The Colin McEnroe Show

On the one hand, it kind of feels like the pandemic is winding down, right? On the other hand, the daily caseload in the U.S. is 23,000, up 94% versus two weeks ago. At the same time, the Teletubbies are all vaccinated, so that’s a welcome relief. How are you handling this strange gray area in which we find ourselves? Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EDT hour: 860–275–7266, or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most of the Western world is organized by alphabetical order, which is so much more than the 26 letters that make up the alphabet. Alphabetical order is an organizing principle that allows us to save, order, and access thousands of years of humankind's most precious documents and ideas. Without it, we'd never know what came before us or how to pass on what's with us. It's ubiquitous, yet invisible in daily life. This hour, a conversation about how we order our world and why we do it. GUESTS: Nicholson Baker - A novelist and essayist; he's the author of 17 books, including, most recently, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act Judith Flanders - Author of A Place For Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order Peter Sokolowski - A lexicographer and editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster and co-host of the podcast Word Matters Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired January 21, 2021.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Nose is all TV all the time this week. First: Is the era of the unifying television hit already over? And: Has Netflix already lost its cool? And then: Kevin Can F**k Himself is both a multi-camera sitcom and a single-camera drama at the same time. It airs on AMC and stars Annie Murphy. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Richard Donner, Director of 'Superman,' 'The Goonies' and 'Lethal Weapon,' Dies at 91 R.I.P. filmmaker and actor Robert Downey Sr.His son, actor Robert Downey Jr., confirmed the news on Instagram What Deadlines Do to LifetimesCan we find a balance between structuring our time and squandering it? Brace yourself for the Bill Cosby media redemption tourIn the comedy world he may still be persona non grata. But can TV news divisions resist the ratings he'd pull in? 2021 Miss Nevada Will Be The First Openly Transgender Miss USA Contestant Everyone is praising Selena Gomez's unedited swimsuit and bikini pictures"Seeing Selena Gomez's stomach & body WITHOUT PHOTOSHOP is fire" The Pop Music You Listen to Really Does MatterThe story of Dr. Luke and Doja Cat shows how the industry relies on consumer passivity. But audiences can still stand against alleged abusers. Future Lord of the Rings films should acknowledge the book's queer leaningsNobody wants to see a horny Gollum or Orcs with raging hard-ons – but why shouldn't some of Middle-earth's denizens be gay? If they won't let Zack Snyder make a stupid Star Wars, he'll just make his own stupid Star Wars Zack Snyder is making an Akira Kurosawa-inspired sci-fi epic for Netflix How Disney Mismanaged the Star Wars UniverseAnd how The Mandalorian can restore the true power of George Lucas's galaxy The Urge to Destroy a ViolinAn Instagram account reveals both our reverence for and our loathing of classical instruments. The Games Done Quick Marathon Is More Important Than EverFor years, GDQ has brought together gamers to speedrun for charity. After a year of loss and loneliness, the event means so much more. Returnal and Why Games Need More Badass Middle-Aged WomenWomen in video games are either young and sexy or old and wise. But a character who’s built up the strength and confidence of experience? Sign me up. How "The Print Shop" Turned People into Banner Wizards in the 1980s Mathematicians Prove 2D Version of Quantum Gravity Really WorksIn three towering papers, a team of mathematicians has worked out the details of Liouville quantum field theory, a two-dimensional model of quantum gravity. What Gets Lost as Little Leagues Get SmallerTown leagues, unprofessionalized and open to all, knit neighborhoods together in ways that intensive and competitive travel teams do not. How "Rick and Morty" and "Loki" built thoughtful altars to apathy for everything we hold dearBoth shows acknowledge that gods exist. But each questions the zealotry with which we follow them 'Legally Blonde' Oral History: From Raunchy Script to Feminist ClassicAlong the way, adult zingers were edited out, Jennifer Coolidge struggled with the "bend and snap" and the ending was changed at least three times. You Really Need to Quit TwitterHow could I have succumbed to this common, embarrassing habit that just about everyone on Earth knows is a scourge? Why Is Everyone Talking About the "Cat Person" Short Story Again? "Cat Person" and MeKristen Roupenian's viral story draws specific details from my own life. I've spent the years since it published wondering: How did she know? Nicholas Braun is going to be the Cat Person asshole in the viral story's movie adaptationEmilia Jones will play Margot, the 20-year-old who goes on a bad date with the Cat Person Admit it: Grilling is bad GUESTS: Carolyn Paine - An actress, comedian, and dancer; founder, director, and choreographer of CONNetic Dance Bill Yousman - Professor of Media Studies at Sacred Heart University Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At 10 years old, M. Leona Godin began losing her vision. Her experience with sight and blindness is detailed in her new book, There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness. In it she also explores blindness throughout literature, and through key figures and inventions throughout history. This hour, we’re joined by Godin to discuss "the vast, dappled regions between seeing and not-seeing, blindness and sight, darkness and light."  GUEST: M. Leona Godin - Author of There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John McPhee is a writer's writer. He's thought of as one of the progenitors of the New Journalism, of creative nonfiction or narrative nonfiction, along with people like Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. But his style is... quiter than those folks'. His writing is transparent. He tends to keep himself out of the narrative. He doesn't even, in fact, have an author photo. McPhee has written for The New Yorker since 1963, and he's taught writing at Princeton University since 1975. He is the author of 32 books, including Coming Into the Country, A Sense of Where You Are, Oranges, and Annals of the Former World, which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. GUEST: John McPhee - Staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of 33 books; his latest are Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process and The Patch Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe contributed to this show, which originally aired September 28, 2017.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The impending doom of an asteroid (or comet or whatever) colliding with the Earth is the premise of any number of movies and books and such. But what would we really do to stop such a thing from happening, if we had to? One solution might be to try to nudge the asteroid off its collision course with us, and NASA is about to test a way to do just that. And: A few points about baseball's two-way phenom, Shohei Ohtani. He might be having the best season anyone's ever had, "it's almost inarguable that he's the most physically talented all-around athlete ever to play the game," and, also according to Ben Lindbergh, "if you can't get into Ohtani, maybe baseball isn't for you." But are we maybe not appreciating Ohtani enough? And finally: If I say "shark," you think of Jaws, right? But there are two major problems with the shark-as-villain stereotype. First, sharks are fascinating and awe-inspiring more than they're scary. And second, we need to be more afraid for sharks than afraid of them. GUESTS: Ben Lindbergh - Staff writer at The Ringer and co-host of Effectively Wild Melissa Cristina Márquez - A marine biologist and shark scientist Andrew Rivkin - A planetary astronomer and the DART Investigation Team Lead at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bo Burnham: Inside is a Netflix standup comedy concert play documentary thing written, shot, edited, directed, and performed by Bo Burnham. Burnham made it by himself, with no audience and no crew, during pandemic lockdowns. And: No Sudden Move is Steven Soderbergh's sixth movie in the four years since he returned from retirement, and his second for HBOMax. It's a neo-noir crime thriller set in 1950s Detroit, and it's got an all-star enemble cast: Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Amy Seimetz, Jon Hamm, Ray Liotta, Kieran Culkin, Brendan Fraser, and more. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Bill Cosby's sex assault conviction overturned by court College Athletes May Earn Money From Their Fame, N.C.A.A. RulesHere's a breakdown of why the N.C.A.A. finally relented to pressure to allow athletes to make money beyond the cost of attending their universities. Does the Job of Talk-Show Sidekick Even Make Sense Anymore?Andy Richter reinvigorated the thankless, tired role, but now that "Conan" is going off the air, it's time to re-evaluate work that was often mired in stereotypes. Why 'Fast & Furious' Is Our Best -- And Worst -- Franchise F9 Makes Dom Toretto Canonically Tall The Life and Death of Pete Davidson's ChadDavidson and the creators of Saturday Night Live's monosyllabic icon chart his improbable rise and explosive fall. Bullshitting Is Actually a Sign of Intelligence, Study FindsThis is not BS. NPR's Joy Generator A Food Critic Reviews the Swedish Chef's New Restaurant What Gets Lost as Little Leagues Get SmallerTown leagues, unprofessionalized and open to all, knit neighborhoods together in ways that intensive and competitive travel teams do not. It's Not Easy Being GreenspeopleTransforming winter into spring or creating faux forests and fanciful estates is all in a day's work for these behind-the-scenes masters of foliage on movie and TV sets. When A City-Size Star Becomes A Black Hole's Lunch, The Universe Roils With gift from David Geffen, Yale's drama school goes tuition-free Elvis Costello dismisses claims Olivia Rodrigo plagiarized his music, saying that's rock and roll The Tin Man Gets His Heart: An Oral History of 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day'Three decades ago, James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Linda Hamilton joined forces again to make the biggest, baddest, most eye-popping sequel ever. Here's the story of how the machines took over Hollywood. Judge Denies Britney Spears' Request To Have Her Father Removed From Conservatorship How Twitter can ruin a lifeIsabel Fall's sci-fi story "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" drew the ire of the internet. This is what happened next. GUESTS: Rebecca Castellani - Co-founder of Quiet Corner Communications, Marketing and Events Manager at the Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, and a freelance writer James Hanley - Co-founder of Cinestudio at Trinity College Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scrolling through online real estate listings, a practice known as "Zillow surfing," has become a popular pastime this past year. And it's not just for people who are actually looking to buy houses... It's also for snooping on the value of other people's homes, imagining different lives for yourself, or just finding unusual houses to make fun of and share with friends. This hour, a look at the appeal of Zillow surfing. GUESTS: Ariel Norling - Author of the "I Know A Spot" Newsletter Dana Bull - Realtor with Sagan Harborside Sotheby's International Realty, based in Massachusetts Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Thighmaster, the Chop-O-Matic, the George Foreman Grill, and the Clapper... products which are all part of American consumer culture and which were all introduced through infomercials. But as online shopping increases and traditional television watching decreases, are we beginning to see the end of these high-energy, late-night shows? What will become of iconic pitchmen like Ron Popeil, Tony Little, and Richard Simmons in an age where consumerism is changing by the day? This hour, we look back at some of the most memorable infomercials of all time and ask if they still have a place in our national media landscape. GUESTS: Kevin Harrington - The unofficial "King of Infomercials" and the author of Key Person of Influence: The Five-Step Method to Become One of the Most Highly Valued and Highly Paid People in Your Industry Ron Popeil - Inventor and iconic infomercial pitchman Remy Stern - Author of But Wait… There's More! Tighten Your Abs, Make Millions, and Learn How the $100 Billion Infomercial Industry Sold Us Everything But the Kitchen Sink Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Lydia Brown, Ray Hardman, Greg Hill, Betsy Kaplan, Ross Levin, Jonathan McNicol, Stephanie Riefe, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired March 7, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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