomenon that utilizes the talents of many, many cultural commentators to analyze and debate the underlying themes in each episode. If you visited a site like Slate or Salon on certain Monday mornings, you might make the mistake of thinking this was a publication mainly, or entirely about, "Mad Men."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scientists say the papyrus that mentions a wife of Jesus is not a forgery. Stephen Colbert will take over when Letterman leaves. I'm not saying the two things are connected, but maybe our weekly culture roundtable The Nose will find a common thread.It might seem like a small thing - the departure of Stephen Colbert from his late night role in which he depicts a strutting, preening, right-wing media star. In the last analysis, who cares who takes over the Letterman show? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you are a person of a certain age, you probably remember the moment when you were first seized by Karen Carpenter's voice. For me, it was getting into my mother's Pontiac LeMans after a commencement ceremony at Kingswood School in 1970. I was a sophomore at an all-boys school, and nobody wanted to be "Close To" me. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thomas Moore was, for 13 years, a Servite monk. In 1992, he burst onto the national scene with "Care of the Soul", which combined the psychotherapeutic of Jung and James Hillman with ancient and contemporary religious and spiritual ideas. It was number 1 on the New York Times best seller list, and stayed on the list for a year.Moore's central premise is that part of ourselves cannot be fully nourished through purely rational modern thought. We have needs that cannot be met by science and social theory. His new book is kind of a toolkit for people who have that sense - that they need something they're not getting. They may not be comfortable sitting in a pew to get it, so can they make it themselves?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spite is everywhere. It's as fresh as today's sports headlines as UConn readies to play Notre Dame for the women's basketball championship. Fighting Irish coach Muffet McGraw has acknowledged that there is hate between the two teams.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on the Scramble, we get to spend some time with Frank Rich. Frank wears a lot of hats these days as both editor-at-large at New York Magazine and Executive Producer of VEEP on HBO. We're going to chat with him in both capacities and there is an interesting bridge between the two realms.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The original Carl Sagan "Cosmos" was at least  partly a response to the Cold War. Its message: "We're such little specks, can we embrace our common destiny and get along?"You could look at the movie "Noah" and the remake of "Cosmos" as two manifestations of an odd phenomenon. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When I say "hip hop," do you think about an art form the exalts bling, consumption, excess, decadence, and vulgarity? What about all the other hip hop artists, exploring other kinds of truths?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scientists made an announcement on July 4, 2012 to little fanfare outside the world of scholarly physicists that ended a 50-year search to explain the existence of life as we know it. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'll be honest: I hate April Fools' Day, and I'm not a big fan of practical jokes. I hate it the way that some people hate Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve. I think merriment and foolishness should be spread across the year. That's why most of our shows, even pretty serious ones, start with a comedy sketch, because life is so much better when you think of it as a comedy.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Scramble, our Monday episode, is a wrap-up of the weekend's news, and a look at the week ahead. This hour, we have a conversation with Charla Nash, who is seeking the right to sue the state of Connecticut over the chimpanzee attack in 2009 that left her badly mutilated.We also feature our SuperGuest, Slate Political Gabfest panelist, David Plotz. He's been thinking a lot about the high-budget involved in anti-technology films like the upcoming movie, Noah, and whether or not Hillary Clinton is too old to run for president.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A hilariously fussy hotel manager with a taste for the high life is wrenched from his gay surroundings by the specter of war and a false murder charge. That doesn't sound terribly funny, but it's the premise for "The Grand Budapest Hotel," the latest Wes Anderson movie. Our Nose panelists all went to see it, and it will be one of our topics on this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'll tell you one of the big thrills of my writing career: I was a contributing editor to Mirabella Magazine in the 80's. I'd written an essay about getting bitten (sort of) by a dog in New Hampshire. The magazine had a huge art budget in those days, and I had already had one of my pieces illustrated by Ed Koren. But they told me this one was being illustrated by George Booth. George Booth! I worship George Booth! And so it came to pass that my article ran with a classing Booth dog cartoon.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

   I get way too much of my information from movies and  this year large container ships played a role in two major films.The first was Captain Phillips, an account of piracy in the Indian Ocean. The problem with that movie is that it didn't ask any fundamental questions about the method of moving stuff around.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Teresa of Avila very unambiguously reported hearing voices. She's a saint. John Forbes Nash heard voices. He won a Nobel prize. Robert Schumann heard voices that spurred him to write great music.Philip K. Dick was guided by one inner voice, specifically female, that he would hear for much of his life. He probably holds the record for most film adaptations for words written of any author ever.Mahatma Gandhi described a voice he could hear; not a metaphorical inner conversation, but a voice.I could go on. Hearing voices is not that unusual. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Scramble, we'll talk about a system run by the Navy that keeps track of, among other things, parking tickets and field information cards filled out by police, even when no crime has occurred - is this data collection crossing a line?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

here are the topics for the Nose today:Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once upon a time, comic books were a niche for kids and nerds. Now they are mainstream culture. "The Avengers" is the number three all-time worldwide grossing movie.I would like to pause, and say that I owned, as a kid, issue number one of The Avengers. I remember distinctly where I got it, and how I felt about it. I do not remember distinctly what happened to it.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The musician Christy Moore said Ireland could never have the equivalent of a folk revival because it never let its traditions lapse. And that's very true. The are probably other places in the world as deeply attached to their traditional music, but I don't know where they are. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Where is Wofford College? What is a shock of wheat, and what does it have to do with Wichita State's scary mascot? For that matter, what's a Chanticleer?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Oppenheimer writes about religion and a whole bunch of other things. Today, he'll be talking about the difficulty Orthodox Jewish women face in obtaining a certain form of cooperation from their husbands and how that difficulty spawned a black market in coercion and violence.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Obama has consistently refused to be a panelist on The Nose, but his appearance this week on "Between Two Ferns" with Zach Galifianakis has given us new hope!Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the second season of the Netflix series, House of Cards, the protagonist Frank Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey, pulls out an old family typewriter, an Underwood of course, to write a pseudo-heartfelt letter to the President.Frank's father gave him the typewriter saying this Underwood built an empire. Now you go build another.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amanda Hess is one of our favorite social critics. She writes for Slate and lately, well always, she's thinking about the depiction of women in mass media, including a statistical disparity between the performances of men and women on Jeopardy. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Can great television be as satisfying as great literature? On today's Nose, we'll apply that question to HBO's True Detective. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the space of a lifetime, the status of gay and lesbian people in the United States and Western Europe has been transformed. So to watch a play like "A Song at Twilight," written by Noel Coward in 1966, is to journey back in time and then wonder how far, really one has traveled.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Minimum wage in Connecticut is higher than the federal minimum, $8.70 an hour instead of $7.25. In fact, the federal minimum is so ridiculously low that not many people are earning it. Maybe as few as 1.5 million, according to one study. So, what happens if it goes up to $10.10 an hour here, or less likely, nationally. Some minimum wage workers will tell you that is still ridiculously low, $15 an hour is more like it. And, there are movements to help fast food workers bargain collectively for that kind of raise.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's National Grammar Day, a time to take stock of the current status of the English language, and possibly get into bitter fights.I'm old school. I'm the kind of person who will only use "not only" if I intend to follow it with "but also." That's probably a convention that died the quiet death of a feverish sloth many years ago. But I know what's right, and sometimes it feels like I'm helping to hold the language together even as it drifts into chaos.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Scramble, one of our favorite writers, A.J. Jacobs takes us deep inside the world of modern ancestry research where websites are all  too happy to tell you that you're distantly related to Gwynyth Paltrow, Michael Bloomberg, Quincy Jones, and King David.  Those are all actual examples of people A.J. was told are his relatives. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have a question: Where does Adam Sandler watch the Oscars? Does he sit there with all the people who are actually up for awards, or is he home alone, with his baseball cap on backwards? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Somehow, kale has become trendy in the last few years, although its moment in the sun seems to be almost over. How did a thing like that happen? Would it be possible to infuse an old standby like broccoli with a similar hip panache? Broccoli is the warmest vegetable, and the coolest.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Remakes are easy. Money-makers are hard. We live in a sloshing sea of those movie remakes but it's rare for one of them to out gross the original. An exception, oddly enough, was the remake of "Clash of the Titans," which significantly outperformed its 80s predecessor. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Four women join us to talk about sports, mostly football. Two of them are sports journalists. A third is a journalist specializing in legal issues, and a fourth is a scientist and engineer.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.