The Colin McEnroe Show

Alex Trebek’s imprint as the host of "Jeopardy" looms large over the show, making it hard for anyone else to live up to the impeccable standard he demanded during his 37 seasons as the show's iconic host. But more than a dozen guest hosts have tried, from big winner Ken Jennings to Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Who will the next host be and what will the next iteration look like? Also this hour: two-time Grammy Award winner Van Morrison is best known for the volumes of soulful love songs he's written over his five decade career. So, why did the 75-year-old musician release a 28-song album filled with paranoia, antisemitic rants, and grievance against well, just about everyone.   Lastly, people are showering less during the pandemic - and loving it!   GUESTS: Amanda Hess is a critic-at-large for the New York Times. She writes about the internet and culture. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN the Magazine, and Wired, among others. Louis Keene is a staff reporter at The Forward Maria Cramer is a breaking news reporter for The New York Times. She previously covered legal affairs for The Boston Globe Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elon Musk will host tomorrow night's Saturday Night Live. It is, if nothing else, an odd choice. Speaking of choices, Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Sitcoms of All Time is out this week. Finally, This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist is a four-part Netflix docuseries about the 1990 robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The burglary was the largest museum heist in history in terms of value (thought to be as much as $600 million) until 2019. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Jeff Goldblum's a movie star, jazz pianist and an inescapable meme. What's behind his enduring appeal? On That Bombshell Billie Eilish Cover for British VogueThe pop star known for defying gender stereotypes got a glamour makeover with a corset. Not everyone is happy about it. Broadway Is Reopening. But Not Until September.Even as New York City begins to reopen this summer, Broadway will not resume performances until Sept. 14. Here's why. I'm Not Ready to PerformA great rock-and-roll show means openness, confrontation, and a kind of danger, and those ideas right now feel too heavy to lift. Jason Concepcion Is Still Working Through His Early-Pandemic Pasta Purchase"I've always had an affinity for the cuisine of the Italians" Eww, That's Gross. And We Like It That Way.Why the tasteless humor of "Bad Trip," starring Eric Andre, is a feat to be celebrated. Few can pull off transgression so skillfully. German Gymnasts Cover Their Legs In Stand Against Sexualization Prince's epic "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" guitar solo has a new director's cut Ethan Hawke Waits for Godot, or for the Zoom Screen to UnfreezeAfter a rehearsal for a virtual production of the play, Hawke and his co-star John Leguizamo ponder how all dialogue now sounds like Beckett. Prancer, the 'demonic' Chihuahua who went viral, finds his forever homePrancer has adjusted to both his new life and his viral celebrity status quite well. Here Are The First Official Photos From HBO's "House Of The Dragon"The show will debut on HBO and on its streaming platform HBO Max in 2022. Heads Up! A Used Chinese Rocket Is Tumbling Back to Earth This Weekend.The chances of it hitting a populated area are small, but not zero. That has raised questions about how the country’s space program designs its missions. GUESTS: Carolyn Paine - An actress, comedian, and dancer, and she is 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.

Numbers are so fundamental to our understanding of the world around us that we maybe tend to think of them as an intrinsic part of the world around us. But they aren't. Humans invented numbers just as much as we invented all of language. This hour, we look at the anthropological, psychological, and linguistical ramifications of the concept of numbers. And we look at one philosophical question too: Are numbers even real in the first place? GUESTS: Brian Clegg - Author of Are Numbers Real? The Uncanny Relationship of Mathematics and the Physical World Caleb Everett - Professor and chair of anthropology at the University of Miami and the author of Numbers and the Making of Us: Counting and the Course of Human Cultures Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired October 12, 2017.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Newsletters have become a great way for journalists and others to dive deep into less-covered topics and engage directly with their readers in ways not always possible in the mainstream media ecosystem. The platform Substack is making it easy for them. The subscription-based model offers writers more editorial control and the ability to offer free content and earn a sustainable salary at a time when public trust in media is low, local news is thinning and media content is often driven by social-media algorithms. We talk about newsletters with people who write them and critique them. GUESTS: Heather Cox Richardson - Professor of history at Boston College; she writes the Letters from an American newsletter Gabe Fleisher - Student at Georgetown University and the author of the Wake Up To Politics newsletter Isaac Saul - A journalist and the author of the Tangle newsletter Ben Smith - Media columnist for The New York Times and the founder and former editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News 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.

to help. They chose to be nurses at a time when the risk to their own health was never greater. Why are some people willing to run toward the fire when others are running away from it? Most of us fall somewhere on a spectrum of altruistic behavior. We might adopt a stray pet, donate a liter of blood, or check on an older neighbor. Others pursue a career based on helping others, and, at the extreme end of the spectrum, some choose to donate their kidney to a stranger or rush into traffic to save a stranger's life. We talk to two nurses, a kidney donor, and a psychologist about nursing and the nature of altruism. GUEST: Kelly Chevalier - Interim director of emergency services at Trinity Health of New England/St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center  Tracy Gordon Fox - A former journalist for the Hartford Courant; she’s currently a staff nurse on the general surgery floor at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center Lauren Herschel - An anonymous kidney donor who lives in Calgary, Alberta Abigail Marsh - A professor of psychology and a neuroscientist in the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at Georgetown University; she directs their Lab on Social & Affective Neuroscience, and she’s the author of The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Psychopaths, Altruists, and Everyone In Between  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Aaron Rodgers leaked his dissatisfaction with the Green Bay Packers just before last week's NFL opening round. The NFL draft drew about 2 million people and has become something of a cultural event. In essence, he made himself the story within the story. So, what's going on with Aaron Rodgers? Does he have a future with the Packers, another NFL team, or will he head to Jeopardy and date Shailene Woodley? Also this hour: a story about cows who love classical music. Lastly, an ode to the reviled wasp. It's time we learn to love the wasp.  GUESTS:  Ben Shpigel is a sports reporter for The New York Times, covering the NFL since 2011. (@benshpigel) Lisa Abend is a journalist based in Copenhagen and the author of The Sorcerer's Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen at Adria's Elbulli. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME magazine, and The Atlantic, among other publications. (@LisaAbend) Seirian Sumner is professor of Behavioral Ecology at University College London. She's the co-founder of Soapbox Science and The Big Wasp Survey. (@WaspWoman) Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we were preparing for our show on underdogs, I kept saying that we shouldn’t overlook the fact that, often, to be an underdog in the first place, you have to be relatively bad at the thing you’re an underdog about. The more we talked about it, the more I found myself making the case that losers and losing are fascinating. And they are. There’s a whole podcast about political candidates who lost. We romanticize losers in movies and TV and songs and stories. And think just about the phrase “lovable losers.” In a culture where we focus seemingly entirely on the positive half of the zero sum, where we endlessly exalt WINNING, it’s kind of interesting that we love the losers too, isn’t it? This hour, a long look at losers and losing. GUESTS: Jason Cherkis - Political reporter for The Huffington Post and the co-host of Candidate Confessional Josh Keefe - An investigative reporter at the Bangor Daily News; in a piece for Slate’s Sports Nut, he claimed that he was the worst high school quarterback ever Jonathan McNicol - Producer at Connecticut Public Radio Irene Papoulis - Teaches writing at Trinity College Brian Slattery - Arts editor for the New Haven Independent and a producer at WNHH radio Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Betsy Kaplan contributed to this show, which originally aired August 1, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seriously: a show about towels. There's the history of towels, towels in Christianity, Terrible Towels, Towel Day. Oh, and there are actual towels too. Because when has a bad idea ever stopped us before? GUESTS: Marcel Danesi - The author of Of Cigarettes, High Heels, and Other Interesting Things: An Introduction to Semiotics John Dankosky - Host of The CT Mirror's Steady Habits podcast and news and special projects editor for Science Friday Jackie Reeve - Bed and bath writer for Wirecutter; her blog about quilting and crafting and cooking and traveling and things is The Orange Room Jem Roberts - Comedy historian and the author of The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired December 6, 2018.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're so caught up in fetishizing (mostly) female breasts in film, literature, art, and in the anatomy-defying breasts of comic book heroines, that we overlook the breast as a vital source of food and and as a body part vulnerable to cancer, including young women under forty. How often should we get that mammogram? To breastfeed - or not? Lastly, how come men can go topless in America but women can't? Florence Williams - Author of Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History and The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, which will be published in February and her Audible podcast Breasts Unbound, debuts in December  Dr. Christine Rizk - Breast surgeon, director of the Comprehensive Women’s Health Center at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center Lina Esco - Actress, producer, activist, director of the documentary, Free the Nipple and leader of the Free the Nipple movement. You can join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.  Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show.  This show originally aired on October 4, 2016. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No one likes a cloudy sky. A cloud on the horizon is seen as a harbinger of doom. We feel like clouds need to have silver linings. But here's our thesis: Clouds are unfairly maligned. Consider this: From almost any vantage point (literally -- any vantage point in the universe), clouds are planet Earth's defining characteristic. They're what changes, what moves. They're what's going on on our pale blue dot. Clouds are, after all, the vehicle that spreads the sun's energy across the planet, an "expression of the atmosphere's moods." This hour, an appreciation of clouds. GUESTS: Gavin Pretor-Pinney - Founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society, author of The Cloudspotter's Guide and The Cloud Collector's Handbook David Romps - Assistant professor of Earth & Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley; runs The Romps Group, which studies clouds and climate Karolina Sobecka - An interdisciplinary artist and designer whose work has focused repeatedly on clouds Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Betsy Kaplan contributed to this show, which originally aired July 6, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.